“He likes you,” Jessica said. “I can tell.”
“You mean it?” Lucy sat up straighter, giving her a searching look. “You’re not just messing with me?”
“Would I do that, Lucy Goose? And have I ever led you astray?”
“No,” Lucy said, because she wouldn’t, and she hadn’t.
Jessica scooped up her bundled sandwich. “I know you’re not big on making the first move or anything, but maybe it’d be worth risking it this time? I wouldn’t want you to overlook something that’s right under your nose. Or sitting by your desk at the end of every day, as the case may be.” She winked as she stood up and drew her purse from the back of the chair.
“You’re leaving?” Lucy asked.
“Yeah, sorry, but I’ve gotta run. I told Davis I’d meet up with a vendor so she wouldn’t have to. That way she doesn’t have to cut her lunch short. Total pain.” She rolled her eyes and put the back of her hand to her forehead, feigning despair.
“Please. Don’t give me that. I know it’s your dream job over there. And dealing with Mrs. Davis is only temporary. As soon as her last three months are up, she’ll be retired and out of your hair for good. You’ll be your own boss. Forever.” Lucy’s lower lip momentarily jutted out. “Do I sound jealous? ’Cause I am. I’m a bowl of green Jell-O over here.”
Jessica grinned and wrinkled her nose. “It is pretty enviable, isn’t it? Don’t worry, someday you’ll be calling the shots somewhere, too. Until then, I think you should enjoy being, uh, subordinate to one of the studliest guys in the A-cray-cray-Sys building. It could be so much worse.” She swiped her empty cup from the table. “And I still think you should invite him to my party. Just saying. Ta!” She wiggled her fingers at Lucy.
“Bye.” Lucy watched her friend dunk her cup into a garbage bin and hurry back up the sidewalk, disappearing into the bookstore. Then Lucy pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the time. There were still twenty minutes left in her lunch hour. Plenty of time to be productive.
Drawing her bag onto the table, Lucy slid out her planner and plastic pencil case. She flipped the planner open to the following month and busied herself tracing perfect boxes on the fresh calendar pages with a straight-edge, and then highlighting each square the appropriate color. Purple for spinning classes, neon yellow for her dentist appointment, green for trips to the market, and so on. When she was done, she sat back and admired the orderly grid she’d created. There. Now her near future was all planned out to a tee, just the way she liked it. A sense of deep relief swept over her, and she sighed. Then she flipped back a few pages to the current month and saw the bright orange squiggles Jessica had doodled around Wednesday, October thirtieth. MY PARTY, she’d scrawled in giant bubble letters.
Lucy chuckled. Her best friend’s words rang in her head. He likes you. I can tell. You should invite him.
Would Aaron actually come to the party if Lucy asked him, she wondered? Maybe. But only because he seemed determined to eventually go out with every woman in the city.
In the eight months she’d worked for him, Lucy had watched her boss go out on what felt like roughly a million dates with roughly a million different women, making it seem as though he were on a mission to accept every invitation that ever crossed his desk. But not a single one of Aaron’s dates had ever been a dishwater blonde with brown eyes who wore glasses and sweater-sets over their jeans the way Lucy did. The women he went out with always reminded her of fashion models straight out of the pages of Vogue—raven-haired, jewel-eyed beauties in tailored, expensive outfits and alarmingly high heels. Not that Lucy begrudged Aaron those dates. He was gorgeous. Why shouldn’t he want to surround himself with equally attractive people?
Feeling suddenly deflated, Lucy clapped shut her planner, gathered up her supplies, and chucked everything into her tote bag. She cleaned up her trash and headed up the sidewalk, back toward Acray-Sys. It took only a few minutes for her to reach the campus of tall, featureless white buildings, and soon Lucy was swiping her ID badge against the door, zooming up seven floors in the elevator, and heading back to her desk. As she rounded the corner to her office, however, she ran straight into a brick wall.
“Oh!” She gasped as the tote bag flew off her arm and hit the floor, spewing all of its contents. Her pencil case erupted, sending pens and highlighters bouncing out of it, rolling in every direction across the drab institutional carpeting.
“Oh, geez, Lucy, I’m so sorry,” the walking wall said. “Didn’t see you there.” Strong hands caught her by the upper arms and steadied her.
Lucy looked up to see a broad torso filling out a starched white dress shirt and, above that, a handsome face staring down at her with concern. The face had soulful hazel eyes and a strong, straight nose, a firm jawline, and sensuous lips. The light brown hair above the face was cut short and mussed as though its owner had just been running his fingers through it...leaving it tousled just enough to make him look appealingly disreputable.
“Aaron,” she breathed, and felt the blood rush to her cheeks.
Gosh, Jessica was right. With reactions like this, there was no way he couldn’t know how crazy Lucy was about him. How humiliating.
“Sorry,” he repeated, gently chafing her arms. “You okay?” His perfect mouth slanted up on one side, and his eyes sparkled.
Lucy had always been fascinated by the way hazel eyes seemed to change color from day to day, or even hour to hour. Right now, Aaron’s seemed to be
