Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 74956 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74956 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Though to be fair, being thirty minutes late to my admin job once in a blue moon isn’t going to summon the kind of shit storm Stone is about to walk into. Not even close.
Juliet, my boss and director of business operations, probably won’t even notice that I’m late. And if she does, she won’t care. I’ve earned her trust with three years of high-level performance as the kind of assistant director who gets shit done on time, every time, and never leaves a mess for her to clean up. She’s told me numerous times that she has no idea how she got by without me.
But if my dad realizes that Stone and I were both late, just like we were both “out sick” last Monday? If he connects those dots and realizes I’m the reason his star forward is missing meetings and losing focus…
Well, he’ll kill me.
Not literally dead, of course, but I’ll wish I were six feet under by the time he finishes dressing me down and icing me out. My father can hold a cold, merciless grudge like no one else. The one time he caught me drinking in high school, at some dumb summer party I wasn’t even excited to be attending, he grounded me to within an inch of my life and didn’t speak to me for three weeks.
Three weeks is a very long time to go without human contact in a house as quiet as ours was. When school finally started, I was so grateful, I almost cried on the bus.
“He’s not going to connect the dots,” I mutter to myself, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “He hardly ever talks to Juliet, and even if they run into each other in the halls, she isn’t going to say anything about me being late. Once. In three years. Everything is fine.”
Except it’s not fine. The mandatory weekly team meeting started twenty-eight minutes ago, and Stone is still behind me somewhere on the highway. My father expects every team member in his assigned seat at least five minutes early, notepads out, phones off, ready to receive his wisdom. Dad’s time is a treasure, not to be squandered or disrespected.
Being late to any meeting with him is akin to pissing on the Mona Lisa, let alone a work meeting.
I should have hauled my ass off the couch last night and set the alarm myself.
What is wrong with me?
You know exactly what’s wrong with you. Or rather, who… And you aren’t nearly as freaked out about it as you should be.
The inner voice is right.
Yes, my heart is pounding and stress levels are currently high, but I don’t run the red light half a mile from the stadium. And upon pulling into the parking lot, I keep my speed to a respectable twenty miles per hour.
Then, I do something completely bananas.
After parking, I take a beat to smooth on lipstick and redo my hastily brushed ponytail, my thoughts turning to Stone and how terrible I feel for contributing to his lateness. Especially when I was the one who insisted on a second quickie in his walk-in closet last night, even though we were both exhausted and he’d already made me come in the shower.
But what can I possibly do to make this better?
Appealing to my father for mercy on Stone’s behalf would only get us caught and make everything fifty times worse. I suppose I could pretend I needed Stone in the admin office on some urgent piece of morning paperwork, but if that were the case, Dad knows me well enough to know I would call down to the locker room to alert him that Stone was going to be late.
No, the only way an excuse like that would work is if I somehow didn’t have access to a phone.
“No access to a phone,” I mutter, sitting up straighter as inspiration strikes.
A beat later, I’m texting Stone, my fingers flying—When you get here, meet me in the stairwell by the old part of the practice building, okay? I have an idea that might get your ass out of this sling.
His response is immediate—Really? Can’t wait to hear it. Because honestly, my ass is pretty puckered up right now. The closer I get to the parking lot, the more the stress is setting in. At this rate, I may never unclench my cheeks again.
Despite the very serious nature of the current situation, a soft laugh escapes my lips as I text back—Understandable. But I think I’ve got this problem solved. See you soon.
Do I have the problem solved?
I actually think I do, and it’s all thanks to the kind of creative thinking I’m not sure I would have been capable of even a week ago. I was too tapped out for creativity, so focused on my never-ending to-do list that it was starting to feel like I was living in black and white.