I completed my journey to the kitchen and refilled my cup with the aggressively mediocre complimentary coffee provided by the company. On my way back to my desk, I flicked a surreptitious glance at the VP’s office to satisfy myself that Tanner was still in there. He was. Coast clear.
Arwen was still mumbling the baby shark song to herself when I sat back down at the cubicle beside her, but I barely noticed it anymore. I was too distracted by the fact that Tanner was on my floor. I kept craning my neck, trying to see the elevators so I’d know when he left and I could relax.
“What are you doing?” Linh asked, frowning at me.
“Nothing,” I said as I typed out a new direct message to her. Tanner’s here.
Where??? she replied immediately.
In Josie’s office.
Her response came a few seconds later: Be cool, Soda Pop.
My head jerked up at the sound of voices approaching, and my stomach clenched in alarm as Josie led Tanner into the creative director’s office. Byron didn’t have privacy glass, so I was treated to an unobstructed view of the three of them talking. Byron had gotten to his feet, and Josie was introducing Tanner to him.
“Who’s that in Byron’s office with the VP?” Arwen asked, swiveling her chair to look at them.
I didn’t answer her. I was too busy trying not to have a panic attack over the fact that my ex was in my boss’s office.
“That’s Tanner King,” Linh answered when I didn’t. “One of Josie’s younger brothers.”
“He’s cute,” Arwen said, and I cut a look over at her. “What?” She blinked at me innocently. “He is.”
I probably forgot to mention that Arwen was as beautiful as her fictional namesake. Her parents really nailed it when they named her. Tall, graceful, shiny dark hair, bee-stung lips, big boobs. Your basic nightmare if you were the kind of woman who assumed other women were your competition in a zero-sum game to secure the best mate.
Which I was not, and therefore I had no business behaving jealously. Tanner was cute, and Arwen had every right to notice. I’d relinquished my rights to him, so I wasn’t entitled to act territorial.
“He works in sales,” I told her, attempting to make up for my sharp look. “I don’t know why he’s here.”
As the three of us watched, Josie bid the two men goodbye and exited Byron’s office, leaving Tanner there. Her gaze skimmed right past us as she headed back to her own office. I’d only spoken to Josie a handful of times, and I wasn’t sure if she knew about my history with Tanner. It was a source of persistent, low-grade anxiety that I might have hurt my chances of advancement in the company by having the nerve to break up with one of the almighty King sons.
Byron and Tanner were sitting down now, Byron at his desk and Tanner with his back to us. Byron seemed to be talking an awful lot, and I wished, not for the first time, that one of my superpowers was reading lips. When it became clear they weren’t doing anything worth watching, Arwen got bored and turned back to her computer. Linh gave me a sympathetic look before doing the same.
I tried to follow suit and concentrate on the feature I was writing for this week’s newsletter. A key component of the King’s Creamery branding was our social consciousness. We weren’t just a family-owned business with deep roots in rural America, we were also a company with a conscience. Every month, our content marketing platforms highlighted a different environmental or human rights issue. So in addition to the usual product promotions and silly “What Ice Cream Flavor Are You?” quizzes, I had to write a series of weekly features about the issue of the month.
This month we were focusing on the school-to-prison pipeline, and I had to have the second weekly feature finished by the end of the day so I could send it to the public relations director for approval. Unsurprisingly, they were finicky about what we could and couldn’t say when discussing potentially contentious political issues.
My focus had already been crap today, but Tanner’s unexpected proximity posed an unbearable distraction. If I raised my eyes from my monitor even a little, he was right there, directly in my eyeline. I couldn’t see his face, but I could see the back of his head and his neatly trimmed golden brown hair. The way his head tilted slightly to the right when he was talking and slightly to the left when he was listening. The white dress shirt that pulled tight across his broad shoulders. The way his right arm was cocked to the side and casually draped over the armrest while his left remained hidden, presumably resting in his lap.
Yikes. I really needed to stop creeping on him like a creepy creeper.
Dragging my gaze downward again, I forced myself to keep my eyes glued to my screen. Unfortunately, my mind refused to get on the bandwagon. The harder I stared at the words I’d been writing, the more they seemed to mock me by blurring into abstract shapes detached from any meaning. There was a word for when that happened. Wordnesia. When a task your brain usually performed on autopilot—like reading or writing—hit a mental speed bump, and the conscious part of your brain realized it didn’t know what it was supposed to be doing.
The back of Tanner King’s head was one big honking mental speed bump that my brain refused to drive over.
Fifteen minutes later, I’d finally managed to write one pathetic sentence about school suspension rates and incarceration when movement in Byron’s office derailed my attention yet again. He and Tanner were on their feet now, moving toward the door. I lowered my head as they emerged, pretending to concentrate on my screen while I tracked them in my peripheral vision.
Whatever their mystery meeting had been about, it was over now, thank god. Byron would walk Tanner out, and he’d be gone gone gone so I could get back to my regularly scheduled day without the back of his head derailing my productivity.
Only Byron didn’t lead Tanner toward the elevators. He appeared to be leading him straight to me.
Please no. Please don’t bring him over here.
But that was exactly what he was doing. Byron was looking right at me, and I wished one of my superpowers was invisibility so I could fade into the bland gray office furnishings and disappear completely.
As Arwen and Linh turned in their chairs to track Byron’s approach with Tanner, I summoned my This is Fine face. I had a first-rate This is Fine face. So good, it might even be considered a superpower. It was infinitely useful for any occasion when you needed people to think you had everything under control and were definitely not panicking inside. Like, for instance, the sudden appearance of your boss at your desk with your bitter ex in tow.
Tanner stood partially behind Byron, looking tense as his gaze flitted around the office. I had the impression he was lurking behind Byron on purpose, as though I might suddenly attack or turn him to stone if he accidentally made eye contact with me.
“Good news,” Byron said cheerfully. “Content marketing is finally getting the extra pair of hands you’ve been needing since Jill left.”
My eyes went wide, and I amped up my This is Fine face a few notches, affecting an expression of pleasant surprise rather than growing dread.
He can’t mean Tanner. Tanner works in sales. He has a job already—a much better job than this. He doesn’t even have marketing experience. Also, he’d never in a million years agree to work with me.
“Everyone, this is Tanner King.” Byron stepped to the side, leaving Tanner exposed to our scrutiny. “That’s right, he’s one of those Kings,” Byron added with an obsequious wink I knew Tanner must be hating. “And he’s going to be joining you on the content marketing team starting today.”