Page 60 of Unbossly Manners

“Yes.” He visibly deflated. “I’d been taking more than the dosage prescribed, so…”

“So you’ve learned your lesson.” I smiled.

“Yes. I’ve decreased it to the regular dose.” He rubbed his hands on his legs nervously.

Analise, who’d been sitting in on a recording, walked back to her workspace behind my desk, breaking the awkward tension.

“Derrick, I have an idea for a series you guys could do on your podcast,” she said, spinning her chair to face him. “Can I put a meeting on the calendar to discuss it?”

He stood up and pressed his hands against the back of the chair where he’d sat.

“No need. Just come by later.”

“Also, I swear things have been disappearing from my inbox. Have you noticed anything? Sometimes I feel like there’s a gremlin in our computers.”

Derrick furrowed his brow. “Actually, yes. I was looking for an invoice the other day, and I couldn’t find the email with the attachment. I didn’t think much of it, but I also misplaced a pair of tickets to Lincoln Center for a client. Luckily, I had a digital copy. And two podcast recordings disappeared. This stuff has been spiraling lately.”

Derrick pushed the chair in and put his hands on his hips. “Why don’t you come by now. And we can figure out what the hell is happening. I know these aren’t the only incidents.”

Analise shoved her phone in her pocket and cradled her iPad in the nook of her elbow and followed Derrick.

“I almost forgot,” he stopped at the edge of my desk. “I came to ask you to the company Fourth of July party. It’s at my loft on the roof deck.”

“I’d love to,” I said.

And for the first time since I’d left Jackson’s apartment, something like happiness buzzed in my chest.

twenty-four

“I fucked up.”

“Which guy are we talking about?” Selena sucked down the dregs of her margarita.

“Both of them. I abandoned Derrick. Leaving him feeling rejected in the worst way, and then I lashed out at Jackson. What the hell is wrong with me?”

“It’s not your fault he couldn’t get hard,” Selena said.

Selena sat back against the torn, duct tape covered booth at Tequila Tekillya in the West Village. She was back in town and we were having happy hour drinks on the following Friday.

“I know that now. But I was in such a state I ran to Jackson to lick my wounds,” I said. “Then I was horrible to him, too.”

“You’re a dumbass.” Selena crunched on a chip.

I narrowed my eyes, unamused.

“Why do you think you said that stuff to him?” Serena widened her eyes in mock question. She already had a theory about my behavior.

“I don’t know. I’m an idiot. Like you said.”

“You’re protecting yourself because you like him.”

“Derrick?” I filled my glass with the watered down margarita from the pitcher we shared.

“No. Jackson.” She shook her head exasperated. “Your mom screwed you up.”

Appropriately, a rerun of my mom’s soap opera played on the old box television in the corner. She’d been retired for years, hop-living in her three homes. The money from her work on the show had been very good, and she also learned the stock market and became a day trader during her spare time.

Her finances weren’t anywhere near a Wall Street bankers’ or anything, but she made a comfortable living and was able to have homes around the US—Hawaii, Breckenridge, Tarrytown.

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