“The job’s yours, Brit. If you want it.”
Brit sat in Cassidy’s corner office, staring blindly at her boss’s boss. No, her boss. Until they found a replacement for Hunter, his entire team would report directly to Cassidy.
And if Brit accepted what Cassidy was offering, Hunter’s team would report directly to her.
Even better, because it was Cassidy offering the job instead of Hunter, she’d skirt most of the slept her way to the top accusations.
She should be thrilled, and she felt . . . nothing.
“Can I think about it?” she said, looking down at her hands.
“Sure, yeah. Take all the time you need. Hunter will be around for phone calls for the next couple weeks, and after that, I figure you and I have enough collective knowledge between the two of us to run the ship until we sort things out.”
“Great.” She started to stand, but Cassidy held up a hand. “Brit.”
She sat back down.
Cassidy’s eyes were concerned. “You okay?”
She smiled, knowing he was asking as a friend instead of a boss. Or maybe she just wanted to think that because she really needed a friend right now.
It was Monday. Three days since their fight.
Hunter’s last day.
Taylor had told her his flight was at seven tomorrow morning. Taylor had told her because Hunter and Brit hadn’t spoken. She’d had one missed call from him late on Saturday night. She hadn’t answered. He hadn’t called back.
“Not really,” she said, answering Cassidy’s question. “Which is a little pathetic, I guess.”
“You guys are close,” Cassidy said. “You’re allowed to be upset when someone close to you relocates.”
“Yeah.”
“You, ah . . .” Cassidy fiddled with his pen, looking more uncomfortable than Brit was used to seeing him. “You guys going to try to do the long-distance thing, or . . .”
“Yeah, that’d be hard.”
“Especially considering he didn’t ask,” Brit said.
“No?”
“Um, let’s just say he didn’t even tell me he was moving so much as I saw his stuff all packed up on Friday night.”
“On Friday—”
She could see Cassidy thinking, no doubt realizing that he’d received the news on Tuesday, whereas Brit . . .
Cassidy sighed. “Hell. What an idiot.”
“No arguments here.”
“Is there anything—”
“Cassidy,” she interrupted. “I don’t really want to talk about it. Not just yet.”
“Sure, okay.”
There was a knock at his door and Brit stood, grateful for the escape. She’d spent all weekend crying. If the usually stoic Cassidy kept looking at her with kind eyes, she’d break all over again.
“Yeah,” Cassidy said to whoever was knocking.
The door opened and Penelope poked her head in, clearly relieved to see Brit. She entered without asking. Cole followed, as did Jackson Burke, the magazine’s fitness editor.
“Hey, sweetie,” Penelope said, walking to Brit and wrapping her arms around her. Brit hugged the smaller woman back, then laughed a little when Cole came up and wrapped his arms around both women.
Jackson closed the door and Cassidy sighed. “I don’t suppose this is work-related.”
Jackson ignored Cassidy, his eyes finding Brit over Cole’s shoulder. He smiled. “How you doing, Brit?”
She laughed a little as Cole began to rock her and Penelope back and forth in a sort of lullaby motion. “Is everyone in the office thinking I’m a fragile butterfly to be soothed?”
“No,” Penelope replied. “I heard Bradley Calloway tell Evan in accounting that with Hunter out of the way he could finally make his move on your, and I quote, fine ass. Cole spilled coffee on him.”
“Accidentally,” Cole said, looking at Cassidy. He caught Brit’s eye and winked.
She managed to extradite herself from the hug. “I appreciate all the support. Truly. But I’m fine. Friends move away all the time.”
“Yeah, but you and Hunter were like . . .”
Penelope started to wiggle her hips, and Cassidy cleared his throat.
“You know,” Penelope said instead.
“Well—” Brit gave a nervous glance at their boss.
“Don’t bother denying it,” Jackson said cheerfully. “Everyone knows that you were, you know, even Cassidy. There’ve been bets on how long it would take for as long I’ve been here.”
“Fabulous,” she muttered.
Jackson wandered to Cassidy’s desk. “You got any candy?”
“No, because this isn’t the fifth grade.” Cassidy watched as Jackson reached for a plastic container on his desk and opened it. “That would be my lunch.”
“Salad,” Jackson said, putting it back. “Boring.”
“What do you three nightmares want?” Cassidy asked. “Because it’s obviously got nothing to do with productivity.”
“Checking on Brit. Seeing if Hunter needs to be maimed,” Jackson replied.
Cole nodded, and they all looked expectantly at Brit.
She thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t say no to the maiming. . . .”
Penelope sighed. “Oh no. So he didn’t ask you to go with?”
“Pen,” Cole said, a touch sharply.
Penelope’s eyes went wide. “Should I not have . . . everyone was just wonder—I’m going to be quiet now.”
“Excellent idea,” Cassidy said.
“It’s all right,” Brit said, giving Penelope’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “But no. He didn’t ask me to go with him. He didn’t even tell me he was leaving until after he was all packed.”
Cole made an irritated sound. “Fool.”
Penelope opened her mouth as though to say something, then pressed her lips together as though holding something back.
A slightly awkward silence fell over the group, and it was Jackson Burke who broke it, which surprised Brit. She liked Jackson, a lot, but she wasn’t close with the former football quarterback. He was a little quieter than the other guys, more guarded.
Not today, apparently.
He picked up a pen from Cassidy’s desk and began twirling it around his fingers with surprising agility for such a large man. He studied her. “You know . . . you don’t need his permission.”
“What?” she asked, her eyes on the pen as though mesmerized.
The pen-twirling stopped. “You don’t need his permission. Free country to move wherever you want.” The twirling resumed. “And I hear Kansas City’s nice. Real nice.”
Brit stared at him. Surely he wasn’t suggesting . . .
“Jackson,” Cassidy said on a sigh. “I’ve just lost my number one on the operations team. You trying to get rid of my number two?”
Jackson shrugged. “It’s operations. Online shit. Seems to me a hell of a lot of that can be done remotely. Right?” He glanced at his boss.
They all looked at Cassidy. He looked right at Brit. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d be open to some of my operations team working remotely.”
Brit’s heart thumped with . . . she didn’t know what.
Actually, that was a lie. She did know what. Her heart thumped with a plan.
“Cassidy,” she said slowly. “Can I take a half day?”
There’s something I have to do.
He studied her, then nodded. “Sure. Yeah. You can take a half day.”
“Wait!” Penelope said as Brit headed to the door. “You’re going to miss Hunter’s goodbye party!”
Brit didn’t bother to reply. She’d miss the party, yes.
But she wasn’t going to say goodbye.