“I don’t hate you.” That seemed like an important point to clarify. My feelings for her were tangled and painful, but hate didn’t play any part in them. “I’m sorry if I was glaring.”
“You were. You have been. Every time we see each other.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I’d been doing that.” I ducked my head, embarrassed that my feelings had been so apparent. The last thing I wanted was Lucy knowing how much she’d hurt me or thinking I still hadn’t gotten over her. I hadn’t gotten over her, but that was beside the point. “I’ll do better.”
“We could come up with a code word, if that would help. Something I could say to let you know you’re glaring at me so you’ll stop.”
“If you want.”
“How about jinkies?”
“Jinkies?”
“It’s what Velma says on Scooby-Doo.”
“I know what it’s from.” Why did Lucy have to be so fucking cute? She was honestly standing there quoting Velma, who’d only been my first fictional crush. It was the cruelest part about all of this—I couldn’t even properly dislike Lucy because we were so goddamn perfect for each other.
Except for the small matter of her wanting nothing to do with me, obviously. Minor obstacle, that one.
“It’s a word I wouldn’t normally use in a sentence, but I can say it around the office without arousing too much suspicion. Unless you have a better idea?”
“No, it’s fine.” It was a good idea. Because Lucy was really smart and really good with people, and just generally better at navigating things than I was.
“Okay. So if you hear me say jinkies, you’ll know to fix your face and try to be less of a jerk.”
I didn’t like that she thought I was a jerk. That wasn’t the kind of ex I wanted to be. “I’ll make an effort to be civil from now on. Nice, even.”
“I’d like that. I’ll be nice too.” She gave me a tentative smile. “From here on out, we’ll be two coworkers on friendly terms.”
It was a great plan, except for one thing. Something I hadn’t fully realized until now, standing here having an actual conversation with Lucy for the first time since she’d broken up with me.
I was still just as in love with her as ever.
4
Lucy
Tanner wasn’t glaring at me anymore. That was something.
I’d only had to say “jinkies” once this whole week—which was good, because Linh had looked at me like I’d had a mental break when I whisper-yelled it at my desk out of nowhere on Tuesday. I’d had to make up a lie about accidentally biting the inside of my cheek, and I’d felt so bad about lying that I’d bitten my cheek so it wouldn’t be a lie. On the plus side, Tanner had looked appropriately chastened when I’d said our code word and had quit frowning at me across the low divider between our cubicles.
As far as I could tell, he’d been telling the truth about not realizing he was doing it. The guy simply had a resting surly face around me, which was lovely. But at least he seemed to be making a genuine effort to cut it out.
He’d pretty much stopped looking at me entirely, in fact. An improvement over active hostility, granted, but I found it disconcerting. Our little island of cubicles was set up like a four-leaf clover so we all faced the center. It was supposed to encourage collaboration, but Tanner was at the workstation diagonally across from me, which put us directly in each other’s eyelines. In order to avoid flashing his I Hate Lucy face, he kept his eyes down completely unless he was talking to Linh or Arwen.
Which, by the way, he did a lot. He seemed to be getting on like gangbusters with the two of them. Tanner could be shy, but he was also very nice—to most people. Those of us who’d broken his heart excepted. So it hadn’t taken him long to warm up to the members of the team who weren’t me.
Especially Arwen.
Not that I was jealous. I definitely was not. I also wasn’t bitter that he was being all friendly with everyone else while treating me like I had the plague. You know why? Because I was not a bitter person. I was a nice person. Even nicer than Tanner.
So it was totally fine that he’d been asking Linh and Arwen how they were doing every morning while ignoring me. I wasn’t the least bit bothered that he never made eye contact with me or addressed me unless he was forced to—and even then he either stared at his shoes or at a spot on the wall past my shoulder. Totally no big! My feelings weren’t even hurt yesterday when he’d announced he was going to the good coffee cart downstairs and offered to bring Linh and Arwen something back. Pfft. I could get my own coffee, thanks for not asking.
So what if this morning he’d brought kolaches from Leshikar’s Bakery—which were totally my favorite—and even though he’d said they were for everyone, I didn’t feel like that included me. I’d only had to sit there smelling that heavenly, fresh-baked dough while everyone else crammed their faces with delicious pastries. Whatever!
It definitely wasn’t why I was in a bad mood right now. That had more to do with Byron and the team meeting I was currently sitting in.
We had one of these meetings every Friday to review the content strategy for the upcoming week. In general, our team was left mostly to ourselves. Byron had his hands full supervising the art department and copywriters who produced all the rest of the company’s national advertising and marketing materials, and our little content marketing team ran like a well-oiled machine that didn’t require much of his attention. Largely due to me, thank you very much. Since Jill had left, I’d kept things chugging along smoothly, creating all our content schedules, getting creative assets and approvals from other departments, making sure our messaging was pushed out to our social channels on time, tracking engagement data, and adjusting our content strategy accordingly.
Usually, these Friday meetings were quick and perfunctory. Byron would stare at his phone, only half listening, while I went over the plan for next week. Then he’d rubber-stamp everything I’d proposed and we’d adjourn. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.
Today’s meeting? Not so much.
It was the end of Tanner’s first week, and therefore his first time taking part in the team meeting with Byron. I blamed Tanner’s presence for Byron acting so weird today. For starters, Byron hadn’t looked at his phone once since he’d sat down. For another, he kept interrupting me to ask questions about next week’s schedule. He never had questions about the schedule. He barely cared about the schedule, except to make sure there was one in case he got asked about it. Now he suddenly cared about everything. In the last thirty minutes, he’d questioned my ice cream trivia, quibbled with every suggestion in our summer activity ice cream pairing feature, and currently he was grilling me about the recipe for S’more Than a Feeling ice cream sandwiches. Which, yes, I had made up myself, and they were freaking delicious.
“Plain graham crackers though?” Byron rubbed his chin like he was contemplating quantum mechanics instead of ice cream desserts. “Can’t we come up with something a little more interesting?”
“Graham crackers are an essential ingredient in s’mores,” I pointed out.