Page 14 of The One I Need
Chapter6
Izzy
“Monday you havethe morning call with the London office. Tuesday you’re packed. You have meetings and calls all day starting at ten…”
I know this Friday huddle with my assistant, Jules, is important. She likes having my calendar set down to the minute and wants to make sure I’m aware of my week coming up so if she needs to move anything around, we have time to do it. I love that about her.
Except right now. Right now I hate it. All I want to do is go home, kick off these heels, take off my bra, and hide from the world for the next forty-eight hours. I want to eat junk food, watch my favorite reality show—that has piping hot scandal right now—and just not speak to anyone.
Maybe then my mood will get better.
Oh, who am I kidding? A few days isn’t going to magically fix me.
It’s been a week since the wedding. Well, six days, but who’s keeping track? Definitely not me. Because I don’t do shit like count the days since I last had sex or the last time I genuinely smiled.
And I’ve tried everything to snap out of this funk. I went to the gym and tried to sweat it out. I nearly broke the spin bike from how hard I was pedaling. I tried to get drunk, figuring I could cure my blues with some sort of fucked-up hair-of-the-dog mentality. I figured liquor got me into this situation, maybe it could get me out. That only gave me a hangover and a worse mood than I had already been in.
Everything I’ve tried has been for nothing. Stupid Oliver and his stupid smile and his stupid penis. This is all his fault. I think somewhere in between the orgasms and the dirty talk, Oliver put a spell on me. That’s the only thing that makes sense.
“Izzy? Do you have any questions?”
I shake my head, which Jules takes as a signal that I don’t have any questions, when in fact, I didn’t hear a damn word she said.
“Okay, then, I’m going to take off. See you Monday, bright and early.”
Bright and early? I want to ask her what that means, but that would signal I wasn’t paying attention, and she doesn’t need to know that. I flip open our calendar to see that bright and early meansfive in the morningfor a call with the London office.
Super…
“Just saw the morning meeting on Monday?”
I look up to see Hazel leaning against the door to my office. “Why do you insist on meeting so early? And why do I need to be on that call? And again, who schedules a call that early?”
She laughs as she takes a seat across from me. “Because we are less than a year from the international launch, and my head of communications needs to be on calls.”
“I’d do better at communicating if it was after eight. Or if you just transferred me to London like I’ve asked a thousand times. Either would be fine.”
Hazel smiles, knowing I’m just being difficult. Except the transfer thing. This isn’t the first time I’ve brought that up. “I’ll note that for next time.”
This is the best part of working for your best friend. No one else would put up with my sarcasm—or my brutal honesty that sometimes comes out quite snarky. But Hazel just rolls with it. Sometimes she encourages it. It’s what makes us a good team—I’m the one who will call people out and do what needs to be done for our message and app to work, and she shakes the hands and kisses the babies.
It’s also why Left for Love is the most successful dating app in the country. And about to be the most successful in the world.
“Any plans for the weekend?”
“Just a hot date with my couch and my UberEats account.”
“Oh,” Hazel says. “I was hoping you were going to take the weekend to remove the thorn that’s been in your ass all week.”
Look at my best friend throwing my signature snark back at me. Good for her. “I don’t have a thorn in my ass.”
“Could have fooled me. Actually, no. You didn’t fool me. You might have been able to convince everyone in the office that you’ve been fine all week, but I know you too well. So, are you going to finally tell me, or are we going to both pretend something isn’t the matter?”
And this is the bad part of working for your best friend. “I’d like to.”
“Sorry. Can’t do that,” she says, kicking off her heels and propping her feet up on my desk. “You’ve been off since the wedding.”
“I told you I didn’t want to go.”
