Page 8 of Love.V2 (Occupational Hazards #2)

Dylan

The baby’s face was half-covered by a pink knitted hat. Its skin was squishy and looked a little orange.

“She’s gorgeous,” I whispered, looking at the little blob on my phone. I couldn’t have picked her out of a lineup, but she was my best friend’s kid and therefore flawless. That’s just how it went.

Mac pulled the phone out of his new daughter’s face, grinning at me with tired eyes. “Put her mama through the ringer. Twenty-seven hours of labor, man. It was brutal.”

Ever since we’d met in college, Mac had been more than my best friend. He was family. There was something sappy and satisfying about watching him settle on the edge of the hospital bed where his wife, Lexi, cradled the newest member of their family.

“Couldn’t tell. Lex, you look beautiful.

” She looked like she’d just pushed out a baby without sleeping for a whole day, but, again, it was just one of those things.

Besides, they had this contented, quiet glow hanging around them.

The three of them, sitting close together after all the frenzy that went into bringing a baby into the world.

I rubbed at my chest.

“Liar, I look like shit. Alright, enough about us. How’s it going with Tess? Have you seen her yet? ”

I paced across the orange Jinx carpet, letting out a grunt. “Yeah. I saw her.”

“And? How did it go? How does she look?”

I peered out the window, looking at the Chicago skyline without really seeing it. How did she look? Perfect. Even totally petrified and avoiding my gaze, seeing her had made my gut clench up. Her blue eyes, soft cheeks, thin nose…The face of my favorite person in the world.

Then I remembered her expression when I’d walked into Eric’s office. The tears. The bright anger. I winced. “She looked good. We didn’t get a chance to talk.”

She had run away. Again.

I tried not to blame her. I could tell from the second I’d walked into that conference room she hadn’t been prepared to see me.

That was all part of the plan, I reminded myself.

Keep my visit to Jinx hush-hush so she didn’t have time to bail before I even walked through the door. I’d told myself it was the right move.

But then I’d seen the shock splashed across her features. Maybe even a little panic, too, and I’d known I had to be careful, play it cool. I’d practically ignored her, which was ridiculous. I could be in a coma and still pinpoint exactly where she was in the room.

“Well, get on it, Morris. Auntie Tess needs to come meet her new niece,” Lexi huffed.

Since the day Mac had started dating Lexi, it was like she’d always been part of our group.

They had mourned the loss of my relationship with Tess almost as much as I had, and I knew they were hurt by how she’d left—quietly, out of nowhere, without saying goodbye .

I’d heard there were five stages of grief, but there were only three when I lost Tess.

Desperation. Countless phone calls that always went to voicemail. Undeliverable texts. Half-formed prayers that this would all be some bizarre dream and life would go back to the way it was.

Anger. She was just going to throw our whole life away? Everything we’d built? I’d stopped calling.

Finally, the gut-wrenching realization that I’d have left me, too.

Noticing just how much time I spent at the office.

How little attention I gave to my family and the people I loved.

One revelation snowballed into hundreds, and I had spent months in an avalanche of guilt and regrets.

Until the only thing keeping my head above it all, keeping me sane, was the knowledge that I could be better. For her.

I could show her I’d changed, win her back. If only she’d let me.

“Dylan has a plan, babe. He always does,” Mac said. “What’s the play, man? Flowers? Groveling? Finally getting down on one knee?”

“I’m, uh, going to ambush her in her office.

” I glanced around the bookshelves, looking at the items so familiar they may as well have been mine.

The brass frames that had once held pictures of us now held tiny watercolor prints.

The ceramic pen cup she’d made in college.

Her color theory books displayed in the same chromatic order they always had been.

It had taken about two days without Tess for me to realize those books had been the only splash of color in the whole house.

“That’s the plan?” Mac sounded incredulous, which was fair.

“That’s the plan.” Granted, it wasn’t romantic or over the top, but it was all I had at the moment.

She’d practically sprinted out of Eric’s office after he’d told her I was going to be Jinx’s CEO.

Then she’d come down with a very convenient and unspecified illness and hadn’t showed up at work for two days.

I knew because I’d spent each morning in her office, pacing, staring at those frames, and waiting.

I’d do it again today, and the next day, and the next, if I had to. I wasn’t letting her run away again. This morning, though, I had an extra ace up my sleeve.

