Page 98 of Love on Deck

JACK

Lauren’s eyes were wounded. She was a puppy that had been kicked too many times, so my gentle bump had thrown her for a loop, naturally.

She stepped around me and down the hall toward her apartment. “Come on, I’m freezing.”

I took that to mean yes she would hear me out, but she wanted to warm up first. Win.

Lauren unlocked her door and stepped in, so I followed her inside. She made it to her couch and curled up on the end, pulling her blanket around her. It probably served two purposes: warmth and a shield.

Hint taken.

I sat on the opposite end of the couch. “I messed up. I should have told you the truth. I will do whatever I can to help you get this promotion and make it right.”

Lauren shook her head. “I already lost it. They gave it to Jerry last Friday, but announced it to the team this morning—though I suspect by the way everyone treated me that Jerry had already told most of them. So I quit.”

That took me a minute to process. “Quit your job?”

“I have savings. I’ll be okay for a minute.”

I shook my head, sitting up and leaning slightly toward her. “What made you decide to do that?”

“There was no room for growth anymore. Jerry took it, and there’s nothing else in that company I want to do. I saw how they’d taken advantage of me over the last few years and how it would only continue to happen, so I took myself out of the equation. If they think Jerry’s so qualified, then he can do the job on his own.”

“Until he can’t anymore and they crawl back to you?” I asked.

“No. I’ll be busy doing something that doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out.”

“I thought you liked your job.”

“Parts of it, yeah. I like the event coordination part and running a business and making people happy on their special days or pulling off a huge conference.”

“But you can do that in a lot of other places.”

“Exactly. Probably. That’s the hope, at least.”

I leaned back on the couch, surveying her. She was the same Lauren, her hair pulled back and a thick sweater on, but the resilience in her eyes was bright, and I had no doubt she would bounce right back, probably into a situation that was even better than before. “It must have hurt when they chose the other guy.”

“It did, but I was more angry than hurt. He’s not as qualified as I am. If they want to run their company like that and not choose promotions based on merit, then they don’t need me.”

My breath hitched, envy filling me at how she’d been able to walk away. It felt similar to the situation with Brad. How would it have felt to tell him the same thing? If he wanted to support nepotism over good business, then he could find a different lackey?

“What is it?” she asked.

“I kind of dealt with something similar today. I went to talk to my boss about the whole venue thing and found out that we never stood a chance anyway. The owner of the Dallas Event Center is my CEO’s uncle.”

She nodded. “I doubt all of corporate America is this flawed, but I don’t have a whole lot of faith in them right now.”

Neither did I, to be honest. Or maybe I’d just lost faith in Brad. And our CEO. And the delegation system that had made me plan most of the conference but failed to give me any actual power.

The conference wasn’t even the job I had been hired to do. I was in marketing. How did I reach the point where I was pushed onto the committee and then did everything myself?

I shook the thoughts. “I’m sorry, Lauren.” I leaned back, rubbing my hand over the back of my neck when I bumped into something on the armrest and it skittered across the floor.

The sound of my recorded voice filled the room.

“I don’t think they have a chance, man,” I was saying in a muffled recording.

My old roommate, Alfie, responded. “As long as they win next weekend, I don’t even care about the rest of the season.”

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