Page 16 of Love Off the Rocks
Brittni’s eyes widen, and her voice rises. “Yes, I do. Live people too. I’m clairvoyant.”
“Ohmigod. Can you tell my future?” someone asks.
“What about mine?”
“Can you tell if I’m wearing underwear?”
“What color am I thinking of?” Questions come from all over the room.
Mags throws a hand up in the air and flops back against her seat on the couch as people surround Brittni and ask her various questions. Most of us from the East Coast have experienced this with Brittni already. She rarely foregoes a chance to show off her skills.
With only Chaz and me left after Brittni and Mags, I don’t make a big deal out of Brittni’s disruption and let her steal the show. Instead, I sidle over to sit next to Mags.
She stiffens the moment I do. “You could have told me you were the boss,” she hisses.
“While you threw up? Or as you were kicking me out of the bathroom?”
“You know what I mean.”
I don’t. But I don’t mention that.
“You’re M. Stratton from marketing?” I muse aloud. Finally putting it together. Amazed at how often she’s on my mind, that I didn’t realize it before.
“No shit, Sherlock.” She pauses. “Wait, you knew I was going to be here!?” she shrieks.
“No. I just got a list of the employees’ names. But that’s all. I purposely did not look at any background info on anyone ahead of time so I wouldn’t have any preconceived notions when I met them.”
“Why would that matter?”
“For deciding—” I stop myself before I say too much. But she sees it on my face anyway.
“You are firing a bunch of us, aren’t you?”
“No.” I shake my head, looking down at my lap before back up at her. “I don’t know. Nothing has been decided.”
She scoffs, “Your psychotic little girlfriend was right.”
“Who’s my little girlfriend?”
“And I’m sure I’m at the top of your list of people to axe because of our history. It figures. You can’t even man up enough to work with your ex. We wouldn’t even be on the same coast. Ohmigod, that means you’re deciding on the marketing and acquisitions manager? Of course, you’re going to give that to her—”
“To whom?”
“I can’t believe how much you’ve changed. The Dev I knew would never take the easy way out. Hiring your girlfriend instead of someone with actual qualifications. Someone who has worked their ass off to prove their worth. But do you know anything about that? No, because you didn’t want preconceived notions. You don’t know about our accomplishments or work ethic. You don’t know how hard I’ve worked for this. You’re just deciding blindly based on emotion. Or worse yet.”
She gestures toward my lap. “You disgust me. And I don’t even care that I said that to the new boss because I didn’t stand a chance anyway. Not with you making the decisions. I hated you five years ago for breaking my heart and I hate you still for ruining my dreams.”
She gets up and storms across the room, stopping once to give me a dirty look before stomping up the stairs and turning down the hall to where her room is.
“What was that all about?” Nancy asks, coming to sit beside me.
“That was Mags.”
“The Mags from college, right?” she asks.
I look at her, surprised.
“Sam pointed her out to me,” she says. Nancy knows my history. We’ve worked closely together for five years and she’s an amazing assistant and friend. I brought her with me up the ranks as they promoted me. She went from a temp to receptionist, to department administrative assistant, to my assistant.
