Page 5 of October (New Orleans #10)

“I ’ve issued all the new-hire laptops,” Levi said. “And we’re down to three in the inventory. Should we order more?”

“How many new hires do we have scheduled so far for the rest of the month?” Finley asked.

“According to the list from HR, we’ve got ten more this month. And we don’t have any upcoming departures yet that I know of, so we can’t use any old laptops.”

Finley stared at him for a minute, waiting for him to get where she already was when he said that they only had three left in stock but had ten new hires starting soon.

“So, you’ll order more?” he asked.

“We do have three people who have put in their notice and have their last days next week. I just got that news. We also got George’s and Martin’s computers back yesterday, so that’s five.

I’ll need you and Rusty to get those ready.

I’ll order another five to get us ahead, in case we have more than ten coming in, and because we get a discount at five, but I want to wait to do a bigger order until the end of the quarter, once I see how our numbers shape up.

We always get an influx of new hires at the beginning of the year and tend to lose people at corporate toward the end. ”

“Right. Cool. So, you’ll order them?” he asked.

Finley nodded, and Levi walked off to get back to work.

“He’s…” Molly began.

“Yeah, the common sense and process stuff isn’t Levi’s thing, but he’s a brilliant technician.

I’ve never seen someone work as fast as he does, and it’s always done right.

He builds gaming computers on the side and sells them.

I think he makes enough money supporting himself just by doing that, but he likes the work here. ”

“We actually have twelve new hires,” Molly shared.

“We had to add a couple more yesterday. Now that we’re expanding into new states, we need more HR reps and a few district managers.

Plus, I just heard that we promoted someone from the store to take Andrew’s old job.

They didn’t have a computer when they were making coffee, so they’ll need one. ”

“Well, sitting next to you continues to be a good choice,” Finley noted and glanced at the spreadsheet with the names of the upcoming hires on it. “I only have ten here.”

“They’ll update that by the end of the day. Stacey does it before she goes home every day, whenever there’s something to add.”

Finley smiled over at her and said, “Thanks. That saves me from having to do another order.”

Molly shrugged a shoulder like it was nothing and went back to work.

Finley went to the needed website and used the password her old manager had left behind for her. She had only done this a couple of times before, since this had been Martin’s job, but it was simple enough.

“Hey, are either of those newbies not on this list yet in marketing or design?” she asked Molly.

“No, just HR and management. Why?”

“They get different computers,” she said as she entered the number of laptops she needed to buy. “They get different monitors, too.”

“They do? I don’t think I’ve ever noticed.”

“Yeah, they get the good stuff,” Finley explained. “They get the ones that are color-calibrated. Some want the curved monitors, but I have two of those in stock already.”

“And I get the crappy monitor that blinks at me?”

Finley turned and asked, “It does what now?”

Molly looked over at her and said, “You know, blinks.”

She then blinked her eyes several times in a row, causing Finley to laugh because it was pretty cute.

“It goes out in short bursts?”

“Is that what the techy people call it?”

Finley stood up and said, “It’s probably the cable. I’ll try different ports, and if that doesn’t fix it, I’ll grab you a new cable. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I’d have to fill out a ticket. That’s about twenty steps and takes forever. It’s fine. It only happens a few times a day.”

Finley bent down and found a new HDMI cable in her supply crate. She laughed at Molly because it seemed just like her to deal with a monitor going out instead of filling out an IT ticket.

“Can you stand up for a second, and I’ll take a look?”

“You don’t have to. I didn’t fill out a request.”

“I’ll do that for you later,” Finley said as Molly stood. “Give me just a minute, and we’ll see if it’s the monitor.”

“Okay,” Molly replied, moving aside.

Finley switched the existing HDMI cable into the second port on the monitor and stood back, waiting to see if the blinking happened again.

“How many times is it really happening?”

“Huh?”

“Molls, you said it was a few times a day. My guess is that you’re downplaying that.”

“Oh, yeah.” Molly laughed. “A few times an hour.”

The monitor blinked at Finley as if on cue.

“So, not the port,” she concluded and went to unwrap the new cable and plug it in after removing the old one.

She wrapped the old one as she watched the monitor to see if it would blink again.

