Birdie could act like she was mad at me all she wanted but I knew I’d gotten through to her.
At least I thought I had. Or hoped. Yeah, hoped was more like it.
Still, as I walked back to my office I knew something had shifted between us, as if she didn’t hate me as much as she had yesterday. I wanted to do a fist pump and yell, “Hell yes!” but I maintained my sangfroid considering her hating me less than the day before wasn’t really a win, since 100% hatred dropping to 99.99% wasn’t cause for a huge celebration.
But the fact that I’d caught her looking for me when I’d gotten to work was big and made me feel like I still stood a chance with her. Not that I was all in for a relationship right now. Hell no. I’d be going through a fucking divorce ASAP and had no plans of jumping into anything other than a friendship with her. For now.
Damn, who was a cocky SOB? This guy. Thing is, though, I had managed to maybe make a .01% dent in her I despise you factor, so there was that. Also, I’d never stopped loving her. And I wasn’t going to give up without a fight because, in the immortal words of the great heavy metal rock band Tesla, “Love will find a way.” Cheesy? Yep. Words to live by? You bet.
Inside my office, I sat at my desk and logged onto my computer picking up where I’d left off yesterday. Looking over the twelve bids I’d gotten from different vendors for packaging, then crunching some numbers, I made a call and set up the order. Next, I pulled up apartment listings knowing I’d be moving out soon so Tech Guy could move in with my wife. Christ. Life sure throws some serious shade at the worst fucking times.
It was then I remembered I needed to call my folks and let them know.
“Hey, son, what’s up?” Dad answered.
I proceeded to tell him everything, listening to his tsk’ing at the appropriate moments and his contrite “Damn” at the end.
“I’m really sorry. I know you gave it your all, but sometimes things just aren’t meant to be,” he consoled.
I couldn’t help the snort I let out because Dad had vehemently championed my giving Sonya a chance after finding out about her addiction and cheating, coaching me to “Let it go for now” and “Get her healthy” stating, “You love her and it can be fixed.” Hearing him finally give up was a fucking relief.
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll call Mom later. And I’ve got some vacation time coming up, so I might fly out to Indiana to see you guys.”
“We’d love that, Beck. Yes, your mother would want to hear this from you, so a call tonight would be good.”
Just as I hung up a message appeared on my computer.
Conversation from: Fulton Hartford
To: Beck Griffin
Fulton Hartford (Jan 5, 11:28 a.m.): Griffin, I need you to stop by my office before you leave tonight
Fulton Hartford was the company’s Chief Operating Officer, second only to Kurt Fleishman, the CEO. I read his message and felt my heart rate speed up as memories of my high school days and getting called into the principal’s office for doing some dipstick shit came racing back.
Beck Griffin (Jan 5, 11:29 a.m.): Yes, sir. I’ll swing by on my way out
I racked my brain wondering what the fuck I’d done but couldn’t come up with anything that would merit my being fired. So, sucking it up like a man—that’s more sarcasm right there—I decided to get the hell out of there, leaving for lunch so I could think some more on it.
On the way out of my office, I turned toward the boardroom to see that Joel was standing over Birdie who was sitting at the table looking down as she flipped pages, glancing up at him every so often to explain, I gathered. Hm. She’d asked me about payroll earlier, and I wondered what she’d found.
When I’d first started with Fleishman, I’d introduced a plan of combining several factory positions along with adding new machinery, explaining to Mr. Hartford that doing so would save the company over a million dollars per year. I’d felt bad that people might be laid off, but he’d assured me that with the way the company was growing, more jobs would be available for them in the new plants that would be opening. He’d then had me present my ideas to Mr. Fleishman who’d gotten behind my project wholeheartedly, and from that point, I was included in a shit ton of budget meetings; therefore, I’d known a forensic accountant—never once imagining it’d be Birdie—would be coming in this week after Joel, Linda, Larry Carson from payroll and I had met, and they’d reported some discrepancies in the books.
I decided to leave Birdie to her work and left, taking a cab to get lunch.
Back at the office, I saw that Birdie was still hard at work, which was what I was hoping for because it meant she hadn’t eaten yet.
After hanging my coat in my office, I got her a soda then carried the bag I’d brought back from lunch to the boardroom. When I went in, she was concentrating so much on the figures she was writing down that she hadn’t heard me come in, so when I set everything on the table in front of her she yelped, pushed her chair away, stood up then smacked me on the chest.
“You scared the shit out of me!” she scolded.
Fucking cute.
I grinned as I pulled a box from the Junior’s bag and opened it to display the huge Reuben sandwich inside, letting the smell waft through the room.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, ogling the sandwich and licking her lips. Christ. I was staring at her when her eyes met mine. “You know Carnegie’s closed,” she said sadly.
I nodded. “But,” I grabbed another box from the bag as I spoke, setting it on the table and opening the lid slowly, “since this sandwich was around half of Carnegie’s price, you also get this.” Birdie’s eyes went huge at the very large piece of chocolate mousse cheesecake, and I had to purse my lips to keep from cracking up at the look of awe on her face. Grabbing a napkin from the bag, I handed it to her and teased, “You might wanna wipe away the drool.”
She absentmindedly took the napkin as she gawked at all I’d set on the table. Then she frowned. “This is for me?”
“Yep. Thought you might be hungry.”
“Oh.” She looked perplexed for a moment then suddenly grabbing her purse from the chair next to hers, proposed, “Let me pay you.”
I held my hands up to stop her. “Nope. My treat. Enjoy.” I turned and left the room before she could argue or even pull her wallet from her purse.
I knew bringing her lunch was a very small gesture, but I’d truly felt terrible about the way things had gone between us before. So if doing some special things helped repair the damage I’d done, I was all for it.
Besides, I figured that cheesecake had to have brought her hatred level down to at least 98%.