Page 10 of The Thing About My Rival

She brushes her ponytail over one shoulder, revealing a small birthmark shaped like a four-leaf clover just below her left ear, and walks behind the desk to squirt cleaner into the open drawer. The air is immediately filled with the smell of chemical lemons.

“We’ll figure something out.” She snaps a couple sheets from the paper towel roll and gets to work wiping out the drawer.

I pace to the other window and stare through the grimy glass at the parking lot. There’s barely a vehicle there that looks less than ten years old. In fact, just one—a shiny silver Mercedes. Must be either Miller’s or Leo’s since they’re the half of the Fab Four who live in Boston. Chase and Prince Oliver are based in New York City.

I jump when Wilcox appears by my side, her right arm just inches from my left.

“There.” She places the eccentric-professor-hair plant in the middle of the windowsill.

The morning sun reveals three freckles near the tip of her nose. Right above her satisfied smile. “I’ve had thisthing with me since my first job at the Portland Cedars ten years ago.”

“And you kept it alive this whole time. Congratulations.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t cope well with frosty conditions.” She turns her head to look up at me, a spark in her eyes. “So it might not last the week here.”

Yeah, she’s such a comedian. With an irritatingly cute face. “I’m not being frosty. I’m just being practical. Anyway, how come you went all the way to Oregon for a job when your dad owned this place?”

Her spark drains away and she stares back at the plant. “Maybe it wasbecausehe owned this place.”

Oh, great. So on top of me having to share the job with her, on top of me having to share an office with her, on top of her being a smart-arse, she also has daddy issues. This just gets better and better.

She gives the plant a quarter turn. “Perfect.”

“As long as you keep it on your side of the room, it is.” I nudge it a couple inches to the left.

“Hilarious.” She nudges it back.

“Oh, I’m not trying to be funny. I’m as deadly fucking serious as I am about this job being mine.” I push it farther along her side of the windowsill.

“Don’t be such a child.” She picks it up, plonks it back in the middle and heads back to her desk.

“The only way this shared job and shared office thing is going to work is if you keep your color-coordinated, aromatherapy, horticultural bullshit to yourself.” I pick up the plant and place it at the far end of her side of the windowsill.

It’s actually quite nice, in abunch of long curly leavessticking out of a skinny trunkkind of way. But there’s no way in hell I’m giving in now.

“For the love of God, Hugo. Don’t be so pathetic.” She marches over, posture perfect, ponytail swinging, and places it firmly back in the middle.

If I give an inch now, albeit an inch of a completely unimportant windowsill, she’ll think I’ll back down on anything. And I absolutely can’t allow that precedent to be set. I am no more backing down over this petty little plant thing than I would over man-marking being better than zonal marking.

A line will be drawn here. Figuratively and literally.

I turn to my desk and yank open the drawers one after the other. The first is empty, barring some dust. In the second, which has a sticky handle, there’s an old whistle and some paper clips. The third…

“Ah-ha.” I snatch up the roll of Joyntz physio tape and rip off a strip.

Standing in the middle of the room, I size up the width of the window to find the halfway point on the ledge.

Then I slide the plant to the left again and stick down the black tape, forming a line from front to back. “There. Your stuff goes on that side. Mine on this side.”

Wilcox drops a pile of folders on the desk, slaps one hand on top of them, and rests the other on a spot that nips the sweatshirt in at her waist right above the curve of her cocked hip.“Are you trying to be funny? Am I supposed to laugh? Because the joke’s not working.”

“Told you, I’m deadly fucking serious. And I’m sure you don’t want to work with me any more than I want to work with you.”

“Finally, you got something right.”

“So the best thing to do is to stay out of each other’s way as much as possible.”

“And how exactly do we do that when we have to establish training protocols and game strategy, and generally, you know, worktogether?”

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