Page 66 of Defended By Love

“Yeah, umm, you see…” I stutter.

She waves me off and looks right into my soul. It pierces me. I flush with the built-up guilt of every time she tried to make the office a better, more welcoming place and I rebuffed her. All she ever tried to do was be nice and I stole from her.

In that instant, I vow to be better. I’ll try to be a friend to her. I’ll stop lying to her about being busy or allergic to crepe paper. I’ll be just as good as she is.

“Is this for my birthday last week?” she asks with tears welling in her eyes.

“Absolutely,” I lie with zero qualms.

In a moment of mutually agreed upon deceit that’s possible only in a roomful of lawyers, everyone immediately picks up the lie and runs with it.

“Surprise!” a handful of people call out.

“We’ve been planning this for ages,” someone else says.

“Happy birthday, Bev,” adds a very confused-sounding voice.

If Beth hears any of it, she doesn’t show. She just runs up to me with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face and wraps me in a hug.

“Thank you,” she murmurs into my ear. “I can’t tell you how much I needed this.”

I just stand there, ill-practiced and ill at ease with hugs. Considering how happy I just made her, it’s strange that I now feel like shit.

I had thought that I was the master of the office, that I knew every single thing that went on. Now, I question if I knew anything at all. I’d given my heart and soul to Dominic, a man who couldn’t care less about me; and I couldn’t have cared less about Beth, someone who gave everyone her heart and soul.

Maybe Grant’s right. Maybe I really am wrong about everything.

“Let’s get this started,” comes Grant’s Garnet Defender voice from the microphone near the big screen at the front of the tiny room. “I promised my acquaintance-with-benefits/true-love-on-the-downlow that I’d serenade her until I made her mine. So, anyone want to join me for a Strange Steve cover song?”

I burst out laughing with Beth still holding onto me. We meet eyes and she gives me an indulgent smile. I roll my eyes a little.

“Do you know ‘Rake It Up?’” asks Jim, the awkward paralegal who exclusively wears socks and sandals.

Within fifteen seconds, our little Coffee and Karaoke crew is yelling out the spoof lyrics about a gardener who doesn’t care what other people think. By the end of the song, even I’m dancing, sweating off the chocolate on my cheek with an associate who I never even took the time to learn her name.

Talk about team building.

Grant shoots me a look as he holds my eyes and sings that he’s just going to “Rake it up, rake it up”. Then, he tosses his head back to hit the high note. With my cheeks hurting from so much smiling, I don’t know what Grant has planned for his day tomorrow, but I don’t see how it’s going to top this.

This is by far the best day I’ve had.

And it’s only just begun.

Chapter 30

After I chose a light day of coffee and karaoke, I was not expecting Grant to choose violence and death for his choice. And yet, here I am, on the brink of dying with naught but a one in twenty chance at living.

But I’m not scared.

I start off every day by facing my own immortality. Hell, I’ve seen the end. I’ve rasped my last breath into the void that separates this life from the next.

Even scarier, I sang an 80s power ballad in front of my coworkers.

No, I’m not scared of anything.

“Roll the damn die,” I say unblinkingly to our Dungeon Master.

Grant’s friends gasp.

---