Page 25 of Imogen

“Yeah, I can totally see him trying to yell the zombies away and getting bitten.”

“No, I’d kill him and say my finger slipped because I thought he was a zombie,” he amends.

I splutter out a laugh as I reach into the bag. “What has he done now?”

“He has this maddening filing system. It’s chaotically organised, when it could be made so much easier and simpler for people. He wouldn’t have such a stick up his arse if he changed it because then others wouldn’t constantly be going to him to get the files they need.”

“I heard Laura say they tried once and he blew a gasket.”

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s good at his job, but he makes it so damn difficult for others to do theirs. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s yelled at me today.”

I smile as I pull a plastic knife and fork out of the bag. “You should get a yell jar.”

He arches a brow at me. “He would probably bury my body in the stacks. No one would ever look for me there. They’d be too scared to get on his wrong side.”

“I’d love to know why he turned down my position. It’s amazing. I would have thought being an assistant to the man who is to thank for this company would be right up his alley.”

“You mean you don’t already know?”

I eye the tall man who has wormed his way into my heart. He’s like another brother and best friend rolled into one. “There’s an actual story behind the decision?”

He shrugs. “Not really a story.”

I lean forward, forgetting my meatballs for a moment. “Tell me.”

“Well, I heard one of the women bitching in the staff room about it. Apparently, Larry has been trying to win him over to his side for years.”

“Woah, that’s a compliment. Larry is kind of picky.”

George shrugs. “Well, Daniel is known to have said, ‘why would I run one office when I can run them all’,” he announces, using his best impersonation of Daniel—which, I have to say, is pretty good.

“That sounds like him,” I declare, shovelling a forkful of food into my mouth.

“So, who was the hottie who came to visit you? I got some seriously weird vibes from the both of you.”

I move the food around in the container at the mention of Zach. I’ve failed to get him to talk to me. I don’t know why it bothers me so much that he won’t. I wanted to separate. But living with him thinking I cheated unsettles me. I may have done some shitty things by not telling him how I truly felt, but I didn’t do it to hurt him. Sometimes the truth can hurt someone more. And I guess a part of me was scared he would try harder to win my affection, when all I can ever feel for him is love as a friend.

“He’s my ex,” I answer, not expanding.

I should have known George wouldn’t stop there.

“I take it you broke up with him,” he guesses. “Or did he cheat and that’s why I was picking up the hostile atmosphere?”

“No one cheated, but he thinks I have.”

“Don’t leave me at that. We have an hour. Tell me everything. I won’t leave until you do, which means Daniel will be in here scolding you for monopolising my time.”

I snort because he isn’t wrong. “It’s a mess. Just before my eighteenth birthday, I was let down by a guy I was head over heels in love with. He didn’t feel the same. Zach was my friend at the time,” I begin, then go into detail about how we first kind of got together.

“So he kind of asked you out at a vulnerable time?”

“Sort of. But after a few months, when the embarrassment died off, I realised I was being foolish in thinking we could actually be together.”

“So what changed?”

“Every guy I tried to go out with after ended in disaster. There was always something, and Zach was there for each breakup. He held me when I cried. He made sure my hair remained vomit-free every time I got drunk to forget how much men suck,” I admit. “And I know this is going to make me sound like an awful human being, but when I saw the guy I had liked first with another girl, I felt alone. The guy I wanted didn’t want me. But then there was Zach. He wanted me. And like most girls, I wanted to be wanted. So we got together properly. It was fine until it wasn’t. He changed.”

“Don’t they all,” he preaches, holding up his fork. “So he changed…”

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