Page 8 of Holiday Romance
“Hey!”
I look up at the rapid knocking on the wall to see my friend Gabriela standing in the doorway.
“Didn’t you need to leave ten minutes ago?” she asks. “I thought you were done.”
“I am done.”
I am not done. I am never done.
“It’s fine.” I turn back to my laptop and the contract within it, blinking as the words swim before me. “I’ve got a forty-minute window for delays.”
“Of course you do.” She steps fully into the room, her arms crossed over her chest. You wouldn’t know from the look of her that she started work at seven a.m. this morning. Her navy dress is still wrinkle-free, her makeup fresh, her dark curls pulled back into a low ponytail, showing off her heart-shaped face. One of those curls bounces free as she comes closer, peering at the piles of paper before me. “Is it the Freeman contract?”
“Is it ever not the Freeman contract?” I mutter. “Or do we just have one client now?” Because that’s what it feels like. It’s all I’ve been working on for the past few weeks. Or maybe it’s years. At this stage, I really can’t remember. Back and forth on the sale of a company that should have been agreed on months ago. “It’s like I’m being paid to waste everyone’s time.”
“So long as you get paid,” she murmurs, dragging one of the folders toward her.
Gabriela also did three years of law school. Three years of law school and five years of law. She showed me around on my first day at Harman & Nord and their swanky skyscraper office on LaSalle Street. The same one we’re in right now. Gabriela doesn’t want to quit her job. Gabriela, like the rest of our small circle of friends, loves her job and doesn’t mind the pressure or the late hours or the ruthlessness that I’m understanding more and more I simply don’t possess.
“It’s fine,” I repeat as she starts to read. “Honestly, I’ve…” I trail off as she looks at me. “…been reading the same page for the last hour,” I admit.
“You need a vacation.”
“I’m going on one.”
“No, you’re going home,” she says pointedly. “Home is not a vacation. Especially not during the holidays. Especially not when you hate the holidays.”
“I don’t hate the holidays,” I grumble, snatching my folder back. “I just don’t go around with reindeer antlers on my head. There’s a middle ground.”
“You should just stay here next year.”
“I can’t,” I say, rubbing my tired eyes for exactly two seconds before I remember I have mascara on. “I have to go back.”
“You go back all the time. Make your folks come here. Give them the tour, let them see how impressive you are.” She tilts her head, smiling prettily at me. “We can go for dinner and you can tell them how wonderful a mentor I am.”
“Is that what you are?”
“Parents love me. I’m very polite.”
“You’re a suck-up, there’s a difference.” I close my laptop and start stacking my stacks into one giant stack, but Gabriela just stays where she is, watching me with a thoughtful expression. “What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” She runs a finger across the dark wood of the desk before her eyes drop to my stomach. “Are you pregnant?”
“What?”
“You can tell me if you are.”
“No!”
“No, you’re not pregnant or no, you’re not going to tell me if you are?”
“Both,” I snap.
“Okay.”
“I’m not even seeing anyone.”
“Okay.” Her voice lowers to a whisper. “But is that the problem? Do you need some sex? We can get you some sex.”
