Page 19 of Accidentally Amy

I raised the phone to my ear and said, as calmly as possible, “Hello?”

“I seriously didn’t know someone could bethattextually irritating.”

The man had the deepest, sexiest voice, reminding me of when he’d looked down at me in the conference room and spoken in that quiet, rumbling voice. Such a shame. I said, “What can I say—I’m an overachiever.”

“As much as I enjoy hearing my phone ping every five seconds, I feel I must inform you that I will not be responding to your messages.”

I rolled my eyes and reached for the Cheetos that Josh had left on my coffee table. “Because you have fat thumbs and can’t keep up?”

“Because it would be unprofessional for me to be texting an employee.”

I said, “What if I was texting that I was too sick to work?”

“A call to the office would be the best course of action,” he replied.

“What if I was texting to tell you the office phones weren’t working?”

I heard him clear his throat and wondered what he was wearing. His deep voice sounded polite and businesslike when he said, “Miss Shay, is there something I can help you with?”

“Miss Shay? Oof.” I sat back on the couch, glad I was a little buzzed, and said exactly what I was thinking. “Listen, I just want to say that if you’re going to fire me for the lie and for when I was kind of a jerk to you, can you please just do it now? It’s been hard enough the past two weeks, just waiting for it, and I can’t deal with it hanging over my head.”

“Ihave no plans whatsoever regarding your employment.” He sounded like he thought I was absurd when he said, “Pam is your manager, so she’s the only one who makes those decisions. And that lie happened outside of work, so it doesn’t really fall under any Ellis policies.”

“But you’re her boss.”

“Yep,” he said.

“And I called you a jackass.”

“Wait, when did you call me a jackass?”

Shit.I said in a slow, apologetic tone, cursing my big mouth, “When I was face-planting this afternoon…?”

He made a sound, a deep noise of surprise like he hadn’t expected to be amused by me, and said, “I missed that.”

“I’m very quick with obscenities. My special gift, really.”

“So it would seem.”

“Okay. So, to summarize,” I said, unable to wrap my head around it, “you’re telling me that you’re going to donothingabout my unprofessional behavior.”

“Correct.”

“I still have my job.”

“Yes.”

“Wow.” I couldn’t believe it. Was this man for real? I knew the best course of action would be an abrupt subject change, but still I said, “I feel like I should thank you.”

“So…?”

“So thank you, I guess.”

“Wow, so heartfelt.”

I ignored that, because something about the off-duty sound of his voice made me miss the guy I’d met on my first day.Weird, right?Still, I heard myself say, “Now, um, can I talk to you as Izzy from the coffee shop for a second, not Izzy from work?”

“The girl I met in the coffee shop wasn’t named Izzy,” he said, sounding terse, “so I don’t actually know how that game would work.”

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