Page 70 of The Vegas Rerun
“I wanted to prove I remembered who I was with you,” he says. “That I never forgot.”
I lean in and kiss him again, a slow, tender kiss, one that’s full of promise. Outside, the city keeps moving. But in here, everything is still. We have a long road ahead of us, but we’re finally starting to travel down it. Together.
CHAPTER 45
MOLLY
The elevator dingssoftly as it reaches the seventh floor, the familiar chime echoing in the pit of my stomach like a call to arms. I grip the strap of my purse a little bit tighter, and I take a deep breath before stepping out of the elevator. It’s strange how a place I once walked into every day without a second thought now feels like foreign ground. Like a battlefield.
But I’m here. I’m back. And I’m sure that alien feeling will fade away. Hell by ten o’clock I will most likely feel as though I’ve never been away.
Joshua is waiting for me right outside of the elevator, leaning casually against the wall in his usual pressed shirt and tailored suit pants, his arms crossed, but the second our eyes meet, he straightens up like a soldier coming to attention.
“You didn’t wait for me to come down and get you,” he says with a soft frown as he takes the large file from my hand without asking and carries it for me. My foot is good enough now that I no longer need the crutches, but it’s still nice to not have anything extra to carry.
“I rode the elevator, I didn’t trek through a warzone,” I say, trying to inject some lightness into the conversation. “I’m fine.”
He glances around the hallway like he’s scanning for threats, then returns his gaze to me.
“You’re safe now. But I’m not taking any chances,” he says.
I roll my eyes, but I remind myself to cut him some slack. Because the attack happened at work, I guess he feels kind of responsible for it and if meeting me at the elevator makes him feel better, I can live with that. Plus, he’s not the worst thing to see first thing when I arrive to work on a morning.
We walk down the hallway towards his office. I haven’t stepped foot inside the building since Sarah pushed me down the stairs and I glance at the door to the stairwell and look away quickly.
If Joshua catches me looking, he will think I’m not ready to be back at work and that’s an argument we’ve had enough times over the last few days. Still though, just thinking about myself flying down those stairs makes my chest tighten. I instinctively touch my side where the bruising has only recently faded, the phantom ache more emotional than physical now.
I pause when we reach my desk which is just outside of Joshua’s office. I take a moment, taking it in. My chair. My computer. The little ceramic dish with peppermint candies that Joshua pretends he doesn’t sneak from. It’s still mine. Sarah hasn’t been able to take this from me. It still feels like my area, and I start to feel more at home again.
I go around behind the desk and put my purse on the ground. I hang my jacket on the back of my chair and sit down. I smile up at Joshua as he puts the file down on my desk. He lingers for a moment, like he’s reluctant to leave me, but eventually he sighs and backs away.
“I’ll just be in my office. If you need anything – anything at all -you call me. Ok?”
“I think that’s meant to be the other way around considering I’m your secretary,” I say with a laugh. “Now go, before you have me a nervous wreck and I break something.”
The first day back is a blur of welcome back hugs and genuine smiles. There’s no sign of Sarah, thank God, and while a few people can’t help but sneak glances at the diamond ring on my finger, no one says anything rude. In fact, most of them seem happy for us. There’s a bouquet of flowers on my desk from someone anonymous, with a little card that reads: “Glad you’re back.”
Joshua had a companywide meeting between Sarah getting fired and me returning to work, where he basically told everyone what happened with Sarah. He also let people know that we are an item now and that it won’t affect anything work related, but he would rather people hear it from him than through the grapevine. Funnily enough, after being so against the idea of an office romance, it was actually me who asked Joshua to come clean about us because trying to keep it a secret makes it feel dirty, and not in a good way, it’s like we’re ashamed to be together.
Still, I hear the whispers sometimes and I feel the eyes on me. And not all of them are warm.
“Yeah, I bet she got the ring and the promotion at the same time.”
“I heard she didn’t even press charges.”
Those are just a couple of examples of the things I hear, but I just ignore it. I have to. Letting it in would mean giving Sarah space in my mind, and I’ve already given her too much. I know what this place is like for the gossip – it’s mostly harmless – and in a week or two, someone else will be the subject of it all.
Joshua hovers around me a lot on my first day, keeps checking that I’m ok, and coming up with reasons to come to my desk and speak to me. All of them are things he would normallyeither say on the intercom on my desk phone or call me into his office to say.
Every time I so much as get up to use the copier, he’s right there, pretending to be heading the same way. When I laugh with Erin from accounting over lunch in the breakroom, he walks by twice in ten minutes.
I want to be annoyed and push him away gently and remind him that I’m not some fragile piece of porcelain. But I can’t. Because every time he looks at me like that - like I’m the most precious thing in the world to him - I remember how close I came to being taken from him.
So, I let him hover. It would be annoying if he wasn’t so damned cute.
CHAPTER 46
MOLLY
