Coming Back (The Sarah Kinsely Story - Book #2) (5 page)

Since it was a Monday, the office was more busy than usual; especially Peyton.

Another lucky break
.

I didn't see her emerge once from her office that entire morning. I was beginning to think I might just make it through my first real Monday since starting at Abraams and Snider unscathed.

Then I saw Brandon.

He was walking down the hall and heading straight for my desk.

Oh shit
. I looked around for something to throw over my head, hoping that if I just didn't move he somehow wouldn't see me. I had a copy of the latest
People
magazine and buried my face in it, pretending to look for good headlines to lift for my swipe file.

"Hello Sarah. How are things this morning?"

Damn
. It hadn't worked.

"Good Brandon. How are things in your neck of the woods?" I tried to create as much distance between us as possible and was hoping that coming off sounding like an 'ole chum would help that process.

He seemed to notice and looked over his shoulder at the other copywriters, peering their noses over their cubicle, desperately hoping to get some face time with the boss.

"Everything is great. I just wanted to check and see how you were holding up. Looks like you got everything under control. Well, have a good day."

With that, he stuck out his hand for me to shake but decided against it last minute, instead shoving it in his pocket. He looked around again checking to make sure nobody saw him, and sulked away looking slightly embarrassed.

For a brief moment I felt sorry for him. He looked almost pitiful sulking away like that, trying to find a legitimate excuse for making his way all the way down to copywriting from his office on the third floor. Luckily, the alcohol had long since warn off and my momentary feeling of pity quickly turned to disgust as I remembered Saturday night.

Yuck.
I suddenly felt like taking a shower.

I threw the magazine down and cracked open my email.
No new messages
. I looked at the clock and was happily surprised to find that the morning had come and gone without my noticing. I snagged my rain coat and made a beeline for the front doors.

During my week long mourning over Aiden, I had found some very interesting things out about Portland. Amongst my discoveries about this quirky little town were the parking lots dotting the city filled with permanently parked food carts.

It was food from these delightfully quaint little samplings of culinary delights that had provided the sustenance I needed during my week of trying to pull myself back together. I would wake up at noon, throw some shoes on, venture down two blocks from my house in my pajamas, and spend $5 for some of the best food I had ever tasted.

Then I would come home and sleep the rest of the day away.

I found that one of the largest gatherings of these food trucks in the entire city was just blocks from my work, near Pioneer Square.

I had promised myself that if I could make it through that first full Monday back I would treat myself to a food cart feast.

I deserved it, dammit.

After making a complete circle around the entire parking lot, looking for the right food cart to spend all my money on, I finally found the man I was looking for.

Leaning outside the tiny cart window was a lean, tan, younger guy who wore some kind of hipster tank top for men. I don’t know if it was his tan skin or that his teeth were really that white, but every time he flashed a flirty grin towards the women passing his cart they all giggled. Some stopped, and a few ate.

I was one of those that stopped and ate.

His Cuban accent rolled off his tongue and for a moment I forgot why I had come to see him. He pointed to different items on his menu, describing each dish as if we were at a five start restaurant in Paris. At some point he stopped speaking and waited for me to answer a question I hadn’t heard him say.

“What do you recommend?” Was all I could say.

He recommended the “pork box”. I shook my head and said, “That sounds great.”

He flashed a grin and spun around to the back of his cart. He threw some pork on his grill and it sizzled and crackled. He smiled at me as he tossed the pork with a spatula, browning each side to perfection.

Before I knew it, a brown box was being thrust through the tiny window of his cart at me.

“For the lovely lady.”

Oh God, that accent.

I took what he was giving me and found a place to sit in a nearby open-air park.

I saw her before my butt even hit the chair.

Shit.

I looked around for somewhere to hide, but I was nearly dead center in the middle of an open area. I considered ditching my Cuban food and running into the mall across the street.
I could probably lose her in there.

I looked down at my food. The deep aroma of well cooked pork combined with the zesty tang of lime, the dull earthy tones of black beans and brown rice, and the slightly odd presence of sweet potatoes fries convinced me not to ditch the food. Instead, I closed the brown box and stood up to leave, hoping that she wouldn’t see me.

It was too late.

“Omigod, Sarah how are you?”

Why do you care?

“I’m great. How are you?”

“Oh you know, just staying busy over there in accounts.”

Never trust the people in accounts.

“Cool. Well, I better get going, I was just going to eat my lunch back in my cubicle.”

“Don’t be silly. Let’s have lunch together. It has been forever since I have seen you and you have to catch me up on all things Aiden.”

Angela sat down at the table. I didn’t know what to do or say. I was completely shocked.

Did she really have the audacity to pretend like nothing happened? Was she just here to rub it in as one of Peyton and Lizzy’s henchwomen? What the hell did she want from me?

I should have just left, but I didn’t. I sat down instead.

“So, tell me everything.”

“About what?”

The last thing I wanted to do was recount that weekend spent with Aiden.

“About the hot sex you and the chef had.”

She opened a small black plastic box that contained a very dry looking salad and shoved a fork full of the leafy green stuff into her mouth. It made an obnoxious crunching-smacking noise. She took a sip on expensive looking water.

