Page 6 of Mishaps and Mistletoe

Mr. Stevenson blew a slow exhale. “You can probably imagine how that could throw off a meeting.” He said this as though it was a mishap akin to the lights going out or the computer freezing.

Can this conversation end? Please?

“No doubt, sir. I promise, no funny business from me.” He punctuated the statement with a firm nod. Kevin made it his mission to not grow too attached to anyone, which had served him well thus far. If you didn’t get too close to people, you couldn’t disappoint them—something Kevin was very good at.

“Great.” Mr. Stevenson stood from his chair. “Welp—”

Ah, yes. The universal sign for, ‘we’re done here.’

“I’ll get back to work, sir.” Kevin walked to his desk, hoping the awkward air from much of that meeting would blow off him with each step he briskly took. He plopped into his leather desk chair and tapped his pen on the blank notebook again. If nothing else, the conversation had briefly taken his mind off the woman from the coffeehouse. But as his pen tapped a rhythm that matched the whirring of the printer—printing that same document, again—he wondered how he was supposed to imagine an ad layout when the only image he could conjure in his lizard brain was the beautiful woman at Mountain Brew.

* * *

Josie leanedback in her desk chair, the loud squeak making her fear for her safety. Friday, she’d fallen into a man, twice. Yesterday, she’d set fire to her microwave while reheating Olive Garden breadsticks—they really should have made the “do not microwave” warning on the carryout envelope a little bigger. Did everyone besides her know the inside had an aluminum lining?

The chair groaned this time. “Well, that’s new,” she mumbled. She’d always heard bad things happen in threes. Yeah, she definitely needed someone to look at it before it was too late.

“Josie.” A familiar voice sounded from the doorway, interrupting her thoughts of the chair crumbling to bits beneath her.

“Nora. Good morning.” Her boss smiled as naturally as people breathed, so Josie’s shoulders rose instantly when she saw the straight line of Nora’s lips. Come to think of it, she hadn’t done one of her peppy, rhythmic knocks, either. Josie’s shoulders rose to her ears. A malfunctioning chair was the least of her worries.

“We need to talk.”

When Nora shut the door, all the oxygen in the room vanished. Scientifically impossible, of course, but Josie’s struggle to breathe supported the hypothesis.

“Of course,” she croaked with what little residual air she had in her lungs.

“You’ve always been my work daughter. And I care about you too much for you to hear this from someone else, so I’ll cut to the chase. That promotion—you’re not getting it.”

Josie stared at the older woman, the edges of her features blurring as she blinked about a thousand times in ten seconds. “Wha—how—you mean…”

“Now, now.” Nora placed a reassuring hand on Josie’s, though she couldn’t feel it. “You’re still up for it—it’s just not a guarantee anymore. Not like I let you believe. It seems my boss has someone else they’re considering now. One of you will get it.”

“Someone else,” Josie repeated, a slight slur to her words. She hadn’t even realized her mouth was moving. “Is it someone who already works here?”

Nora rubbed her hands up and down her pencil skirt. Ever the epitome of poise and organization, Josie wasn’t used to seeing this uneasiness from her longtime mentor.

“Okay, this is the bad part.”

Josie swallowed audibly. She hadn’t already heard the bad part?

“The other person is Kate Burns.”

Josie sucked on her lips. “Kate. Burns.” The loud moan of her chair mirrored her mood. “My ex-fiancé’s new fiancée?ThatKate Burns?” Turned out, bad things really did happen in threes.

“I wish there was some—”

“Okay.”

Nora recoiled like Josie had slapped her. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Josie nodded once and then scooped some papers into a neat stack.

“Josie Ward.” Nora firmly enunciated each syllable as she leaned forward on the desk. “Nothing about this is okay. That job is for you—not some perky, barely legal, almost-wife of the new mayor.”

Josie tapped her chin with the highlighter she’d picked up during in the conversation, though she didn’t remember doing so. “Must have a lot of experience.”

“Kate was a party princess,” Nora deadpanned. She pushed her reading glasses to the top of her head and rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t take you under my wing and train you so they could give the job to someone who flits around throwing glitter and singing songs about making dreams come true. Someone who doesn’t know what this job entails. Someone over a decade younger than you.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.

---