Ember
But I’d decided against it. I was who I was, and I was fine with it. Happy, even.
Gracie eyed me as she took another sip of her beer. She climbed up on my kitchen counter where her legs dangled while she contemplated whatever she wanted to say. I waited it out, knowing she would tell me when she was good and ready.
While I waited for her, I checked all the cabinets in the kitchen to make sure they were empty. Eventually, Gracie said, “Cambridge has been our home for three years. Do you honestly expect me to believe you’re not in the least bit nervous about moving away?”
I shrugged, closing the last cabinet door and checking the kitchen off my mental to-do list. “I’m excited. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous at all, but it’s more nervous excitement than plain old nerves.”
“How are you so calm about this?” she asked, frowning into her beer. “I wish I was more like that. You’re so confident about everything. This move is looming ahead of me like a big, black hole, and you’re all chipper about it.”
“Chipper?” I smirked, lifting my shoulders. “Okay, I’ll take it. You can be more confident if you want to be. It’s all in the mind. Just don’t put yourself down because of it.”
She gave me a hopeful little smile. One of the things I loved most about Gracie was how she rallied. She didn’t dwell on things. Despite what she thought, she was one of the strongest people I knew.
“All in the mind, huh? Maybe I should give it a try. New city, new me.”
I lifted my beer in the air, tipping its neck at her. “To new beginnings.”
“New beginnings,” she repeated, mirroring my gesture. Taking a sip of her beer, her eyes wandered away from mine to the chaos that was my apartment.
To be fair, it did look like a bomb had gone off in there. Several bombs, actually. What could I say? It had been a busy week. “Don’t squint your eyes like that. We graduated last week. I was too busy to get around to packing.”
“Funny how I graduated too, but my stuff’s basically all packed and in my car.” She winked and jerked her head in the direction of my living room. “Let me help you. I’m a whiz at packing boxes. I used to love Tetris.”
I stuck my tongue out at her quickly, but then I nodded. “Rub it in, why don’t you? I tried packing, but with everything else going on, I kept getting sidetracked. But yes, please help, Oh Master Packer. I’ll never get it done without your tutelage.”
Rolling her gray eyes, she hopped down from the counter and went to survey the damage. “You know, if we’re going to be living together, we probably should have coordinated what stuff we were taking and what we were leaving here.”
“But what on earth would we have done without two toasters and two kettles?” I asked, my lips kicking up into a smile. “It’s the new ‘it’ décor for lofts, having two of everything.”
Gracie giggled before giving me a look. “It’s not that big, you know?”
“It’s big enough,” I argued, excitement surging through me once again. I couldn’t wait to see the loft Gracie and I were going to be sharing. We rented it off pictures we saw online and a virtual tour.
When I first found the listing, I couldn’t believe we were actually able to afford a place like that. It cost double what both of our places in Cambridge together rented for, but with the signing bonuses we got for accepting our future jobs, we could easily afford it without having to worry.
It was the most freeing feeling I’d ever experienced, being able to pick out a loft I wanted and signing on the dotted line, knowing I was doing it with my own money. Gracie and I had cracked open a bottle of champagne after we signed it, getting tipsy on my living room floor, wearing our fanciest heels with our pajamas.
We packed in silence for a while before I could see Gracie overthinking things again. The tension coming off her was almost palpable. “What’s up?”
She sealed another box with the loud ripping of packing tape. “It’s just that I started thinking about our loft. Then I started thinking about how we could afford it, which got me thinking about our jobs.”
Great minds think alike. “Yeah? What about them?”
“It’s a Fortune 250 company, Em.” She chewed on her lower lip as she moved the packed box aside and started folding another one closed. “That’s a huge responsibility on every single one of the employees. What if I mess up?”
“We’re not going to mess up,” I said firmly. “We’re going to help this company. They’re lucky to be getting us.”
“You really believe that?” Doubt darkened her eyes, and her fingers tapped nervously against her leg.
I walked up to her and put my hands on her shoulders, looking right into her eyes. “I really believe that.”
And I did. I planned on taking that company by storm. Being a little bigger than the average girl growing up, I’d been teased relentlessly and called every bad name in the book. I dealt with it by toughening up and becoming funny and friendly instead of skinny.
Eventually, I became friends with most of the people who used to tease me, but that wasn’t enough. As much as they loved me now and I loved them, I was out to prove to everyone who I really was.
Those who became my friends and those who had always just ignored me alike. Size didn’t dictate our worth, but there had always been dicks who tried to convince me otherwise. I wanted to show them all exactly how much I was worth, and it was sure as hell more than I weighed.
