Page 88 of The Grump I Loathe
Cassie tipped her head onto my shoulder. “Or maybe you just wanted to be hopeful. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Yeah, sure. Except for the way my heart had cracked open.
“But if you want to be sad,” she said, “then we’ll be sad. You don’t have to do this alone.” Cassie produced a pair of pink and blackcrystals from her pocket. “I brought my rhodonite. It’s good for healing after a heartbreak.”
“Thanks, Cass,” I said, giving a humorless little laugh, wondering if the doctors would take me back for a quick heart-ectomy. It would be less painful to just tear the thing out.
I’d always believed space after a breakup was a good thing. And thanks to the concussion, I’d been forced to do just that. Leigh wouldn’t let me back in the office for three days, and I’d finally gotten the chance to use some of LockMill’s generous sick leave.
Now that I was allowed regular screen time again, Leigh had no reason to bar me from my computer. When I arrived at the office, I made a beeline for Mr. Cheesers who squeaked at me with indignation. At least, that’s what I wanted to think it was.
“Did you miss me, you furry load of whiskers?” I asked him, plying him with treats that he stuffed into his cheeks. His tiny penthouse had been recently cleaned, and there were tiny flags hanging around his cage that looked remarkably like the ones in the game.
After spending fifteen minutes apologizing to Mr. Cheesers for not seeing him for close to a week, I dove into my work emails the second I reached my desk.
“Just take it easy,” Leigh said, leaning over my cubicle wall.
“I will.”
“Frequent breaks, or whatever the doc said.”
“I will.”
“I mean it, Eddie. I’m setting a timer.”
That got a little smile out of me. I gave her a salute. “Aye, aye, captain.”
She rolled her eyes and headed off, and I returned to answering an onslaught of last-minute narrative questions from the design team. A few days wouldn’t normally have been a lot to miss, but considering there were only three weeks left until the game was green-lit for the distributors, the hourglass was almost empty.
I kept my head down for most of the morning, afraid to look in the direction of Connor’s office. I doubted the storm from the wedding had fully blown over. But even as my head told me to stay away, another part of me was aching to track him down and talk things through. Now that I was here and caught up on my emails, the desire to understand how things had gone so wrong was overwhelming.
I peeked over my cubicle wall. It had been nothing but radio silence on Connor’s end.
No call.
No text.
No carrier pigeon dropping notes at my windowsill.
No apologies and queries about how I was feeling.
Maybe it was delusional, but some part of me was still desperately hoping that in our time apart, he’d come to the conclusion that he was wrong and that he wanted to fight for me after all.
Connor’s door opened, and my pulse jumped. Now was my chance. I tried to catch his eye as he breezed by, but it was pointless. He had his nose buried in his phone. A spark of irritation bloomed in my chest.
Did he really care so little? Did I not deserve at least a glance?
I flopped down in my seat, batting away the emotions. Irritation wasbetter than despair, I supposed. Anger was better than crying in a bathroom cubicle over my lunch break.
I ate the lunch Cassie had packed for me. She’d been bestie extraordinaire since the breakup, leaving me sweet treats and hiding crystals in my pockets. I fiddled with the red jasper I’d found this morning, rolling it across my desk, trying to distract myself with a piece of coding.
By mid-afternoon, the distraction wasn’t working anymore, and the desire for answers beat like a drum at the back of my head. Cassie had said the jasper was for strength and courage, so I summoned all of that and walked straight up to Connor’s office door, knocking before I could talk myself out of it. I needed to explain myself better than I had the night of the wedding.
I hadn’t intended to cross any lines, but I also didn’t want to be his secret anymore. And now we had to figure out where we stood. Because occupying the same space while pretending the other didn’t exist was horrible and suffocating and hehadto feel that too, right?
I grumbled, narrowing my eyes as Connor held up a finger, taking a phone call instead of gesturing for me to come in. It was the equivalent of being shushed, and I crossed my arms, holding in that ache in my chest as I waited for him to finish up the call. The longer he spoke, the more worried he looked, a deep line cutting across his brow.
Something had clearly upset him.
