Page 39 of Grumpy Boss's Secret

The next day, I went into the breakroom again and was pleased to see that all the cinnamon rolls were gone. Someone had already washed my bowl. That was nice. I picked it up and saw a sticky note attached to it. I smiled as I read the words, "Thanks, Jozi! These were amazing. We all thought so."

Then I recognized the handwriting as Ian's. I scowled and tossed the sticky note into the trash. Holding the bowl, I walked to my office and opened the door. The roses. The roses were back on my desk - out of the trash, in the same vase as yesterday. I shut the door and strode over to them. No note this time. Just pure passive-aggressive defiance. No, I was the one being passive-aggressive.

My mouth popped open. It was even harder not to laugh today. The man had seen the vase, come in here, and taken the flowers out of the trash after I’d left. They looked terrible – a full afternoon without water hadn’t been good for them.

“You stubborn bastard,” I said, unable to keep a grin off my face.

Clearly, a defiant refusal to stop being mad wouldn't help. He was too stubborn.

Yeah, but not as stubborn as me. I took the flowers from the vase and put them in the sun. By the end of the afternoon, they looked terrible. At the end of the day, I waited until Ian left, went to his office, and put them on his desk, in the vase, but without water.

The following day, there were no flowers on my desk. The same vase with dried flowers was on my desk the morning after. Every morning for a week, the vase switched desks. Maybe he was just as stubborn as me.

Chapter Seventeen

I was getting tired of our dried flowers war. People were noticing. Obviously, it had sparked some office gossip – they were dried roses, not a plastic spider or something silly. Not that the whole thing wasn't silly. Apparently, people were taking bets on which one of us had started it, and most people thought it was me.

"You want more of what happened at the office mixer, don't you, Jozi?" Katie teased me one morning as I marched the dried roses to the break room, where I intended to let them sit until the end.

“Yes, I want more thunderstorms,” I said serenely, placing the roses with an irritated thump on the counter.

My actions would speak louder than words in this case. Let people think I’d started the whole thing when I disposed of them – from my office – like that.

I could see Katie watching me out of the corner of her eye. She was curious. We had little to gossip about at the office. People were getting much too excited about some silly passive-aggressive stubbornness. Especially considering all the juicy details that none of them knew anything about.

That wasn't the only reason I'd left the flowers in the break room today, I thought as I walked back to my office. I needed it to stop, but it was being fun. I enjoyed Ian wouldn't give up. He was more than a match for me and would keep up with something like this. It was silly on the surface, but underneath, the gesture was proof that he cared about me. He was saying, "No, I'm not giving up. Stop being mad at me."

It was unfurling my affection for him all over again. Daily reminders of how much I liked him.

I didn't need that. I was thinking about moving somewhere else. Transferring. Getting a different job. I might stay in Seattle – I liked it here. I enjoyed my apartment. But once my lease was up, nothing kept me here. I didn't want to keep working with Ian indefinitely, feeling like this.

I stopped by the bathroom on my way. As I was about to leave again, I heard voices in the hallway. Ian.

“I have to take Cynthia to the airport,” he said.

I stiffened. Cynthia. Other people here knew about her? What did they think of me, then?

“She’s leaving already?” said Larry’s voice. “I wanted to see her. Why don’t you ever have any parties?”

"We had a couple," Ian said. He sounded like he was laughing a little. "But for her friends. From school. She doesn't know you, people."

"She knows me, people," Larry protested.

I perked my ears to the max. My heart was pounding. Their voices became more muffled as they continued down the hallway. Cautiously, I opened the door. They weren’t visible anymore, but I could still hear them speaking. I slipped out of the bathroom and followed them on cat feet, trying to appear nonchalant in case anyone saw me.

"Okay, Larry, next time she's in town, I'll invite you to a party," Ian said. "I don't want you hitting on my sister, though."

I froze.

“I don’t mean to, but she’s gorgeous,” Larry said. “I go all gooey around her. I guess it runs in the family.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Ian said, and they kept walking out of earshot.

I stood in the middle of the hall, my ears buzzing. I didn't move. I hovered over the possibility that I was completely wrong, like someone trying to glue together something broken made of glass, worried the whole thing would come apart in their hands if they moved.

“Oh, my God,” I mouthed.

I suddenly snapped out of it. I turned around and hurried down the hall to my office. I shut the door, feeling my heart pound and swell.

---