Mondays (The Wait Book 2)

by Harper Bentley

  You.

  You!

  NOW.

  Get your ass to work.

  Dammit! You looked again.

  STOP. IT.

  You looked again!

  Oh, shit! He’s here!

  The fox is on the move! REPEAT! THE FOX IS ON THE MOVE! CUT TO COMMERCIAL!

  I turned quickly back to the ledger I had opened on the table before me and pretended to be working, acting as if I didn’t just get caught looking at Beck’s office. Out of which Beck was walking. And heading toward me. And totally had seen me looking at him.

  Shit. Shit. Shit!

  And don’t think I wasn’t a teensy bit worried that I’d just parleyed with myself inside my own freaking head.

  God.

  There was a light knock then the swish of the glass door being opened—whoever the hell thought all this glass was a good idea was a dumbass—then Beck cleared his throat.

  I put my finger on the ledger as if marking my place and slowly turned to look up at him, eyebrows raised in question as if I couldn’t be bothered.

  Nice recovery!

  Shut up!

  Ugh.

  Camera pans to Mr. Cool and Laidback as he states, “Good morning.”

  Oh. My. God. Stop acting like he’s a guest on your show!

  And even though I was losing it—yay—I still noticed that stupid sexy voice of his, not to mention the smirk he was flaunting that told me he absolutely knew I’d been looking for him.

  “’Morning,” I mumbled nonchalantly, turning back to my work and not paying one lick of attention to the fact that I’d gone bonkers or how good he looked in the white button-down shirt with blue pinstripes, navy tie and navy slacks he wore. Ergh.

  In my defense, I’d only seen him in casual clothing like jeans and plaid shirts over t-shirts when we’d first been together, so seeing him in business clothes was new. And I hated that he looked so good in them.

  “So, how’s it going?” he asked.

  I flashed my eyes up to see him nod at the ledger.

  Okay, seriously? What was his deal? Did he think we were just supposed to forget everything that’d happened between us and be buddies now and just chitchat away?

  I looked back down, turned the page and muttered, “Fine.”

  It was during the awkward silence as I tried convincing myself to breathe and focus on work, that I found a mistake—a three-thousand-dollar mistake in payroll, which wasn’t much, but still—and had to turn the page back then forward again to check the date. I made a note that the error occurred on the 25th of April four years ago, and turning several more pages, I found the 25th of May with the same mistake. I kept going and saw it again the next two months. Holy shit! I was sure I was on to something! I felt my heart start to beat faster at the prospect of finding the problem, which made me feel alive, as if I actually served a purpose. And this was why I loved what I did. That rush of adrenaline was like I was participating in extreme accounting and it felt great!

  I’d totally forgotten Beck was even in the room until he spoke. “What’d you find?”

  “When does your payroll go out?” I asked excitedly as I kept turning pages.

  “What?” Beck asked.

  I looked up at him restating, “When do employees get paid?”

  His look was questioning. “On the fifteenth and the end of each month. Why?”

  I stopped what I was doing then because this was really none of his business, and his being there was keeping me from doing my job. I drew in a breath and let it out slowly before asking, “What do you need, Beck?” I didn’t say it in a mean way. I just needed him to go.

  I watched him nervously run his hand down his tie noticing he wasn’t wearing his wedding band, which, whatever. Then he pursed his lips as if he wasn’t sure what to say which made the dimple at the left side of his mouth show, and I quickly looked away with a frown.

  “I, uh, I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry about everything, Birdie.”

  Staring at the ledger in front of me, I nodded. He’d done exactly what Jaden had said he’d do: he apologized. So looking up, I gave him a somber smile, knowing this was it. We were good now. “Thank you.”

  A sudden sadness swept over me because after two years of waiting for closure, I finally got it but nothing had changed. My heart wasn’t all, “Welp, thank God that’s over! Time to move on and live your life!”

  I still loved him.

  But my goal now was to stop.

