Page 11 of Welcome to the Friendzone

“It’s my mom’s recipe. Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve are a McGreen tradition but they’re almost all gone. I wanted to bake another batch in an hour. You wanna help?”

“Actually…” Marta started and avoided Oliver’s gaze.

The tears gathered around her lashes again but she didn’t want him to see her crying. He’d ignored the zombie look pretty well so far.

“… I’m not in the Christmas mood this year, but thanks for asking.”

She gave him a weak smile, trying as hard as possible to keep it together and push away the intrusive thoughts of her dead husband and the child that was never born.

“Don’t be a Grinch!” Oliver pouted at her.

This 30-something-year-old man looked so much like a child at that moment that Marta laughed out loud. She was amazed at how he was able to make her laugh so easily. Oliver took this as a silent compliment and started to laugh as well.

“I am not. Just not in the mood,” she insisted.

“Okkkaaaaaaaaayyyy,” Oliver sighed loudly before adding, “Then I’ll have to ask the Grinch himself to bake some cookies with me. I need a helping hand.”

Marta only raised an eyebrow at him, not understanding who he meant.

“I mean Butch. He wasn’t in the mood for Christmas for years. Gotta force him today though,” Oliver chuckled.

“Oh yeah. He’s really… special.”

Marta tried to be polite. She only knew Nate “Butch” Sheppard in passing, when she and her colleague Jakob spent their lunch breaks with him and Oliver. The brunette man and her hadn’t really spoken a lot, well, the man hadn’t spoken at all. Even after all these years she couldn’t even think of how his voice sounded.

“He’s been through a lot. You’d like him if you knew him,” Oliver said, something flickering in his eyes that Marta didn’t understand.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Oliver cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable that the conversation had switched over to his best friend.

“But you have to cook dinner with me tonight, okay? It’s Christmas Eve. We gotta have a big feast!” He was smiling again.

“I…” Marta started but didn’t have a chance to continue when Oliver placed his hand on her upper arm.

“There’s no way you can get out of this. Also, you just got promoted and we didn’t even celebrate that! I’ll pick you up at 6 and then we make dinner together.”

“Okay,” Marta sighed, rolling her eyes.

She really wasn’t in the mood for any kind of Christmas activity but she was sure she wouldn’t be able to convince Oliver to leave her alone.

“Great. See you later, and you know where to find me if you’re craving cookies.”

He winked at her and walked along the hallway with a spring in his step.

Marta shook her head but found herself still smiling. Oliver had a positive influence on her. She slotted the wedding picture back in her purse and grabbed her laptop to do some work. Two days ago Director Burns had called her into his office and she had almost shit her pants but, instead of getting screamed at or fired, the Director told her about her promotion.

She hadn’t expected to really get the position as the role had been filled by men for centuries.

Marta Gómez became the first female Deputy Director of Operations two days ago. She had told Director Burns to keep it small, no big ceremony or stuff like that, so it was super low-key.

With the new job came more work and more responsibilities. She’d been the team leader of the drug trafficking task force ever since she moved to headquarters. It was more than clear that, after what happened, she wouldn’t be going back into the field. Jakob had become the operational leader of the team with Marta in the background organizing staffing, transport and things like that as well as supporting them while being on operations.

Now she was not only responsible for the drug trafficking task force but for four more. One of them was the terrorism task force in which Oliver and Butch were working. She’d done as much research as possible ever since her promotion to be able to answer questions from all the different task forces but it wasn’t easy as they mostly asked questions to topics she didn’t know much about other than the CIA basics. So, even when it was Christmas Eve, Marta Gómez spent the entire day on her desk making notes about the different operations and specialisms of each team.

Around 5 p.m. she realized with a shock that she was close to being late so she jumped into the shower and changed into some jeans and a light gray basic t-shirt. Oliver had said he’d pick her up at six but her stomach was grumbling so she headed to the kitchen early. He’d find her. It was in the same hallway.

With every step closer to the community kitchen, music became louder and louder. Marta was almost standing in the doorway when she realized that the song “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” was playing. While rolling her eyes again she stepped into the kitchen and was greeted by a dancing blond man.

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