Page 119 of Baby, Be Mine

I glanced at the rest of the people in the kitchen. “Show’s over, people.” Then I stalked down the hallway to my office and grabbed my keys.

Before I could get back out of my door, Rami and Esther appeared in my doorway. Blocking me in.

“I can’t believe you did that.” Rami’s dark eyes were wide with shock.

“Unfortunately, it was long overdue. Did Penn really call to push back the meeting?”

“Actually,” Rami played with the end of her braid, “I called him.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why?”

“Look, don’t be mad.”

I tipped back my head. “Why won’t I be mad?”

Esther took over. “Okay, so don’t be mad for real.”

I looked from one woman to the other. “I really don’t like the sound of that.”

“Okay, so we’ve been getting help from Emma this whole time.” Esther laced her fingers together. “We knew Gillian was screwing up and we couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

“What?Why didn’t you come to me?”

“Mason, you’ve been a mess. Either silently brooding or beating on things in your office. I mean, at least you don’t yell at us, but you really should have been yelling at Gillian. She’s been a real B.”

Rami nodded. “You have been. We didn’t want to give you any more stress.”

“So, you went to Emma? She doesn’t even work here anymore.”

“I know, I know. We were just talking to her at first. Checking in with her and the baby. But then we got to talking about the parties.”

I closed my eyes. “I should have known the ideas you guys came up with sounded familiar.”

I thought back to the interview when Emma had started spouting her ideas about the book club, about games, about anything and everything that had to do with community and fun with the barge. All the things I’d wanted to do.

And everything that it had failed to be with Gillian in charge.

Even when I knew she wasn’t the one for the job, I’d just let her run over me because I’d been a shitty boss for the last few months without Emma here to keep the spark alive on all the plans I’d had.

All the plans she’d made even more exciting with her endless ideas.

“I’m sorry, guys.” I bowed my head. “I thought I was keeping it together enough. I let you down.”

Rami threw her arms around me. “Oh, Mason, we know.” She squeezed me tightly, and I patted her back. “If it was just the restaurant, you would have pulled it off. We’ve known you were stressed for a long time, but this just was…” She stepped back with a pained look on her face.

Esther patted my arm awkwardly. She wasn’t much of a hugger. “Gillian has been getting worse since you’ve been distracted with the MJ2. We tried to handle it.”

“You shouldn’t have had to.” I pushed at my hair. I really needed to get it freaking cut.

“We love it here. And we wanted to help.” Rami lowered her voice. “We miss Emma.”

“I do too.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat.

“We know you do.” Esther glanced down the hall. “Look, I shouldn’t tell you this, but she misses us too. I know it.”

“Did she say that?”

“No.”

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