“If you’re sure…”

I wasn’t sure of anything. All I knew was that six months without her was six months too long. Losing Tess had been the wake-up call of a lifetime, and I needed to show her I wasn’t the man she’d left. Not anymore.

The door to her office opened and there she was. Her eyes widened, mouth popping open into a lush, surprised “o” when she saw me standing there. Our eyes connected. Lightning struck.

I’d missed that.

“Hi,” I said.

Her gaze darted around the room like she was looking for an escape route. I held out my phone before she could make a run for it. “Lex had her baby. It’s a girl.”

“She…a girl?” Tess stared down at our friends’ faces. “Lexi?”

“Tess, look at my new baby!” Lex squealed, wrestling the phone away from Mac.

“Whoa, careful, babe, you just popped out a kid. Lay back down, Jesus.” Mac sounded alarmed as Lexi flipped the camera to show the baby’s little squishy face .

“Oh, Lex, you got your girl!” A breathless smile spread across Tess’s face as she took the phone from my hands. Sparks danced across my palm where her fingers brushed. I peered at her, wondering if she felt it, too, but she was too enraptured by the baby.

“I know!” Lexi crowed. “Three boys and I’m finally done. When the nurse comes back in, I’m going to ask her to rip my uterus out.”

Tess’s laugh rippled through my veins. “Does this gorgeous, smart, strong little girl have a name?”

Mac pretended to scowl. “I tried to convince Lex to go for Beer Angel, after her aunt, but we compromised on Annabelle.”

“Annabelle Beer Angel McCarthy. What a superstar,” Tess whispered, beaming down at the camera. My heart lurched.

Being in the same room with her was bad enough, but watching Tess talk with our friends and coo over their baby was like pouring salt in a six-month-old wound that wouldn’t close.

“She’s amazing. Congratulations.” Tess glanced up at me with a glowing smile that nearly knocked my feet out from under me. When was the last time I’d seen her smile ?

I tried to reciprocate, but the instant her eyes met mine, she faltered, like she had only just remembered this wasn’t part of her life anymore.

“Sorry to hijack your call. Um, give those kiddos a squeeze when you see them, alright?” She passed the phone back without waiting to hear what they replied.

“Dylan?” On the screen, Lexi and Mac wore matching expressions of confusion. Hurt.

“Yeah, listen, I have to go. Tell that baby girl to give her brothers hell. Text me when you’re out of the hospital.” We exchanged goodbyes that I barely paid attention to, my focus squarely on the woman slipping into the office chair behind her desk, rubbing at her chest like it ached.

“They don’t say it out loud, but they miss you,” I said, sinking into the chair across from her, watching her shoulders bunch up to her ears. She probably wanted to curl up under her desk and hide.

“Save the guilt trip, please. I miss them, too, but…” Her soft voice trailed as her gaze shifted around the room. She fidgeted. “It just is what it is.”

“I don’t get a say in what it is?”

She practically deflated. “If you’re here to yell at me over how I left…”

“I’m not here to yell, Tess. I understand why you left, and even why you did it the way you did.

” At least I thought I did. I perpetually hoped the reason she’d disappeared without a word was because, deep down, she still loved me.

And that last shred of faith was sometimes all I had to hang onto these days.

Because if she still loved me, even a little, maybe I still had a chance.

“What are you doing here?” She sounded so small, staring down at her Jinx mouse pad, I wanted to gather her up in my arms. I folded my hands in my lap, instead.

“I’m here to talk with you.”

A breath caught in her throat. The smallest scoff known to man. “I mean here in Chicago.”

“I’m here to talk. With you.”

Her chest rose and fell as she stared blankly down at her desk some more. Her brow furrowed and finally, she glanced up at me. “You gave up a nearly guaranteed CEO position at Worther, picked up your life, and moved to Chicago to work at Jinx just to talk?”

“Yes.”

Her face didn’t change, but I was the world’s leading expert on deciphering her silent, blank stares.

She didn’t believe me. I reached into the bag I’d brought in, pulling a cup from the drink holder inside, along with a paper-wrapped bundle.

“Here. I know me being here is a lot, and you don’t eat when you’re anxious. ”

Her head shook. “I can’t do this. Whatever…this is.” She stared at my offering like she’d never seen a latte before. “This is where I work, and you being here is a lot and…and I have a meeting with Eric in a few minutes, anyway.”

There she went, running again. Avoiding this, as if I’d magically disappear if she dodged my gaze for long enough. But she was going to have to be a little more intentional if she wanted me to leave for good.