“Nothing yet, but if it does it again, let me know. I have another monitor in the server room that we can try. If that doesn’t work, I’ll check all your settings, and we’ll see what the problem is.

Sorry, some of this is a process. We’ve got to rule everything out before they let us order something expensive like a new monitor or laptop. ”

“That’s okay,” Molly replied and smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“Will you promise not to suffer in silence and tell me if it keeps doing it, please?”

“I feel like a blinking monitor is a first-world problem, and I can deal with it. It always comes back up.”

“Until one day, when it doesn’t and you’re out a monitor,” Finley said and sat back down at her desk.

“True,” Molly agreed and returned to her chair. “Do I need to put in that ticket so that you don’t get in trouble for the cable?”

Finley laughed and said, “No, we have about a thousand of these.” She held up the old cable.

“And we buy them in bulk. It’s probably the cheapest thing I can replace, but I’ll put the ticket in for you anyway so that there’s a record.

That way, if we do need to replace something more expensive, we have proof that we tried everything else first.”

Finley watched as Molly’s smile widened, but she didn’t know what she had done to deserve it.

She’d only replaced a cable and offered to put the ticket in for Molly, which was easier for her to do herself since she lived in the system and could mark the ticket as complete all at once.

Then, she caught something out of the corner of her eye and turned, noticing India walking by, and she was alone.

“I’ll be right back,” she said to Molly, not wanting to go but needing to talk to her ex. “Hey,” she half-yelled.

India stopped walking, smiled at her, and said, “Hey.”

“Can we talk?”

“Sure. I’ve got a minute,” India replied and nodded at the empty conference room next to them.

“Yeah, okay,” Finley agreed reluctantly.

She didn’t really want to do this in a see-through conference room, but it was better than going somewhere alone with her ex, where India might try to talk her out of it and get her way.

Finley followed her inside, and India sat down in one of the chairs, placing her phone and laptop on the conference table.

Finley didn’t want to sit down, so she closed the door and remained standing next to it.

“I didn’t get your key back,” she said, taking India’s key out of her pocket and placing it down on the table. “There’s yours.”

“The key? That’s what this is about?”

“And your stuff. I have your stuff. I put it in a box.”

“You put my stuff in a box? Finley, I have more than a box worth of stuff there.”

“There are a couple of boxes, but I left the clothes in my closet hanging up for now so that they don’t wrinkle and stuff. I know you hate that. They’re in that garment bag you left there, so you can just grab that, too.”

“Slow down,” India said. “Will you sit?”

“I’m good.”

“Finley, I’m not going to jump your bones, if that’s what you’re worried about. We’re at work. Just sit down, please.”

Finley looked out the glass and noticed Molly looking at them. Molly quickly turned, pretending to tie her shoe, which made Finley laugh. She pulled out the chair and sat.

“Can we talk about this later?” India suggested. “Like, this weekend. I can come over and we can talk.”

“We just talked the other day. What is left to talk about? I think we dissected our entire relationship.”

“I can cook. I’ll make you that pasta dish you love that I can’t stand,” India said, laughing a little. “The one where you add extra butter even though the sauce has butter in it.”

“My mom makes it like that,” Finley said.

“I know, babe,” India said, smiling at her.

“I know that because I know you . I know your family and how your mom used to cook for you after really long days at work. She’d add extra butter, ketchup, cheese, and everything else to whatever you wanted to try to make up for not being home all the time because she worked odd shifts. ”

Finley swallowed as she thought back to her childhood.

Raised by a single mother and being the older sister hadn’t been easy on her, but she never complained.

Her mom did the best she could, and while she missed a lot of stuff, she did what she could to make it up to them.

Sometimes, there were cheap stuffed animals that she would pick up at a gas station on the way home, or a candy bar that she’d grab for them to share.

Other times, she would cook them dinner and let them have whatever they wanted in it, like extra butter, because she couldn’t afford dessert or much else.

“Can you come over to get your stuff?” Finley said when her thoughts returned to the present. “You can let yourself in and just leave your key when you go. You can lock the door without it.”

“You’re not going to be there?” India asked.

“Probably better that I’m not,” she said.

