Page 6 of Snowbound with My Dad's Best Friend

“I’ve been good,” she replies shortly, giving me no opening for a real conversation. “I’ve been keeping myself busy. I just wanted to move back home and be with my family.”

I immediately sense her timidness and decide to cut out all the small talk.

That will come with time.

I’ve waited five years already, what’s another few days?

“That’s good. Well, I’ll just cut right to the chase. The job is easy. You’ll be working under me,” I start again, and when I say this, her cheeks redden.

Maybe it brought up some of our fun we had in the past. “Mostly filing or running errands for me. Keeping my paperwork neat so I can get through this holiday season without a hitch. Is this something you want to do?”

I pray that she agrees, even if it will be a little awkward until she warms up to the idea.

Becca nods, flashing a quick smile. “Absolutely.”

“Great!” I exclaim.

Bending down, I open the bottom drawer of my desk, pull out a hefty stack of papers, and hand it to her.

Her brow raises as she inspects them.

“These are from last year. I know it’s a lot. What I need you to do is to file these according to the dates highlighted at the top of each page, starting with the most recent and going back.”

She nods again silently as I tell her that the filing cabinets these need to go into are located in the back storage room at the end of the hallway.

“I know it seems silly, us being a digital company, but with how many times our tech guy has had to come out to fix something with our systems, I don’t fully trust that these won’t be lost. Paper trail is important.”

“Okay,” she finally says. “Should be easy enough.”

She stands and, with her purse over her shoulder, she exits my office like she can’t get out of there quickly enough.

As she passes my mostly glass wall that overlooks the office space, I catch her staring at me as she heads down the hallway.

Once she is out of view, I rub my eyes roughly, more confused now than ever before when it comes to Becca.

It’s obvious she had no idea what this job was or who her boss was. I have a feeling that if she knew, she wouldn’t have shown up today.

What did I do to her all those years ago that was so terrible and would warrant her to act like that when she saw me?

It had to have been another factor that I don’t know about yet.

Rest assured, I will find out.

It’s only fair that I get an explanation, especially after she broke my heart five years ago.

I hope that now that she’s here, back in my life, we can at least rekindle the friendship we once had.

That’s the worst part of this all.

I didn’t just lose the love of my life; I lost a friend.

It hurt, and still does.

Seeing her feels like reopening those wounds, even though they were never truly healed.

At first, I was excited to see her again.

Now, I worry that this may not go as I thought it would.

I guess only time will tell…