  I sighed heavily thinking how love was so much like taking a breath. When love is strong and vital and present, our breathing is deep and full and vibrant. We’re alive. And we love. But without it, we gasp, we choke, we wheeze. We long for the air to save us, to make us whole, to fill our souls. We hope. We wait. And we exist.

  I’d been existing for two years. It was time to start living.

  I began looking at numbers again but when he didn’t leave, I delivered an eyebrows-raised glance back up at him, all, Anything else? I wasn’t trying to be rude, but come on. He’d broken my heart, he’d apologized so what more could he want. Jeez.

  “Do you think we could, um, maybe if you’re not busy today, we could get, you know, maybe have lunch?” he stammered. When I narrowed my eyes at him, he needlessly clarified, “Together. Can we get lunch together…” His last word faded off because I’m sure the look I was then giving him wasn’t very nice, probably leaning more toward irked with a side of are you freaking crazy?! I supposed.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I answered quietly, shaking my head.

  He nodded slowly, eyes on mine as he pressed his lips together again, making that damned dimple reappear. “Oh. Okay. Well, maybe sometime this week?” Before I could tell him no, he declared, “I’ll be in my office if you change your mind.”

  I shrugged not knowing what else to say then jerked my head back in surprise when he grinned. Why the hell was he grinning? I hadn’t agreed to anything. Then my shocked expression immediately turned to a scowl because he winked at me. Fricking winked! What in the world? Before I could ask him what that was all about, he’d left the boardroom.

  Twisting to look over my left shoulder, I frowned as I watched him head back to his office—a walk that wasn’t one of a dejected man at all. Nope, he looked pretty upbeat, stopping to chat with a couple people in their cubicles, looking so happy and pleased that I was kind of waiting for him to do that leprechaun heel kick thing as if everything was just A-OK.

  But I had things to research, so I got back to work, again getting excited at what I’d found.

  Well, that was an odd encounter, wasn’t it, Birdie?

  “Oh, shut up,” I grumbled and started writing down more dates and more missing funds.

  Chapter 10—Beck

  Birdie could act like she was mad at me all she wanted but I knew I’d gotten through to her.

  At least I thought I had. Or hoped. Yeah, hoped was more like it.

  Still, as I walked back to my office I knew something had shifted between us, as if she didn’t hate me as much as she had yesterday. I wanted to do a fist pump and yell, “Hell yes!” but I maintained my sangfroid considering her hating me less than the day before wasn’t really a win, since 100% hatred dropping to 99.99% wasn’t cause for a huge celebration.

  But the fact that I’d caught her looking for me when I’d gotten to work was big and made me feel like I still stood a chance with her. Not that I was all in for a relationship right now. Hell no. I’d be going through a fucking divorce ASAP and had no plans of jumping into anything other than a friendship with her. For now.

  Damn, who was a cocky SOB? This guy. Thing is, though, I had managed to maybe make a .01% dent in her I despise you factor, so there was that. Also, I’d never stopped loving her. And I wasn’t going to give up without a fight because, in the immortal words of the great heavy metal rock band Tesla, “Love will find a way.” Cheesy? Yep. Words to live by? You bet.

  Inside my office, I sat at my desk and
logged onto my computer picking up where I’d left off yesterday. Looking over the twelve bids I’d gotten from different vendors for packaging, then crunching some numbers, I made a call and set up the order. Next, I pulled up apartment listings knowing I’d be moving out soon so Tech Guy could move in with my wife. Christ. Life sure throws some serious shade at the worst fucking times.

  It was then I remembered I needed to call my folks and let them know.

  “Hey, son, what’s up?” Dad answered.

  I proceeded to tell him everything, listening to his tsk’ing at the appropriate moments and his contrite “Damn” at the end.

  “I’m really sorry. I know you gave it your all, but sometimes things just aren’t meant to be,” he consoled.

  I couldn’t help the snort I let out because Dad had vehemently championed my giving Sonya a chance after finding out about her addiction and cheating, coaching me to “Let it go for now” and “Get her healthy” stating, “You love her and it can be fixed.” Hearing him finally give up was a fucking relief.

