Page 23 of Fun Together
My face heats and I wish I hadn’t even brought this up to him, considering my whole plan to avoid seeing him at all. I think I just couldn’t keep this information to myself and there’s no one else in the office for me vent to. “She wants me to order one for everyone in the company. Because we needself-care, apparently.”
He barks out an amused laugh. “I’m relieved to know this company really values my self-care.”
I take a fortifying breath. “I think I need to find a way to make sure she doesn’t give these out to everyone.” I can just see the look on Tina, our sweet receptionist’s face. I don’t want to judge based on appearances, but she wears pineapple-yellow cardigans and calls everyone “sweetie.” I can’t let this happen to Tina.
“Shouldn’t your boss be the one worried about potential backlash of this thing?”
“You haven’t met Alexis. She operates in a universe that we’ll never begin to understand.”
I pull up my work email on my phone to see if she’s sent me the last order yet. And I can’t believe what I’m seeing. “Oh my god.” I could cry from happiness.
“What?”
“Look!” I show him that the original order was for a massage gun. “It was a mistake. Oh, thank God, I won’t have corrupt Tina.”
He pulls a sad face. “Dang. That’s not as fun.”
I wonder if I need to tell Alexis I was sent the wrong thing. What if she asks me to return it. I can’t return a used vibrator, can I? No, I need to pretend that I got the massage gun.
He looks at me over the rim of his cup. “Did you test it?”
“I—” I should have stayed at my desk. I should have let him figure out the coffee machine himself. I should have kept the vibrator tucked away, safe and warm inside my tote bag. “That doesn’t matter.”
“So, youdiduse it.” He leans over and places his hand in front of his mouth as if hiding what’s he’s going to say, even though we’re completely alone in here. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
I bat him away. “There’s no secret.” I busy myself by making my own drink.
“You’re right. It’s none of my business.” I glimpse his smile before he takes a casual sip of his coffee.
I avoid looking at him by checking my phone and see that I have a text from Rett.
Rett: I’m thinking Low’s for Friday night. Thoughts?
I flip my phone over, not wanting to think about what Friday night’s potential activities.
“Something wrong?”
I show him the text. “My friend Rett is forcing me to go out and be fun again.”
“Are you not fun now?”
I’m not sure how to answer this, because I doubt my ex-boyfriend’s best friend really wants to know the truth about how I’ve been coping (or not) with a breakup. Eli is the type of person who is nice to everyone, even someone who broke their friend’s heart. He’d have the most hateful DMV employee baking him brownies within ten minutes.
“I guess you could say I haven’t really been getting an—I mean—having any. Fun, that is.”
Heat engulfs my face so fast you’d think the flames of Hades were reaching up to lick my neck.Do not think of neck licking right now.
“Ah, I see.” He smiles in a way that tells me he definitely noticed.
I hide in my coffee mug for a couple seconds to take a sip. “I haven’t been out in a while.”
“Yeah, me neither, actually.”
I’m shocked. “Really?”
“Really.” He shakes his head. “I probably need to go out more and meet people, because I just told my sister I’m going to bring a date to my parents’ anniversary party in a month.”
“Well, if you decide you want to venture out, you know where to find me,” I say without thinking. “Or, you know what I mean, find . . . other women. Dates. Potential dates.”
