Page 33 of All’s Well that Friends Well (Lucky in Love #2)

JULIET

On Thursday Susan Miller—who I’m learning is a jack of all trades, and who I’m secretly hoping will get together with Rod—gets me squared away with the new paperwork I need to change jobs.

She informs me that part of my job will be reporting to Rod about Luca’s progress, since hiring a PR assistant was Rod’s idea in the first place.

I suppress a smile at how Luca will take this news—the news that I’ll basically be tattling on him if he fails to improve.

It would make me feel kind of icky if I didn’t have complete confidence that Luca can change. I’ll get in there and help him, and everything will be great. I know he has a good heart—he just needs some fine-tuning externally.

Susan Miller does not seem to share my excitement. The entire time I’m doing my paperwork, she doesn’t smile—not even once. Like Luca, I think she’s someone who needs to be exposed to persistent sunshine in order to warm up. Luckily, that’s my specialty .

I just see no reason I can’t be friends with everyone who isn’t gross or actively mean. Everyone brings something to the table. Everyone has strengths and talents and wonderful facets of their personalities.

Well—maybe not Quincey Brewer.

He’s been acting very strange the last four days. I see him watching me out of the corner of my eye, but he startles when I look at him, his cheeks turning red, his shoulders curled in, and then he scurries away.

Even the sight of him is enough to bring his words back, ringing in my skull. As a result I haven’t slept well the past several nights, plagued by old anxieties.

I keep telling myself they’re nothing, but those emotions, the intrusive thoughts—they’re loud.

I find myself avoiding reflective surfaces so I won’t fall down the rabbit hole of focusing on my appearance, but when it comes down to it, fixation is fixation.

Thinking about my body in any capacity still feeds the shadows, and it’s starting to wear on me.

The shadows, of course, love when I start spiraling. That’s when I grant them power, when I let them convince me there’s no climbing out of whatever pit I might find myself in. They want me to hide, to wallow in shame, to feel weak and unredeemable.

I’m not sure how to control the shadows.

I don’t know how to control my feelings or the lies my brain has started screaming at me.

I do have a grasp on what behavior is healthy, though, so I follow that light blindly.

I set a timer on my phone and eat when it goes off, healthy foods from the plan I made with my dietitian back in the day.

And for every lie my mind tries to tell me, I counter with a truth.

You need to be perfect .

This life was not meant for perfection. I am flawed like everyone else, and that’s okay.

You’re not good enough.

My worth is inherent, bound in my existence. There is no such thing as “good enough.”

People are judging you.

Their judgments have no impact on my life. Who are they that I should care what they think?

You should be ashamed of yourself and your struggles .

It’s this last one I have problems with. Because I say I don’t believe it; I tell myself I’m not ashamed. But I don’t follow through with my actions.

I hide. I haven’t told my sisters about the things I’ve been through, even though I know they would be my biggest supporters.

Maybe I should tell them. What would they think?

I push all these thoughts away and do my best to focus on my work, just to give my poor mind a break. Then, before I clock out for the day, when my back is aching and my arms are sore, I swing by Luca’s office. There’s no real reason, I guess; I just want to see him.

It felt different yesterday, just briefly—the space between us when he touched my hand by the door. It came alive in a way it only has a few times. And that feeling is still buzzing inside of me.

So I knock three times and wait for the mumbled Come in , after which I waltz inside on feet aching from a pair of heels I haven’t lined with insoles yet.

“Hello,” I say in a singsong voice. “Are you excited to work together next week? It’s going to be great.”

He’s hunched over his desk, his brow furrowed, his glasses pushed low on his nose as he stares at the papers in front of him.

“Sure,” he says distractedly. “Maybe you can help me write a strongly worded email to our Minter location, telling them to please include all seasonal inventory regardless of which quarter they’re reporting in.”

“I could definitely do that,” I say, and it’s true. “I bet I’d be a pro at putting harsh words through a corporate filter.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he says, the words musing now. Then he sighs and leans back in his chair, letting his head tilt back. “Do you need something, Miss Marigold?”

“Yes,” I say. “I need to see your shining face.”

“Pass,” he says flatly. He stands up and rounds the desk, skirting neatly past me and heading to the door. At first I think he’s going to kick me out, but all he does is adjust the blinds so they’re slightly more closed. “You come in here too often. People are going to get the wrong idea.”