  “Thanks, Dad. I’ll call Mom later. And I’ve got some vacation time coming up, so I might fly out to Indiana to see you guys.”

  “We’d love that, Beck. Yes, your mother would want to hear this from you, so a call tonight would be good.”

  Just as I hung up a message appeared on my computer.

  Conversation from: Fulton Hartford

  To: Beck Griffin

  Fulton Hartford (Jan 5, 11:28 a.m.): Griffin, I need you to stop by my office before you leave tonight

  Fulton Hartford was the company’s Chief Operating Officer, second only to Kurt Fleishman, the CEO. I read his message and felt my heart rate speed up as memories of my high school days and getting called into the principal’s office for doing some dipstick shit came racing back.

  Beck Griffin (Jan 5, 11:29 a.m.): Yes, sir. I’ll swing by on my way out

  I racked my brain wondering what the fuck I’d done but couldn’t come up with anything that would merit my being fired. So, sucking it up like a man—that’s more sarcasm right there—I decided to get the hell out of there, leaving for lunch so I could think some more on it.

  On the way out of my office, I turned toward the boardroom to see that Joel was standing over Birdie who was sitting at the table looking down as she flipped pages, glancing up at him every so often to explain, I gathered. Hm. She’d asked me about payroll earlier, and I wondered what she’d found.

  When I’d first started with Fleishman, I’d introduced a plan of combining several factory positions along with adding new machinery, explaining to Mr. Hartford that doing so would save the company over a million dollars per year. I’d felt bad that people might be laid off, but he’d assured me that with the way the company was growing, more jobs would be available for them in the new plants that would be opening. He’d then had me present my ideas to Mr. Fleishman who’d gotten behind my project wholeheartedly, and from that point, I was included in a shit ton of budget meetings; therefore, I’d known a forensic accountant—never once imagining it’d be Birdie—would be coming in this week after Joel, Linda, Larry Carson from payroll and I had met, and they’d reported some discrepancies in the books.

  I decided to leave Birdie to her work and left, taking a cab to get lunch.

  Back at the office, I saw that Birdie was still hard at work, which was what I was hoping for because it meant she hadn’t eaten yet.

  After hanging my coat in my office, I got her a soda then carried the bag I’d brought back from lunch to the boardroom. When I went in, she was concentrating so much on the figures she was writing down that she hadn’t heard me come in, so when I set everything on the table in front of her she yelped, pushed her chair away, stood up then smacked me on the chest.

  “You scared the shit out of me!” she scolded.

  Fucking cute.

  I grinned as I pulled a box from the Junior’s bag and opened it to display the huge Reuben sandwich inside, letting the smell waft through the room.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered, ogling the sandwich and licking her lips. Christ. I was staring at her when her eyes met mine. “You know Carnegie’s closed,” she said sadly.

  I nodded. “But,” I grabbed another box from the bag as I spoke, setting it on the table and opening the lid slowly, “since this sandwich was around half of Carnegie’s price, you also get this.” Birdie’s eyes went huge at the very large piece of chocolate mousse cheesecake, and I had to purse my lips to keep from cracking up at the look of awe on her face. Grabbing a napkin from the bag, I handed it to her and teased, “You might wanna wipe away the drool.”

  She absentmindedly took the napkin as she gawked at all I’d set on the table. Then she frowned. “This is for me?”

  “Yep. Thought you might be hungry.”

  “Oh.” She looked perplexed for a moment then suddenly grabbing her purse from the chair next to hers, proposed, “Let me pay you.”

  I held my hands up to stop her. “Nope. My treat. Enjoy.” I turned and left the room before she could argue or even pull her wallet from her purse.

  I knew bringing her lunch was a very small gesture, but I’d truly felt terrible about the way things had gone between us before. So if doing some special things helped repair the damage I’d done, I was all for it.

  Besides, I figured that cheesecake had to have brought her hatred level down to at least 98%.

