Page 22 of Bear with Me
It was possible she was too busy making cinnamon rolls, or too far gone on my eldest little brother's mimosas. More likely, she was ignoring me. Instead of calling or face timing, I turned my phone off and tucked it back in my pocket. That would keep me from constantly checking it and ruining Christmas with Blake.
Among the Christmas decorations in the general store, my human mate found a 500-piece puzzle of a cabin much like ours with a full-sized Christmas tree by the fireplace. When we spread it out on the countertop where we ate, it soon became obvious it would take up the entire space until we finished.
Blake was a wiz, while I kept trying to cram together pieces that didn't fit. He only laughed and took the pieces from me, fitting them into the right slots.
"You're really good at this," I said when I caught myself staring at him so long my eyes were dry.
"This was our Christmas Day activity every year." His lips thinned to a line. "My parents loved puzzles. We'd spend the entire week between Christmas and New Year's completing all the ones we got each other." He sighed. "I should have sent my sister a puzzle. I'm the worst big brother in the world. I got her a gift card instead."
"Have you called her?"
He shook his head. "I texted her to ask if she wanted to talk, but I haven't heard back. Have you called your family?"
I shook my head. "Too scared."
He frowned. "Are they abusive?"
"No! Nothing like that. They'll be disappointed because I'm not there with them."
"You could tell them you met your mate." He smirked. "That might make the whole 'vacation away from your family holiday' worth it."
"You'd be okay with that?" I asked. "The moment I tell them, they'll want to meet you."
Instead of looking terrified, he grinned. "I'd love to meet them. I'll offer my delegation services to your mom."
"Your what now?"
"I'm really good at delegating tasks and assigning work. It's the reason I keep applying for the supervisor position. Everyone tells me I'd be great at it."
"Then why aren't you a supervisor?"
He folded his arms on top of the completed line of puzzle pieces and sighed into them. "Time management. I spend too long on my own tasks. It's happening here, too. I should have a completed five-year plan for overcoming my grief. Instead, I've filled six pages with entitled complaints."
"You're too hard on yourself." I patted his shoulder. "You work in a call center, right?"
He nodded, and his gelled hair rasped against his sleeves.
"Do you hang up on customers?"
"Never!"
"Fail to follow up with them?"
"No."
I didn't know much about service center work, but I remembered my biggest grievance with the cable company had been when I'd had to call three or four times to cancel when I moved. Each time, there was no record of my previous calls.
"Do you document the calls so the next person knows what you discussed?"
"Always." He laughed. "One of my new hire classmates is in quality control now, and she says, 'Doc it or die.' She threatened me with a plastic knife in the break room after she heard me enda call and leave my desk to grab my lunch from the refrigerator." He looked up at me, resting his chin on his arms. "It was past my time to log out for lunch, so I sat at my desk and documented the call while I snacked on a handful of almonds. It's not the most sanitary place to eat, but they don't give us enough time to meet our customers' needs. Either I go over on the call or I take too long afterward."
"Sounds stressful." I hated that for him.
"It's the worst. Being a supervisor isn't much better. We're supposed to listen to five calls a week for each of twenty team members and meet with them biweekly to review those calls and the ones our quality team reviewed."
"That seems excessive."
"Not to mention the daily huddles and monthly team meetings. It's a lot." He dropped his head back onto his arms.