“Whatever those wrong ideas are, I’m all on board.”

He shoots me a disapproving look over his shoulder and then turns his attention back to what little of the work floor he can see through the blinds. “Are Josh and Marianne really dating?”

I shrug, settling myself on the couch. “Dating, hooking up, whatever—they’re definitely doing something, though.”

He grunts, a skeptical sound, his eyes still fixed on the work floor. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

“I could be wrong, I guess, but I don’t think so,” I say. I wiggle my feet a bit, trying to ease some of the pain in my heels. “You can tell by the knowing glances, lingering touches, that kind of thing. Their body language, basically.”

He turns around and raises a brow at me, a request to explain further .

I sigh. “People who are physically familiar with each other have a hard time hiding it,” I say.

“They’re used to touching, and it carries over into everything they do.

Even sitting next to each other they’ll be leaning toward each other.

Just watch them sometime when they’re together. You’ll see what I mean.”

“Hmm,” he says, letting the blinds snap back into place. He closes them completely and turns away from the window. “That’s…not great. She’s his direct superior.” Then he returns to his desk, where he sits in his fancy office chair and starts riffling through papers and folders.

“So a superior and subordinate shouldn’t date,” I say thoughtfully. “Does that mean you and I couldn’t date?”

“We probably could, as long as you’re still janitorial,” he says, his voice absent as he continues to shuffle through the things on his desk.

“Josh reports directly to Marianne. But your janitorial work and my work have no overlap. I suppose up the chain you report to me, but our jobs are completely different and unlikely to be impacted by a personal relationship—” He breaks off, probably because he only just now realizes what he’s saying.

Then his head snaps up, his eyes narrowing as his gaze finds mine.

“Juliet,” he growls. “You and I aren’t going to date. ”

“I was just asking,” I say with a shrug, keeping my voice innocent. “No one made you answer.” I hesitate and then add, “So as long as I were a janitor…we could date if we wanted to?”

“We don’t want to,” he says shortly, his eyes dropping back to the papers in front of him.

“What about kissing?” I say. “Could we kiss if we wanted to? ”

His hand freezes for the briefest second before he speaks. “We don’t want to do that, either.”

“Are you sure?” I say. I don’t want to push too hard. But a little bitty nudge…

I wait for him to answer, and when he doesn’t, I speak again. “Because I might want to.”

His entire body is still now; his hand is frozen where it hovers above his desk, just about to pick up another piece of paper, and I can’t even see the rise and fall of his chest.

I think…

I think he’s holding his breath.

So I stand up and drift toward his desk, my hands clasped demurely behind my back.

My steps are slow, measured, because I want to give him time to say no—but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t look up at me or glare at me or push me away, even when I come to a stop right next to his chair. In fact, he doesn’t move at all?—

Until I hop up and sit on his desk, crossing my legs and letting my fingers curl lightly over the edge. His head whips up, his eyes narrowing on me as a muscle tics in his jaw.

“I would very much like to kiss you.”

His brows jump in surprise, and then he sighs—I can tell he’s this close to pinching the bridge of his nose like he does when he’s exasperated. “Do you say every single thing you think?”

“Yes,” I say with a bob of my head, because it’s mostly true. “You should too.”

He scoffs, but the sound isn’t normal; it’s tense, forced, like he’s trying to be casual.

“What about only with me?” I say quickly, leaning forward. “Just with me. Say everything you think.”

“You don’t want to know everything I think, Juliet,” he says, leaning back against the chair’s headrest and looking tired. “My mind is a mess.”

“So is mine,” I insist. I shrug and straighten up, swinging my legs where I still sit on the edge of his desk.

“We all have messy minds. It’s fine.” I pause.

“I want to know,” I tell him. “I want to know the things you think about.” When he starts shaking his head, I go on.

“What about for five minutes? Just for five minutes? I’ll set a clock. And you tell me everything you think.”

When he doesn’t say no, I press forward, grabbing my phone and holding it up. “Look, see? I’m setting an alarm. Five minutes.” I wave it in front of him as his eyes zero in on the device. “See?” Then I set it down next to me on the desk. “Now tell me what you think.”