KADENThank God it was fucking Friday. If there wasn’t already a song written about it, and if I could carry a tune to save my life, I might have written a song about it to celebrate.Fridays were usually a joyous occasion in my life, but today was even happier than usual since this week had sucked balls. As I’d promised myself I would, I got my work and John’s work done.But it had been five days of hell. The guy’s files were a mess, even more so than I had expected. It took me hours before I could tell elbow from ass of what was going on with those clients.Since my life was also most decidedly not a musical, singing and songwriting to celebrate was out of the question. Drinks after work with my best friend, however, was just what the doctor ordered.I triumphantly hit print one last time and stapled the papers of my proposal together. Opening the file in question, I dropped the proposal inside and added it to my pile of work completed for the week.It was more of a tower than a pil
Kaden“The usual.” I didn’t bother fighting the urge to roll my eyes. Ryan knew me better than most. He knew about my history with my dad, too. “To shit on me for nothing, just because he can. I fired a douchebag on Monday, but Dad thought I was being an idiot for not waiting until today to do it. He made me do the guy’s work to prove his point.”“Harsh,” Ryan commented, but he didn’t look surprised. Dad was nothing if not predictable when it came to how he treated me. “How’d you get it all done? You’re already busy as fuck. I would’ve told my boss to go fuck himself if he tried passing off someone else’s work on me.”“Telling Dad to go fuck himself wouldn’t end well.” Antagonizing my dad was a surefire way to have to spend even more time with him, since he was like a dog with a bone. He wouldn’t let it go. He would keep me there, berating me until kingdom came. I didn’t have time for that shit.Ryan shrugged, pursing his lips. “That’s family, I guess. Telling them to go fuck themselv
EMBER“Happy birthday to you,” Gracie said, raising her glass of champagne toward me. “I hope all your dreams come true this year.”“Thank you.” I smiled, clinking my glass against hers. We had completed our trek to New York and moved into our loft that week. It was all finally starting to feel real, and it was thrilling.Neither Gracie nor I had ever been to New York before, but it was turning out exactly like I thought it would. Both of us had seen enough movies shot there and read enough about it to know what to expect, but what books and movies couldn’t possibly convey was the electric atmosphere in the city.It didn’t smell great, and our loft was a little smaller than what we had imagined, but I was already falling in love with the city. Waking up here on my birthday and knowing I was going to be calling it home for the foreseeable future was incredible. It really did feel like a new beginning where anything was possible for the year that lay ahead. An eternal optimist, I was no
EmberGracie pulled me back to our conversation. “Well, banish those thoughts right now. We could end up working for some old codgers. You don’t want to be thinking about that when it’s a wrinkly old man you report to.”“Codgers?” I choked on the sip of wine I had been taking as I laughed. “Really?”Gracie pouted, but the corners of her lips betrayed her smile. “No, not really. I don’t know why I said that. I just get nervous talking about it.”“Sex or the job?”“Both,” she admitted. “Speaking of old codgers, do you know who we’re going to be working for?”I lifted my shoulders and shook my head. “Does it matter? They’re not going to be bothered with a couple of lowly college graduates anyway. I don’t know who owns the company or who the managers are, but I don’t really care either. Do you?”She sucked both lips into her mouth, a contemplative glaze coming over her eyes as she thought. “I would have liked to know a little bit about them. It might help us feel more prepared. Did you me
KADENMonday, fucking Monday. The office was a hive of activity when I arrived, and phones were ringing off the hook. Several of my colleagues were involved in a heated debate about something. Secretaries and personal assistants were bustling around, delivering stacks of paperwork and snapping into phones.Printers hummed because who needed the rain forests, right? Heels clacked, and the coffee machines were working overtime.The silence in my private office was almost deafening by the time I closed the door behind me. My own assistant had been busy this morning, I saw as I approached my desk with my coffee in hand and sat down.A few neat piles of paper waited for my signature, colorful flags marking the spots I had to sign. My computer was already on, but I had to enter my password to get into it. The screens mounted on my walls were also on and set to the channels I needed.Dropping my hands to my jacket, I unbuttoned it and was starting to take it off so I could roll up my sleeves
KadenCubicles made up of white partitioning spread like a maze across the floor. There were no personal effects around the workspaces yet. No doubt, the picture would be a little different in a couple of weeks as the recruits settled in.But for now, it was stark. White. Impersonal and organized. The energy here was different too. The air was thick with nervousness, apprehension, uncertainty, and hesitation, with just a touch of pride and cockiness for having made it this far.If only they knew what was waiting for them. Half of them wouldn’t last a month, and that was out of those who would still have a job come lunchtime.I found the recruits and the trainer, a guy I thought was called Craig, in the big conference room at the back. He was in the middle of a slideshow presentation showing the layout of the building and the emergency exits when I opened the door.He did a doubletake when he saw who was disturbing him, his brown eyes widening as he stammered, “Mr. Marx. Sir, I, uh, I
EMBERKaden fucking Marx. There was a blast from the past I hadn’t seen coming. Of course, I probably should have put it together.Marx wasn’t such a common last name, and I always knew my brother’s best friend came from a family with more money than god. In the back of my mind, I also knew Kaden was in New York with Ryan. He mentioned it once. I just never thought I would end up working with the dick who held the top spot in my list of middle-school crushes. Crap. My heart nearly burst out of my chest when he walked into the conference room with that familiar swagger and the same smirk I had never forgotten.Kaden Marx. Well how about that?The beautiful bastard was just as beautiful and just as much of a bastard as he’d always been. Really, being as hot as him should have been a crime. And that was back in school.Time had been far too good to a dick like him. If anything, he’d grown to become even more good looking than ever before. And he’d always been a showstopper.He had the
EmberCraig tried to lighten the mood by saying, “He’s not usually quite so brash. Don’t worry too much about it. He’s a fair boss and a good person.”The raised eyebrows around me were enough to convince that no one believed a word of what Craig said. Moving along swiftly, he finished his presentation and sent us out to our cubicles.Gracie and I snagged two next to each other and started packing away our purses and the few odds and ends we’d brought with us. For me, it was a small stuffed elephant Ryan had won for me at a fair when I was four.It was ratty, but clean, and the same good luck charm I’d had with me throughout every single phase of life, from the day he proudly presented it to me at that fair. He was eight at the time, missing a few teeth, and when he handed it over, his chest was swollen with pride for having won it.“Okay, everyone.” Craig’s voice boomed from the front of the massive office—bullpen, I corrected myself mentally. “Insert your name as a username, and a c