Page 7 of Chasing the Sun

Brandt attempted to look stricken, and I imagined freezing his balls off with an icy glare.

They both talked over each other, trying to placate me. “It was a mistake,” she said as he mumbled, “A while.”

Humiliated. The word rattled around in my chest as my cheeks flamed.

“I thought I could surprise you. I brought you lunch.” He weakly lifted a brown paper sack and had the audacity to smile at me.

My molars clenched as I fought back tears. “Well ...” I huffed a humorless laugh. “Color me surprised. And fuck off with your lunch. This is over.” I turned toward the door.

“Ellie, I’m so sorry,” Amy started, but I whipped around, my finger pointed directly at her.

“Don’t.” I swallowed back the betrayal with bile hot on its heels. “I can’t even look at you.”

The genuine hurt that flashed across her face was an ice pick to my heart. I lifted my chin. “I quit.”

I glanced at Brandt as a fresh wave of embarrassment washed over me. My stomach grumbled, and my eyes landed on the brown paper bag, still in his hand. I reached forward, snatching it out of his grasp with more force than necessary.

“Ellie, there’s no need to quit. You’re being asked to step down,” Amy called to my back as I pushed through the office door.

I spun on my heels, eyes slicing toward her. “What?”

Amy lifted her chin. Her eyes took on an icy glare. “Look, I didn’t want to do this here—and certainly not in this way—but you’re leaving me no choice. You’re amazing, there’s no denying that, but sometimes ...” Her eyes darted away.

“No, go ahead.” My hands planted on my hips. “Say it.”

Her eyes were sharp when they met mine. “You’re one hell of a closer, but you’re also kind of a flake. I need someone who can follow through, not just get excited about the next project.”

Guess now I know why the business card was declined.

The truth in her words stung more than I wanted them to, embarrassment flooding my system.

I bit back hot tears as her eyes pleaded with mine. “You’ll get a nice severance package, I promise.”

Pushing open the door, I looked around the office space—the officewehad built from the ground up after college. As expected, we’d drawn quite the audience, and they scampered back to their desks without making eye contact.

My shoes pinched my toes as I stomped toward the exit. I held out my arm, clutching the brown bag like I could strangle it, before opening my fist and letting it drop onto Mel’s desk. “That’s lunch for you. Please know that the next few sentences out of my mouth are not directed at you.”

My chin lifted as I glared at Amy. “I don’t want anything from you.” I turned, raising my arm high above my head, my middle finger on full display. “Everyone here sucks! Consider this my resignation letter, assholes. Signed, sealed, and aggressively delivered.”

I sank deeperinto a buttery leather chair.

The apartment view was perfect. Or at least that was what I had told myself.

Below me, the city stretched out in a tangle of lights, glittering in the early-summer dusk—all sharp angles, penthouse rooftops, and the kind of expensive cocktail bars where you paid twenty bucks for a drink that barely got you buzzed. It was the kind of view that should’ve made me feel successful.

Instead, it felt like staring at something that didn’t quite belong to me.

The apartment had never really felt like mine either. A year ago, I had moved in with Brandt because it was the logical next step, not because I actually saw a future here. The cold modern furniture, the sleek gray countertops, the obnoxiously expensive coffee maker that required an engineering degree to operate—it was all veryhis.

I swirled the wineglass in my hand, watching deep-red legs crawl down the crystal. It was some ridiculously expensive merlot—a thank-you gift from a client who assumed my life was as put-together as my Instagram grid made it seem.

Fake it till you make it, right?

I exhaled, rolling my shoulders, trying to shake off the exhaustion curling at the edges of my mind. A very specific kind of exhaustion—the kind that comes from knowing your bank account is holding on for dear life, but you still hitadd to cartwith reckless abandon.

The kind that whispers maybe happiness wasn’t about money, but also, money would sure as hell make happiness easier.

I reached for my phone again, scrolling mindlessly.