Page 17 of Accidentally Amy

“Fantastic.”

My cousin had been in my apartment when I got home, watching some soccer match that wasn’t on any of his streamingservices but was apparently included in mine, so at least I had someone to vent to about my nightmarish afternoon.

“Do you think he heard you?” Josh asked before taking a long drink.

“Oh, there is no way he didn’t,” I said. “But the second it was out of my mouth, the commotion exploded, with everyone gathering to witness my legendary sprawl, so there wasn’t a chance to connect. By the time I was back on my feet andnotsurrounded by colleagues gawking at my bloody knees, he was gone.”

He glanced over at me from underneath his ridiculously bushy eyebrows. “You know you’re getting fired, right?”

I sighed and leaned my head back on the sofa. “Yeah, I know.”

I watched the rest of the match with him, knocking back a few more beers, but I wasn’t really watching as everything kept replaying in my mind.

Because I couldn’t understand how it’d all gone so wrong at Ellis.

On the one hand, I’d settled into a job that I knew I’d be good at. That I alreadywasgood at. I killed it during the meeting that afternoon, and after the great tumble, Pam had stopped by my office to tell me how much she appreciated my quick thinking and ingenuity.

Yet I was about to get fired.

How is this possible?

Unbelievably, and absolutely ridiculously, it all pointed back to that ill-fated latte. If I hadn’t snagged Amy’s drink, none of this would’ve happened.

It was absurd, but factual.

My thievery had driven the nauseatingly scrupulousMr.Phillips to treat me like a criminal, which had driven me to behave like a defensive, angry teenager.

Damn you and your delicious beverages, Scooter’s.

It was tough to swallow, because I’d never been the type of person to take someone else’s coffee (what kind of person did that, right?), and Idefinitelywasn’t the type of person to call my boss a name, even if they deserved it.

Yet I’d somehow managed to do both.

And as I sat there after Josh left, mildly tipsy and contemplative, it occurred to me that I hadn’ttechnicallyapologized to Blake for the lie. I mean, for the record, I hadn’t lied to him, but since I hadn’t corrected his assumption about my name, it stood to reason that he might consider it untruthful.

I grabbed my phone from the coffee table and clicked into my messages. I knew it was a bad idea, but I felt like I had nothing to lose.

I found the text Blake had sent me after that elevator ride a couple weeks ago, before everything went south, and wrote:

Hi. I will lose your number after this, so don’t get freaked out that an employee is texting you. But I have a question.

I waited for a response, but after about two minutes, I texted:

Okay—obviously you’re ignoring me, which I get. Because AVP. Still…can I talk to you for a sec?

I waited a few more minutes.

I counted to ten, and then wrote:

Okay, well, I’M going to talk, even if you choose to ignore me.

I

Am

Sorry

About

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