Page 84 of The Guy Who Became My Grumpy Boss

Had that been my fault?

What had I missed in our interactions that had led Marissa to that?

The throb in my head reverberated through my whole body, and the all too familiar ache of shame spiked.

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t fix this. The only thing I could do was walk away.

So I did.

Chapter 25

-Jessica-

Peter wasn’t usually so difficult to find.

Logic said that if he was trying to get Marissa a ride home that they would either be in the lobby or outside.

While the lobby was full of people, I didn’t see anyone in a wheelchair. Not even around the corner that led to the bathrooms.

I huffed and went back outside.

The sun was high in the sky, and the scraggly trees that surrounded the parking lot were valiantly trying to finish blooming their white blossoms.

One look at the asphalt and I understood why Amelia had balked at my suggestion of taking our party into the parking lot.

We’d had an old-fashioned movie theater in my hometown when I was young. No stadium seating or recliners, just regular chairs and a slightly sloped floor that gave short people hope that they might be able to see at least sixty percent of the screen.

I’d had the misfortune of attending a movie right after someone had spilled their soda. It had run all the way down to the front, coating the middle of the theater floor with sticky sugar.

No one had lost a shoe, but my friend had to wrestle her flip-flop out of the muck.

This parking lot looked to be ten times worse than that movietheater.

Which was perplexing. We were just coming into spring. We’d had snow. How had this grime resisted the winter and subsequent rain?

It was a mystery that I might have proposed to the Curvy Girl Crew, if I wasn’t trying to find an eyewitness to a crime.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” one of the firefighters asked.

I bristled at the ma’am but shook my head. “Has a man pushing a woman in a wheelchair come out here in the last five minutes?”

The man—a guy Brooke would call a tall glass of water on a hot day—shook his head. “No, sorry.”

The woman standing next to him shook her head as well.

I blew the air out of my lungs. “Thanks.”

I’d hoped to find Peter and Marissa on re-entry to the lobby, but they were still missing.

Where else would they go?

Was there a handicap access door I didn’t know about? That was possible, so I approached the desk.

The man I’d been slightly terse to a few minutes before blanched when he saw me.

I held up a hand, indicating that I came in peace. “Do you have an ADA exit somewhere?”

The man raised a trembling hand and pointed at the regular door next to the revolving door.

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