Page 59 of The Best Worst Thing

That’s Wonderful, Nicole

April, Two Years Ago

Nicole was working quietly in the back of an empty conference room—the office’s bustling floor too noisy for her to focus—when she heard a soft knock on the glass door. Standing there, smiling tentatively with two beers in hand, was Logan.

She swallowed, then nodded him inside.

“Hey,” he said, sliding one of the bottles across the lacquered table, then dropping his free hand to the top of a rolling chair.

Late April beamed through the windows, bright and blue.

“Mari told me you were probably hiding in here. We just closed Volvo. Wanted to say thanks for all your last-minute work on that. I know it was a tough one.”

She looked up at him and smiled. Since New York, things between her and Logan had been a lot like this. Transactional. Unremarkable. Totally stiff and foreign and all wrong.

“No worries. That’s great news.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think everyone’s going to duck out early—go get a few drinks or whatever. A couple of the guys in accounts just booked a bunch of tables at this place on the water, I think right by you. You should come.”

Nicole rubbed her wrist, then eyed the thick stack of paperwork in front of her. “I have to get through all these before I go. And I already have dinner plans. But thank you. And congratulations.”

“Fair enough.” He nodded at the beer he’d brought her. “Want me to open that, at least? If you’re going to be stuck here, might as well have fun doing it.”

“Oh, they’re just casting contracts,” she said as he walked toward her and twisted off her bottle cap with his keys. His hand was inches from hers. For a split second, her muscles clenched and her eyes closed. “But, uh, someone’s got to read them.”

He nodded, taking a seat on a nearby credenza, stretching a random pad of Post-it notes into an accordion while Nicole highlighted a concerning addendum in two different colors, scribbled down a question for legal, then flagged the page with a sticky tab.

A moment passed.

Nobody said a word.

“You’re totally getting Brie’s job,” he said, eventually. “Every time I talk to her, she’s insistent. Nobody here wants to post externally. It’s just a formality. You’re going to be great.”

“Thanks,” she said, reaching for a third highlighter.

And then, more silence.

Logan exhaled, then slid off the counter.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it.” He held out his beer. “Cheers.”

She picked up her bottle and tilted it toward his. When their drinks clinked, he glanced at her, then took another sip. Nicole wrinkled her nose, then set hers down.

“You want something else?” he said. “I think there’s a Riesling in the back of the fridge.”

“No, it’s … I’m just not drinking, is all.”

He looked at her.

She looked at him.

He tilted his head, eyes searching.

She nodded slowly, lips tightening.

And something, somewhere, changed. It was hard to explain, really. It was just this tiny, imperceptible little shift.

Like a piece of ticker tape, quietly settling.

Like an inhale, softly ending.

Like a door, finally closing.

“Wow,” he said, scratching his throat. Then, a smile. A nod. “That’s wonderful, Nicole.”

And it was, wasn’t it? That first loss—as hard as it’d been to accept—had been a fluke.

Bad things happen. Sometimes, for no reason, they just happen.

But they don’t happen twice. And this time around, everything was going to be different.

This time, everything was going to fall right back into place.

“Can you maybe not mention it to anyone?” she said. “I really want the job. I don’t want anything to change. I’m going to keep working after, and …”

“Of course.” He took a long swig of his beer, then reached for the door. “I’ll see you Monday.”