Page 11 of When Stars Collide
Incoming.
He wouldn’t see the text until early the next morning, probably before I woke up to get ready for work. At no point in our relationship had Peter ever made me feel in any way inadequate. Be that as it may, I was still nervous over what he would think when he opened that text, whether he would be disappointed in some way. Maybe he would have preferred my purple bra or, better yet, the one that enhanced my cleavage even more than the one I’d selected. My mind raced back and forth between the rational and the irrational, and it was entrenched in those thoughts and my own insecurities that I eventually fell asleep with my phone in my hand.
*****
Groggy the next morning, I managed to stumble halfway down the hall toward the bathroom before I remembered the message I was certain to have waiting for me on my phone. My eyes flew open at the same time my legs did an about-face and headed back to my bedroom, all traces of exhaustion abandoning me.
Moment of truth.
Anxiety building, I checked my phone, only to discover that I had received no text messages of any kind.
Your fingers had better be broken, Peter, I fumed as I once again made my way back to the bathroom with my phone in hand.Maybe I forgot to hit send? The thought occurred to me, and I paused outside of the bathroom door to check my messages.Huh, I don’t remember sending a text to Phineas yester—
“No! God, no!” I let out the equivalent of a squeal/scream hybrid as I collapsed against the wall, my hand shaking.
Jo’s bedroom door flew open. Frantic, she ran out, tearing through our living room and hurdling over an ottoman with impressive agility, all while nervously looking around our apartment.
“Is the building on fire? What the hell was that God-awful noise? Did you step on the cat? Wait, did we get a cat?”
“No. It’s worse,” I managed to choke out. “I accidentally sent half-naked photos of myself to my boss.”
Jo stared at me, her adrenaline-charged brain processing this information. A second later, her lips pressed together into a hard, thin line, and the laugh she was struggling to suppress made its way out by way of a snort she usually only made when she was on the verge of tears from a hard laugh.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized after catching a glimpse of my less than amused face. “You know what, no I’m not. I’m totally not.” By this point, her body was shaking so much she had to brace herself against the wall for support.
“Are you finished?”
“Hold on,” her shoulders shuddered when she answered, “I’m getting there.” She sucked in a deep breath, slowly exhaling it as she straightened her body back up to its full height. “Nope.” Jo punctuated that statement with another laugh that once again tore through her body.
“I’m happy to see my utter humiliation is providing you with so much amusement this morning. How am I going to explain this? My job as an editor is to catch everyone else’s stupid mistakes, yet I couldn’t even keep my fat thumb from selecting Phineas’s name instead of Peter’s.”
Jo composed herself, her guffaws now only sporadic, like a light sprinkle, a drop here and there to keep you guessing whether another downpour was coming. “Hold up,” she stretched out her arm, her palm facing me, “your boss’s name is Phineas? What is he, like seventy? If that’s the case, you’re in the clear, because he probably doesn’t even know how to check his text messages, anyway.”
“If only,” I sighed. “Phineas is at most a half-dozen years older than I am, and he just so happens to be the person who signed E.V. Cartwright. The man’s brilliant.”
“Eve who?”
“E.V. Cartwright. She’s the author of theSoldiers of Atlantisseries. The first book was adapted into film and premiers next spring. It was a huge deal in the publishing industry and quite the discovery for Phineas.”
Jo shook her head, her expression blank. “And now he’s going to discover you in your undies.”
*****
Great. Not only did I send lewd photographs to my boss, I’m also going to be late to work.
I stared out the window of my cab, anxious. Anxious over the time ticking away at the speed of an Olympic hurdler; anxious over how Phineas was going to react. Normally, I would have walked the twenty minutes to the office and saved myself the cab fare, but with running behind, I naïvely thought the cab ride would be quicker, making up the time I’d spent lamenting my gaffe to Jo in nothing short of a fuck-my-life conversation that lasted entirely too long with an unsatisfying conclusion. There was no protocol for this, no rule in a handbook about how you can make your boss unsee your cleavage in a lacy push-up bra you’d kept tucked away in your drawer for a special occasion.
My fingers tapped the seat, beating it like a drum in the hope that it would either speed up the cab or make the cars in front of us magically disappear. I would have expected a call or even a reply text from Phineas by now, and envisioned him on his way to the office just like I was, contemplating what to do about me. Then again, it never seemed like Phineas had to contemplate anything. He relied solely on instinct, and his instincts were solid. They were a part of what had made Drake Publishing a premiere boutique publishing powerhouse in New York after only a year in operation.
“Miss.” The cab driver, an older gentleman who had been delightfully tight-lipped up until now, glanced at me in the mirror.
“Yeah?”
“We’ve been sitting at your stop for just about a minute now.”
*****
When I exited the elevator and entered Drake Publishing’s suite, all I could think about was how much I wished I would have called in sick. My stomach was in knots, the product of nerves, not to mention I was quite certain I was going to hurl. That feeling intensified further the closer I came to Phineas’s office. His blinds were open; the light in his office was on. Normally, I would steal a glance through the glass wall to see him working as he always was before any of the rest of us arrived. I would then give him a little wave and he would acknowledge my existence in return. However, as I passed his office, I couldn’t so much as look in his general direction, even though I knew he was in there. The sound of his fingers striking the keyboard told me as much.