I opened my Cuban food. I was almost started to feel embarrassed about shoveling pork and beans into my mouth while Angela munched away on a weight-loss salad, but then I imagined the cute Cuban guy hanging out of his food truck window telling me to relax and “have a good time”.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I said taking a bite of the salty pork. The hint of lime that ran through the meat was like an instant bolt of energy.

“Why not? Too spicy?” Angela grinned and slapped my hand like she had just made a hilarious joke.

I wasn’t laughing.

She stopped eating and dropped her fork.

“Oh, I am so sorry. You were being serious? Oh God I feel awful. Listen I —”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

I took a sweet potato fry and dipped it in mustard. Looking at the fries in my box, they felt out of place, but when that first bit of sweet potato hit my tongue I realized the genius behind that little Cuban man and his food truck. It was a strange combination, but it was perfect.

Angela and I sat at that little table, eating in silence, for another ten minutes. She seemed too embarrassed to say anything more and I was fine with that. I finished my food and started to clean everything up. Angela saw that I was leaving.

“Wait. Don’t go.”

I stopped what I was doing.

“I didn’t mean to offend you. I just haven’t seen you and I had assumed that things went really well for you. I really am sorry.”

For a moment I thought that I saw a tear building up in her eye. I had to blink twice to make sure.

“Hasn’t Peyton already filled you in?”

I continued clearing my things.

Angela let out a little laugh and wiped the tear away before it fell down her face.

“Peyton hasn’t said two words to me since that weekend. She gets that way when a new account comes in.”

“What about Lizzy? I am sure she had plenty to say.”

My voice came out sounding rude. I knew it, and I didn’t feel bad about it.

Angela really let out a laugh this time.

“Lizzy is seeing somebody. I guess she hooked up with someone from the same restaurant as your chef. Let me be the first to tell you, that girl falls hard and when she does, good luck trying to matter in her world.”

By “someone from the same restaurant” as my chef, don’t you mean she hooked up with MY CHEF?

Angela suddenly looked very sad, like the girl who gets picked last or doesn’t get picked at all. I tried to feel sorry for her, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t ignore the thought that it was just part of the ploy to sucker me back into some mean practical joke.

“Well, I better get back,” I said.

“Wait,” Angela stood and grabbed my arm, “I need to ask you to do something for me.”

The look in her eyes told me she wasn’t joking.

Chapter 9

“What is it,” I asked.

“It's about the office party,” Angela said.

“What about it?”

“Would you come with me? I hate going to these things by myself. Please, please, please.”

Angela was clasping her hands together and nearly bending down on one knee.

“No way.”

I hated office parties. The firm that I used to work for in New York had one almost every week. I never went. They were a waste of time and the last thing I wanted to do was hang out with my coworkers in my free time.

Especially after I had tried it with Peyton, Lizzy and Angela.

“Why not? I don't understand.”

“I don't expect you to. I just can't go.”

I wanted to tell her that I couldn't go because I didn't want to see Brandon. I wanted to tell her that I couldn't go because I didn't want to see Peyton or Lizzy, but I couldn't.

“Come on,” she said, “you have to come. This is gonna be the first office party we have had in over two years where both of the partners are gonna be gone. Think about it: Office party with no bosses!”

“Neither of the partners are gonna be there?”

“Well, it's not really any of my business, nor is it yours,” she shot me a glance, “but they aren’t gonna be at the party because one of their new clients is a little bit of a diva. Turns out, this particular client, who may or may not be a celebrity, only works directly with partners. I mean don't get me wrong, it's a great account to have, but I'm just glad that they didn’t assign her to me.”

I still didn't want to go, but knowing Brandon wouldn’t be there did make it a slightly more attractive offer. I had heard that the office parties at Abraams and Snider were catered to the teeth and had open bars.

I could have used a drink.

“What about Peyton and Lizzy?

Angela cocked her head to the side.

“What do you mean?”

She furrowed her brow.

“Are they gonna be there too?”

“I don't think so actually.”

Angela shuffled around the leftover contents of her salad, stuck her tongue out, and closed the lid.

“Are you sure?”

“No, but I highly doubt they are going to be showing up. Lizzy has a new boy toy and she never really came to the office parties before anyways. I used to go with Peyton, but I think after this last week she's probably going to just spend the evening curled up in bed. Besides, I heard she wasn't feeling well, but that was just something I heard, she hasn’t talked to me in ages.”

Now this did change things. If Brandon wasn't going be there, and the girls weren’t going be there, maybe I could go to the office party. At the very least it might be a good idea to recruit some friendly faces to my side of things just in case things got worse around the office.

“That's good,” I said.

“What's good?”

“That Lizzy and Peyton aren’t going to be there.”

The second it came out of my mouth I knew I had crossed a line.

Angela frowned.

“Why is that a good thing?”

Angela had spoken each word long and slow.

There was no use in hiding it any longer.

“Because they are bitches, and I am not totally convinced that you weren't in on it the whole time either.”

“In on what? What are you talking about?”

“I'm pretty sure you know exactly what I am talking about. Aiden, that weekend, the set up, the whole ‘let's get invited to the back of the restaurant so we can set up the new girl’ game. I figured it all out. Aiden accidentally texted me when he meant to be texting Lizzy. I know about him and Lizzy now.”