“If you think that, then I’ll leave my stuff there, Fin.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Babe, it means that it’s not over, then. You’re worried that we’ll end up in bed again if we’re alone. You’re worried that we’ll have sex because it’s not over with us, like it never really is.”

“We ended up in bed the other night and didn’t sleep together,” Finley noted.

“You opened the door to the bathroom topless, and I saw you looking at my boobs when I took off my shirt, Fin.”

“They’re boobs,” Finley argued. “I always look at boobs when I can.”

“Yes.” India laughed. “You’re definitely a boob girl.”

Finley smiled because that was true, and India knew that about her better than anyone.

“This weekend, let’s talk, Finley. We can go to a restaurant or just take a walk or something, if you want us to be in public.”

“What do we still have to talk about, India?”

“There’s always something to talk about with us.”

“But there’s not because we’re not together, India. It’s over. I think it’s best if we finally go our separate ways.”

“Fin, we never go our separate ways. We always get back together.” India leaned forward toward her. “I haven’t dated anyone else in years, even when you and I were broken up, because I knew it was just a break and we would end up back together. I know you haven’t dated anyone else, either.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Finley hadn’t officially dated anyone, but she had slept with two different women during a couple of their longer breaks.

She had met a woman at a bar one night, and they’d had a few hours together before she’d gone home.

The other woman, she had been with a few times before calling it quits just before she got back with India.

She wasn’t sure if India was referring to sex or just dating someone, but she wasn’t going to bring that up.

She didn’t want to hurt India. She did want this conversation to be over, though.

“India, I–”

“Just give it a week, and we’ll see where we are, okay?” India asked, standing up and grabbing her stuff. “Keep that.” She pointed to the key Finley had left on the table for her.

“India, come on; take your key back.”

“It’s silly. You’ll need it, even if it’s just to get your stuff from my place, Fin. Just hold on to it until you’ve done that, if nothing else. It’s practical.”

“Fine,” she replied and stood.

She tucked the key back in her pocket, not wanting to argue when anyone on the floor could walk past and see them right now.

“I’ll call you later,” India said before turning around as if she were about to kiss Finley goodbye.

Finley stood there frozen, not wanting the kiss but not being able to move, either.

“Shit. Sorry.” India took a step back, shaking her head. “Habit.”

“Yeah,” Finley replied.

“We’re in the office.”

‘And also not together anymore,’ Finley thought to herself.

“I’ll call you,” India added.

Finley tried to speak up that a phone call wasn’t necessary, but India was gone before she could get the words out, and Finley stood there a little in shock because she had had two goals with this conversation.

She’d wanted her key back and for India to have her own key returned to her, and she’d wanted India to come by and get her stuff.

She had stuff at India’s place, too, but it was mainly just toiletries and some clothes that India had borrowed to sleep in from time to time.

She might have had a few more things there, but if she did, she couldn’t even remember what, which meant those things weren’t that important to her anyway, so she had been prepared to tell India to keep everything or donate it if needed.

It was moments like this that Finley was glad they had never moved in together.

They’d been close a couple of times but never took the plunge.

It hadn’t always been her holding back. Sometimes, India hadn’t been ready, either, but most of the time, it had been Finley suggesting that they not do that until things were more stable between them. She supposed now, they’d never be.

“Everything okay?” Molly asked when Finley sat down at her desk.

“Oh, yeah. All good,” she replied with a forced smile.

“Sorry, I was staring. I didn’t mean to,” Molly told her. “I was surprised, I think.”

“That I was talking to India?”

Molly shrugged a shoulder apologetically.

“Hey, how’s your monitor?” Finley asked, changing the subject to anything other than her relationship with her ex-girlfriend.

“No blinking,” Molly said with a smile. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Well, it’s only been ten minutes, so let’s give it an hour before we call it a victory.” She turned back to her computer. “Hey, do you want to get out of here?”

“Huh?”

“Coffee?” Finley asked. “I could use a walk.”

“Oh,” Molly said, looking at her calendar. “I can’t right now. I have a meeting. But maybe in an hour?”

“Yeah, sure.” Finley tilted her head. “I need to get out of here now, but if you want to go when you’re done with your meeting, we can get coffee.”

Molly nodded and said, “Okay.”