Page 46 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

“I was working in the archives,” he says. “Glass v. Russo isn’t my only case, you know.”

I realize now that he’s wearing tailored slacks and a button-down. At some point, he lost the jacket and tie, but his whole look is one that says he never went home, including the pieces of hair springing rogue across his forehead. His sleeves are rolled up his forearms, which are folded in casual amusement across his chest.

“What are you doing here?” he says.

I glance hopelessly to the billboard and then lift the trophy accusingly in his direction again.

“What do you know about this?”

“Err… it looks like something from the Chamber of Commerce, maybe? It’s kind of hard to tell in the dark, when you’re pointing it at me like a weapon.”

“Not this,” I say, waving the object for emphasis. “This.”

He cautiously eases up beside me, following the annoyed toss of my head as he peers at the landscape below. It takes him a moment to spot it, and when he does, his mouth falls slightly ajar.

“Whoa. Is that…?”

“Yeah,” I sigh, lowering the makeshift weapon. “It’s me.”

“And you didn’t…?”

“Didn’t authorize this?” I blink at him in irritation. “No. Of course not.”

“So who do you think did?”

“Well, if I’m ruling you out,” I begin, giving him another assessing stare that tells him I have in fact not yet ruled him out, “then… I don’t know.”

He drags his gaze back out to the highway, studying the scene for longer than I want him to. Though I’m the one who showed it to him, I now wish I hadn’t. Maybe he never would have noticed. Maybe he would have kept the shades down until I could have it removed. Now, he’s going to have easy access to stare at it every single day. Not that there’s any logical reason he would spend his time doing that.

“Why did you assume it was me?” he says.

Guilt swarms in my stomach, but I refuse to give him anything that resembles an apology. In the end, I simply clop the trophy onto the nearest shelf and prop myself against the edge of his desk.

“There was nothing in our contract prohibiting full-size billboard ads,” I point out.

“No, not explicitly. But we agreed to conduct ourselves with integrity. And not to engage in acts of sabotage.”

“You think this is sabotage?” I ask.

“Not inherently. I mean, honestly, it’s probably pretty good publicity. Hell, I’d hire you.” When I give him a look, he adds, “But it’s also highly inappropriate, assuming you didn’t know about it beforehand. You really didn’t know?”

The expression he’s wearing is bordering on sympathy. I brace my hands against the desktop on either side of me, hoping to fend off the way it makes me want to lunge at him. I would love nothing more than to smack that look of pity right off his face.

“If I find out you’re involved in this…” I warn.

“Is that what you think? That I’d do something like this?”

He smirks, but there’s a wounded sound in his voice. I almost backtrack, but the earlier conversation I had with Yolanda comes creeping up the back of my neck, telling me I’d be a fool to trust him.

“I don’t know anything about you, really,” I say dismissively. “You’ve only been here, what? Three or four weeks?”

He comes to sit on the top of the low bookshelf across from me, moving the picture frames aside as he mimics my posture.

“And here I thought our days back in the dorm had endeared you to me.”

I shake my head with a small smile.

“Asshole,” I murmur. “For all I know you’re The Dr. Pepper Thief.”

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