Page 44 of Designed for Disaster

“Aiden and Cora will have some recommendations,” Trent said. “I’ll text you about a time.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Great.”

He backed away from my door. “I’ll pick you up.”

“As long as it’s not in a U-Haul.”

“Well now you’ve ruined the surprise,” he teased as he turned and walked away.

The nerves fluttering in my gut exploded into a million little butterflies. Trent Saunders, Mr. Coffeezilla and the best dang kiss I’d had in ages, just asked me out. And I’d said yes. A hot flush crept across both my cheeks. What the hell was I doing?

“Hey, boss!” Bonnie said, appearing in my doorway a moment later. She was huffing, her bicycle helmet, adorned with vinyl stickers of indie bands, wedged under her arm. I knew she often biked to work, but she usually beat me here. “Sorry I’m late. Didn’t mean to hold up the meeting.”

I hadn’t even thought about the meeting. I’d been too distracted by Trent’s early morning visit. “All good?”

She rubbed her eyes. “Alarm didn’t go off this morning. And some bird with a death-wish started dive-bombing me on the way here.”

I started laughing.

“It was not funny! I was fighting for my life.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, clapping my hand over my mouth. “I’m just trying to shake the image of you speeding down the road while some crow pecked at your helmet.”

“It wasn’t some little crow!” Bonnie insisted as I climbed to my feet, grabbing my USB stick and following her out to the conference room table. The CAD designers and I had a meeting every Monday to outline our goals for the week and review the design progress on the approved pieces. “It was one of those Canadian geese. I swear they’re territorial little shits.”

“What’s up?” Erik asked as Bonnie plopped down in the chair beside him.

“Bonnie was attacked by a goose,” I said, queuing up my PowerPoint presentation.

Erik sipped his coffee. “Again?”

“Again!” I burst into another fit of laughter. “This is a regular occurrence?”

“At least monthly,” Shay said, joining us. “I keep saying Bonnie must have been a bird in another life the way they’re attracted to her.”

I wiped tears from the corners of my eyes. I’d made progress with the whole team, but the CAD designers and I had gelled best of all, and outside of a certain very handsome CEO, they were part of the reason I was genuinely excited to come to work in the mornings.

The realization that I actuallylikedmy job hit me hard. It had been a long time since that was the case. Come to think of it, though, was thateverthe case? My part-time gigs over the past few years were all pretty miserable, so anything would’ve been a step up, but even the job before them, the one I’d thought was my dream job…well, it’d never been that great, had it? Especially not at the end. This job, though. This one felt different. Feltgood.

Saunders Furniture might have started as another gig to get by, but it was quickly becoming a place I could imagine myself staying long term.

Bonnie huffed. “I have noted that none of you are at all concerned for my safety.”

Shay gave her a side hug. “Because we know you can outrun the little bastards.”

“On that note,” I said. “Let’s jump into things. Outside of bird-related incidents, I hope everyone had a good weekend.”

Erik yawned through his reply, the words completely distorted.

“Sounds like you had agreatweekend,” I said.

He smirked. “I think I got in this morning, had like two hours sleep, then got up and stumbled out the door to the train.”

“What the hell were you doing that early on a Monday?” I asked.

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