Page 93 of Full Send

“Seriously, bud. I don’t know how you got so lucky to spend most of your nights with me. But we have to stop making a habit of lonely nights.”

I look at Rex in the passenger seat, as I drive through the snow, our usual nightly routine, the radio low in the background.

“I know, Rex. It’s way more fun when she’s here and you get to sit in the middle. You’ll just have to settle for another night with me.”

Driving through the snow, looking at the snowbanks along the side of the road, my mind is a mess. Before the last couple weeks, my mind always drifted through a bitter cycle of loneliness, depression, and anger.

The last two weeks though, I’ve feltalive. I’ve felt happy. I’ve felt hopeful. These last couple of weeks have been the best time of my life.

I always knew I loved her, but I never realized how much she would make me feel whole, how much she’d push me to open up and be the best version of myself. She understands me.

I still feel alive now, even with her back in Ohio. She lit a fire in my cold dark heart. But now I feel desperate, a driving need to get what we had back. To feel whole again, forever.

I need to fix this, to make things right. I hurt Ronni, the one thing I never wanted to do, and now all I can think about is fixing it. I promised her she could trust me, that I’d keep fighting for this. But I keep going back to what she said back at the cabin after our dinner at Gloria’s.

It’s your turn to trust me. I might have a bad day, I might panic, you’re not always going to be able to fix everything for me. But trust that I’m going to keep loving you. Justkeep fighting for it.

I look over at Rex, he’s staring right back at me. It’s like he finally knows what I’m thinking.

“I know Rex, we’ve got a lot of work to do tonight. It’s time to fight.”

Chapter 47

Ronni

Full. Send.

Thursday morning comes and I’m back in the office. I grab a coffee from the cafeteria, again feeling like being here is some kind of cruel joke. The coffee sucks too, certainly not an iced honey badger.

As I walk through the building towards my cubicle, I remember that Lizzy isn’t here to stop and talk with. Ugh I miss her. I miss Collin too. And Tanner. I wonder what they’re doing back in Wyoming. My heart aches wishing I was there.

Lizzy is still flying home tomorrow and Collin is driving home over the weekend. And Tanner… I hope he’s ok. I’d give anything to talk to him right now but I don’t know if he would even want to hear from me. He texted me yesterday before the presentation and said we’d talk soon, but I haven’t heard from him since. I told him totrust meand I just panicked and left, so I sort of get it. But still, I miss him.

I sit at my cubicle and try to get my head focused back on work. Since the presentation went well, I have a few things Ineed to start working on to finalize everything we went over yesterday and send it back to Earth SnaX. Then we can get their final approval before the new packaging goes into production. Hopefully it’s not the same fiasco as Princeton Mills.

Not even ten minutes later, an unwelcome, albeit familiar nasally voice gets my attention away from my computer.

“Veronica,” Jeff says. “I heard the presentation went well yesterday.”

I spin around in my chair. I eye Jeff carefully, trying to hide the irritation, no, utter disdain I feel for him right now. He interrupted my perfect vacation, my perfect time with Tanner, and brought me crashing down and back here.

He’s about as nondescript and dry as a person can get. Mid-fifties, a little overweight, receding hairline, wearing khakis, worn brown leather shoes, and a light blue golf polo. Basically, he’s the picture you’d expect to see next toBoomer Managerif it were in a dictionary.

“Yeah, they loved it,” I say proudly. “Just working on the next steps now for them to approve these drafts and get it into final production.”

“Great,” he says curtly, setting his coffee on my desk and leaning against the cubicle wall.

“So is there anything else I can help with since I’m back from vacation early?” I ask, my irritation starting to show, wishing he would just walk away. I’m still exhausted and just want to get through the day in one piece. Can he just go already?

“Nope, not really,” he says. “Glad you’re back. That could have been a disaster. We’ll have to think twice about it the next time you want to take that much time off.”

“You know, I had that trip planned for months. We could have scheduled the presentation for when I was going to be in town so I could give it, like I originally suggested.” I bury my thoughts, not saying everything I want to out loud. Seriously Jeff, if youwould have just listened to me months ago, this mess could have been avoided. It was your lack of planning that became my emergency.

“Well, glad it worked out. I need you here. We still need to be more careful next time with planning time off,” he says, grabbing his coffee.

This fucking guy. Instead of thanking me for covering for him, he’s haranguing me about my vacation and about taking time off in the future. What is his fucking deal? The. Fucking. Audacity.

“Well, if I’m so essential, maybe you should have thought about that when you turned me down for the director role for the third time.” The words come rushing out of me, catching me off guard. But I’m not even sorry. It’s true.

---