Page 2 of Things I Overshared

“I can’t. I don’t. I mean!” My mind is reeling.

I have planned all the minutia of this trip so Darrin could meet with our biggest overseas contacts. I found the absolute best wining, dining, touring, and schmoozing opportunities. I was so wrecked with FOMO looking at the gorgeous scenes and settings, I almost started canceling cool events and excursions because planning was making me sad. Doesn’t help that Europe is so freaking romantic and well, the romance in my life . . .anyway!Now, instead of Darrin and Emerson, it’ll be me and Emerson.

Wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

No. Nooooooo.

“Wait, Skye. Darrin was going on the trip withEmerson Clark.”

I can hear her wince. “Yeaaahhhh.”

I get up and close my door as I whisper-yell “Iceman Emerson. Mr. Freeze. Chief Frigid Officer! Frosty McClark!”

“Ha, I hadn’t heard that one,” she cuts in.

“He hates me, Skye.”

“No one hates you. That’d be like hating sunshine,” she says, but I’m too terrorized to appreciate a genuine compliment from the queen of snark.

“People do! People do hate sunshine—you know where they live? They live in London! Which, you’ll remember, is where E-Robot is from!”

“E-Robot, nice, did you just make that one up?”

“Skye! Listen! The man cannot stand me. I can’t go. It’ll be torture.”

“It’ll be fiiiine.” She’s half laughing.

“No, you don’t understand. He avoids me, says nothing in meetings other than the absolute least number of words he can, or he’s asking me to be quiet without asking.” I do my best Emerson impression: “‘Yes, we quite understand, Miss Canton.’”

“Terrible impression.”

“Ugh! The point is, this is going to be awful! My dream trip, and I have to take it with a snowy cyborg who cannot stand me.”

“Sam, I’m sure he just can’t stand anyone. And if you guys never talk, then he doesn’t really know you enough to hate you.”

I think about this. He does seem to hate everyone, but he also seems to hate me, especially.

And I get it—I’m a lot.

I’ve been told I’m too much my whole life. Too talkative, too happy, too loud, too optimistic—I’ve heard it all. I wear bright colors and greet strangers and pet every dog. I get excited about, well, almost anything.

I am not forcing it or faking, even though mean girls have insisted so, in whispers behind my back, since grade school. Big reactions are just my natural reactions. I love loving things. I love feeling big feels. And I’ve worked to get to the point where most days I love me, as I am.

I also realize that that makes me grating to some people. People who are shy or serious. Emerson Clark is exactly that: shy and serious. At least I think he’s shy—either that, or he really is the world’s biggest jerkoff. He’s the CFO, a numbers genius, and known in Manhattan, not just our industry, for being ahead of his time, ruthlessly logical, totally unfeeling, and exact.

So where I am too much, Emerson Clark is . . . he’s a freaking void, that’s what he is. If I’m sunshine, he’s not a cloud.

He’s a black hole.

Plus, while he’s the CFO of the billion-dollar Canton Cards, I’m an actual Canton. One of the boss’s daughters. It’s a weird dynamic. Maybe he resents me? Even though he really does run this office, outranks me in every way, and is about ten years older? Could be.

But!

Skye is right in that he doesn’t know me, and I don’t know him, not really. We have never once hung out or chatted at a happy hour or at one of the million business events we’ve attended over the years. So maybe I just need to get to know him? Maybe he isn’t a cold, sucking, swirl of nothingness?

“Bobbinator? You’ve been quiet for like twenty whole seconds. Are you dead?”