Page 2 of Lovewell Lane

“You wouldn’t happen to have a mint, would you?” He asked.

I smiled and held out my candy bowl so that it was nearly in his face. “Right here, have a good day, sir!”

Scarlet waited until he was out of view before she relaxed into her previous position of leaning against my desk. “I should get back, Tracy will,” Scarlet threw up air quotes with both hands, “accidentally,throw away my lunch again if she finds out I’m down here.”

“You’ve been gone for ten minutes, you’re allowed a bathroom break,” I groaned.

“Turns out there’s a bathroom right there on the third floor.” She leaned down to give me a quick side hug. The most intimate gesture in Scarlet’s arsenal. “Good luck with your hunt, let me know if you find anything good.”

I watched solemnly as the elevator doors closed, separating me and my beautiful red-headed friend, before returning to my computer. A Google Maps search told me that Honeyfield was so rural that the camera trucks hadn’t been there yet. We were really off-roading here. That only made me more curious.Pulling up the map showed a couple of stores in town, but seemingly no restaurants whatsoever. I was beginning to think the ‘Dreamers Initiative’ was all a scam to harvest my organs when the shiny highrise’s front doors slid open again. Letting in a gust of chilly Seattle air.

A tall brunette man with eyes so dead he must have sold his soul to either a tech start-up or some finance venture entered the lobby. His too-white teeth nearly blinded me as he shook off his umbrella right in front of my desk on the polished marble floor.

“CFO’s office. I have a meeting,” he barked.

Bingo. I should be a fortune teller.

I smiled in a way that almost felt like a grimace. People rarely gave greetings to the secretary, since I was just a pit stop, but it never failed to irk me.

“That would be on the tenth floor,” I said. Despite my annoyance, my customer service voice remained as pleasant as a peach.

At the sound of my response, the man looked up and raised his eyebrows, as if realizing there was an actual human behind this desk for the first time. He nodded with a sleazy smile while his eyes trailed down my face to my dress shirt.

“Thanks, I’m one of the top financial advisors in the city, Tom Sanders. And you are?” His suggestive tone put me off immediately. I had to focus to hear his words. Usually, when men lowered their voices like that to speak to me, I drowned them out like the Charlie Brown teacher. Womp womp womp. What about my polite smile, collared shirt, and name tag said, ‘Please hit on me’?

“Jane. You have a great rest of your day, Mr. Sanders,” I said with a smile. I never actually wore my own name on my badge. Scarlet and I recently rewatched Pride and Prejudice, and I was a big Jane Austen fan. I stole names since it freaked me out when strangers called me Margo casually, as if they knew me.

He looked miffed at my polite dismissal of his presence and set his damp umbrella down on top of the counter. “Hold this for me, will you?”

I waited until the elevator doors closed before sliding his umbrella into the trash bin behind my desk. My eyes flitted back to the computer screen as I opened the application to the Honeyfield Dreamers Initiative.

Holding damp umbrellas for pervy finance bros or starting my own business? Easy choice.

-

“Honey, I’m home,” I called.

The apartment door swung shut behind me with a satisfying thud whilst I lifted the reusable grocery bags on my arms up onto the kitchen counter. I rummaged around the bags until I found the precious goods that I was looking for. Cheap wine and assorted cheeses were necessary fuel for creating any good plan.

Scarlet rounded the corner from her bedroom in her designated off-work attire. That girl loved leggings and a hoodie more than anyone I had ever met. As she shuffled into the open-plan living room, I set my provisions aside to finish putting away the lesser groceries.

“I got you those honey roasted nuts you love,” I called over my shoulder.

Scarlet hip bumped me out of the way of the cabinet so that she could put away the pasta I bought. “Do you really have to leave me? Maybe we can just find you a better job in Seattle.”

I laughed at her whiny tone. “You could come with me, you know.”

“No, I’m too much of a homebody. Besides, I’ve dumped four years into both my job at Asan and my relationship with Chad. I doubt he’d appreciate me moving across the world.”

Always so pragmatic.

Even though I expected her answer, it was still a buzzkill. I finished folding the last of the reusable bags and stored them under the sink where Scarlet liked to keep them. Resting against the counter, I turned to watch my best friend putting away the last of the snacks I bought.

“I might be going across the country instead of the world. Does that change your mind?”

Her eyebrows raised. “I should probably stay. Did you find something good?”

“Nothing new, I just applied to that Dreamers Initiative. It sounds pretty awesome if it isn’t all a scam to draw newcomers to an abandoned location to crazy murder them.”

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