Page 18 of In Plain Sight

Like me, he kept the geolocation off, and none of his photos had anything in them that could identify him or where they were taken.

He was a complete mystery, which was exactly what I looked for on here. Too bad he wasn’t into repeats.

With a soft sigh, I exited out of Kinksters and was about to get out of bed to clean up when my phone rang.

“Hey,” I answered, settling back on my bed with a smile.

“Do you have time to listen to me rant? Because I need to rant,” Ivy, my best friend, asked, not bothering with a greeting.

“Who do we hate tonight?” I asked.

“My new supervisor,” she grumbled.

“The one who wears a vat of cologne every day or another new one?”

“Cologne guy.”

“Hit me.”

“I hate him,” she said, her voice animated and dramatic. “He’s the worst. Like theliteralworst. He flits around the office like he owns the place and is always trying to micromanageeveryone. Did I tell you he’s making us use these new mouse pads that record how long the mouse sits idle? And they put keylogging software on our computers to track our productive time,” she said, emphasizingproductive timelike the vocal equivalent of air quotes.

“How is that legal?”

“Because we use company equipment, so they can alter it however they want,” she huffed out.

“They do realize that your job entails more than just computer work, right? That just because you’re not actively using it doesn’t mean you’re not doing other things.”

“You know that, and I know that, but that doesn’t fit their Big Brother ways.Oh! I didn’t tell you this, but he’s offloaded almost all of his work onto us in the last few weeks too. Can you believe that? Apparently he’s too busy making sure we’re productive to do his own damn job, so now we have to pick up the slack.”

“I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not,” I said sympathetically.

“I don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with his bullshit,” she grumbled. “I found out today that I’m now responsible forhisbudget sheets.”

“Has he ever met you?” I teased. “That seems like an oversight on his part.”

She snickered. “Right? I’m so bad at them. Probably because I hate finance and believe that budgets are just suggestions. He’s going to be in for a shock if he doesn’t double-check my work because I’m not spending my entire weekend combing through spreadsheets to balance a budget I don’t get the luxury of spending.”

“Will you get in trouble if it’s wrong?”

“Maybe?” I could hear her shrug. “But whatever. It’s not my job, and I’m not getting paid to do it. I’m not killing myself tomake that asshole look good.” She paused. “Okay, I feel better now. How are you? It’s been a forever since we chatted.”

“We talked last week,” I pointed out.

“That was a whole week ago,” she exclaimed. “Do you have any idea how much can happen in a week?”

“In my life, not a lot.”

“Something must have happened,” she pressed. “Have you met anyone new?”

“No. And I’m not looking.”

I could hear her roll her eyes.

I met Ivy at a church event when we were ten, and we’d been inseparable ever since. She was my best friend—and my ex-wife.

Most people didn’t understand our relationship or how we could stay so close after divorcing, but we didn’t break up because we stopped loving each other. We just realized that we weren’tinlove with each other, and we weren’t…compatible in all the ways that counted.

“I get that you don’t want a boyfriend or anything, but what about a fuck buddy?” she asked. “Or even a random from Grindr? Someone to break your dry spell.”

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