  Chapter 11—Birdie

  I didn’t know what was up with Beck.

  If he was just trying to be friendly, fine. But if he had any other ideas, I was going to put the kibosh on them, STAT. I’d been flying single for over two years now and didn’t have any false delusions of things working out between us.

  I will say this, though. That cheesecake was so freaking good, if it’d been used as a peace offering between Joan and Bette or Taylor or Katy or Mariah and, well, everybody, their feuds would’ve ended immediately. Of course, then one probably would’ve accused the other of trying to make her fat and they’d have been right back into the thick of it.

  Anyway, after eating a third of the huge sandwich then two bites of the cheesecake, I was stuffed. I now sat looking off into space held captive by the food coma I was in. Of course, my brain kept going, as usual, and I continued wondering what Beck’s angle was here. What the heck was his strategy?

  My analytical mind broke it down like this:

  Apologies

  Yesterday he’d attempted a lame apology

  Today he’d sincerely apologized

  I assumed we were now square

  Life would move on as it had

  Bewilderments

  He’d brought me a fabulous lunch

  Tangible apology?

  Emotional blackmail?

  He wasn’t wearing his wedding ring

  What was that all about?

  Why did my persnicketiness insist that my mental outline be parallel, making me add a “b” here?

  Mentally rolling my eyes at myself, I snapped out of my musings and proceeded to put the food boxes back into the bag which I then put in the refrigerator in the employee lounge that was next door. Going back to the boardroom, I blew out a breath then opened the books and fired up the laptop to continue with my findings.

  Beck had said employees were paid bi-monthly, and as I’d checked each pay period for every month starting in August four years ago, the numbers again didn’t match up. I’m talking to the tune of one-point-three-million dollars here. I’d informed Linda I’d seen errors in payroll and expense, so she’d gotten me the payroll register and tons of receipts. Somebody had been cooking the shit out of these accounts and I was going to nail them.

  Almost four hours later, I’d made it halfway through the payroll register, having checked over six-hundred employees’ salary records. Nothing. But I felt it. I knew something big was coming. I’d stood and was stretching my back when Joel came in.

  “Knock, knock,” he said. “How’s it coming along?”

  “H
ey, Joel,” I greeted, turning toward him. “It’s getting there. I’ve narrowed down a couple areas where I see some errors.” At his raised eyebrows, I explained. “Payroll, an expense account and I think maybe a couple employee assignment problems.”

  “Such as?”

  I picked up my soda can and took a drink. “I’m still looking through payroll, but I’ve seen some possible inflated expenditures and I think maybe some employees have been wrongfully identified as 1099s.”

  “Good work, Birdie. I knew hiring you was a good idea,” he affirmed. “Oh, my wife Yasmine is here and wants to meet you.” He nodded toward the front of the office. “She said anyone with similar shoe choices has to be amazing.” He chuckled.

  Turning my head with a smile, I had to do a double take because a very gorgeous, very exotic looking dark-haired woman was talking to Beck and had her hand on his chest. When she reached up and straightened his tie as she talked then cupped the side of his jaw with her hand after, I turned back to Joel, eyes wide.

  “She’s like a momma bear,” he shared, grinning and shaking his head.

  Huh.

  Where he saw momma bear, I saw cougar. We definitely had the animal kingdom covered, though, didn’t we?

  I turned my head again and watched as Yasmine took Beck’s hand and led him our way.

  “She certainly is friendly,” I muttered, observing the way Joel’s wife and Beck talked and laughed on their trek to the boardroom. In an effort to act unfazed by their amicable actions, I took another drink, but the pang of jealousy I suddenly felt totally caught me off guard, and the breath I sucked in at that realization had me immediately choking.

  “Yes, she really is,” Joel agreed then noticing my dilemma asked, “Are you okay?” I couldn’t answer or protest when he proceeded to whap me on the back with his palm several times.

  “I’m fine,” I finally gasped between coughs, thankful at least that Diet Coke hadn’t come spewing out of my nose.