Page 61 of Palm South University: Season 3
“YOU KILLED THAT!”Mykayla whisper yells at me as the last few of our colleagues leave the boardroom. Two of them, Kimberly and Sam, watch me with narrowed eyes as they mumble to each other, and Mykayla follows my gaze to them. “Don’t let them get to you. Jealousy is a virus, babe, and those two are sick as hell.”
She laughs at her own joke, adjusting her breasts in the tight dress she’s wearing before collecting her papers and binder from the table.
“But seriously, that was awesome. No wonder they made you lead event planner. If you’re not careful, you might leave here with a job before you’re ready for one,” she says.
I rub my temples with my pointer and middle fingers, still feeling hungover even though the Alpha Sigma Halloween party was six days ago. “Thank you, Mykayla. Although if I did get offered a job, something tells me I wouldn’t have any friends here.”
“You’d have me,” she reminds me cheerily.
When the table is clear, we turn out the lights in the boardroom and make our way back to the intern cubes, Mykayla chatting the entire way about the Halloween bar crawl she did over the weekend. I’m listening attentively until we round the corner by the break room and Brandon is walking our direction.
My breath catches at the sight of him, all suited up like I’m used to, but now that I’ve seen him outside of work, I can’t help but long to see his arms in a casual white t-shirt.
Mykayla keeps talking, her voice muted to me now as my eyes stick like sap to Brandon. But he keeps his on the papers in his hands, shuffling through them as he passes right by us without so much as a glance up, and my heart sinks right along with my hope.
He hasn’t said a word to me since our… whatever that was, and that was the weekend before Halloween. He still sent the email about me being the lead event planner on theBare•lyproject the following Monday when we came in, but not a word was said to me otherwise. Not that I can blame him much after I left him with a massive case of blue balls in the back of my sorority house.
But what was I supposed to do?
I panicked. I needed to think straight, to make sense of it all, and I’d even decided that I would tell him we couldn’t do this. It was risky — for both of us.
It looked like I wouldn’t have to tell him that, because he’d decided for us. But I wasn’t so sure I liked the decision, now.
Being a girl sucks.
“Want to grab a drink after work?” Mykayla asks when we reach her reception desk, just before my cube. “It’s Happy Hour down at The Lift.”
I shake my head, pointing to the stack of binders in my arms. “I’ve got a hot date with a catalog of chair and linen choices.”
She laughs. “Make sure you wear your sexiest bra for that.”
“Already got it on.” I wink, heading for my desk as Mykayla waves me away with a grin.
The rest of the afternoon passes quickly, which seems to be a pattern now that I’ve secured the lead event planner position. It’s just past five when I wrap up the last email I needed to send and I power down my Mac with a yawn, packing up my oversized handbag before slinging it over my shoulder.
Mykayla is still at her desk when I pass by, and I call out a goodnight to her before rounding the corner toward the elevators. But before I can push the button, she stops me.
“I’m so glad I didn’t miss you on your way out,” she says, calling me over to her desk. “You’re going to flip your shit when I tell you what just happened.”
I force a smile, a little too tired to hear office gossip, but I adjust my bag on my shoulder and ask anyway. “What’s that?”
“Okay, so, there’s a huge event agency award conference in Atlanta every Thanksgiving. It’s mostly for agencies in the southeast region, and I’m sure you can imagine, we clean up in pretty much every category. Mr. Church always attends, they usually have him give a keynote speech, and basically he just spends the holiday rubbing elbows with other big wigs in the event industry and bringing back any trends he thinks we should jump on. Anyway,” she says, shaking her head with a wave of her hands. “That doesn’t really matter. Whatdoesmatter is that he usually goes alone, but this year he requested a plus one.”
She looks at me expectantly, her bottom lip pinned between her teeth as she bounces in her chair. When I just offer a raised eyebrow, she leans forward over her desk.
“He requestedyou.”
My heart stops, kicking back to life a few seconds later as I stare blankly back at Mykayla. “He did?”
She nods excitedly. “Mm-hmm. But I need an answer from you on whether or not you want to go. Like… well, pretty much like now. He’s going to offer it to someone else if you decline. Which you shouldtotallynotdo, if that was even an option in your mind. This has never happened before. It’s a big opportunity.”
I’m suddenly too aware of my posture, and I have the distinct feeling someone is watching me. When my eyes trail down the row of cubes to Brandon’s office, he’s watching me from the door, his dark eyes piercing a laser line straight to me. Mykayla goes over the dates and details, clicking through the information on her computer, but I keep my eyes on his.
“So, what do you think? Do you want to go or should I ask the next in line?”
I tear my eyes from Brandon’s, swallowing past the wad of sandpaper in my throat. “Well, I guess I’d be stupid to say no.”
She bounces again, a squeak escaping her mouth as she softly claps her little hands together. “I’m so excited for you! I’ll tell him you’ve accepted. I hope you’ll take a break from your hot date tonight to have a celebratory drink, because this is huge.”