Page 19 of Unexpected You
“Cam, you say that every year,” John pointed out. Camille glared at him.
“You do say it every year,” I said.
“I hate it when you two gang up on me,” she said with a groan. “I don’t know if I can get up from this chair, I’m so worn out.”
John put his drink down and stood up. “That’s what you have me for.”
Like the prince he was, he picked her up in his arms.
I laughed and said, “That’s my cue.”
They insisted that I could stay, but I wanted to sleep in my own bed.
Since I’d been drinking, I went ahead and walked home, hoping that no wildlife would see me as easy prey. This was a pretty safe neighborhood, but you never knew when a rogue skunk was going to crash out of the bushes and see you as a problem.
I made it home without incident and it was still early enough that I didn’t want to go to bed just yet.
I went to my office and realized that Cadence had left her headphones here. I pulled out my phone to send her a message about two seconds before realizing that it was late, and she didn’t need to be hearing from me on the weekend. Surely she was out with her friends doing whatever the hell twenty-six-year-olds did.
If she contacted me, I’d tell her they were here, but I wasn’t going to reach out to her.
Shockingly, she’d done well this week. Better than expected. I’d truly thought she was going to crash and burn. I hadn’t been nice or taken it easy on her because you should start as you mean to go on and I wasn’t going to treat her with kid gloves and then have her flip out when reality set in later.
And she’d had a good idea about showcasing the fanart on my site. I was almost angry that I nor anyone on my team had thought of it first.
Social media wasn’t new, but the way that my fans interacted with me on certain sites was, and I still struggled to get a handle on it. My website was one thing, but those pages were like the wild west and you never knew what was going to happen. One person could make an outrageous comment and before you knew it there were hundreds pouring in all talking about something completely off-topic that had nothing to do with the post. There was a need to say the most clever or meanest thing and I didn’t care for a lot of it.
Alas, I had no choice in the matter and if I wanted to reach fans both new and old, I had to find a way to make it work for me.
Cadence seemed to have a good sense, so if this worked out, I was going to lean on her more in that department. I didn’t like the idea of doing that, but I knew where my weaknesses were, and I knew how to utilize my resources.
Leaving the headphones on the desk, I closed my office door and went to my library to see if I wanted to find a book to read. After twenty minutes of picking titles and then putting them back, I went to my phone and looked up the alien books that Cadence had told me about. The first ebook was free, so what did I have to lose?
I clicked download before I could think better of it and grabbed my ereader from the charger, curled myself into my favorite reading chair in the library and settled in with a small cheese plate and a cup of tea.
I didn’t know what the hell I was getting into. Most of my reading was concentrated on colleagues’ books, non-fiction, and the odd random romance that I picked up or that Camille recommended. I didn’t have nearly as much time to read as I wished I did.
* * *
Around two a.m., I realized that I needed to go to bed, but I didn’t want to. I was absolutely engrossed in this strange tale of humans and blue aliens with spectacular anatomy. It shouldn’t make sense, but the writing was snappy, funny, and kept me turning the pages. A complete surprise. Sylvia had been right. Cadence had been right.
Somehow I stumbled to bed and slept like the dead until my eyes opened the next morning and I was struggling for coffee. It was Sunday, which was normally my chore day. I’d go to the grocery store, strip the bed and wash the sheets and towels, and prepare for the cleaners to come on Tuesday morning during my Pilates class.
For the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to do any of those things. Well, I wanted to do them, but there was something else I wanted to do more. Read.
I made myself a quick breakfast and parked myself in my reading chair until I had devoured the last page of the ebook and went ahead and bought the next five volumes. There were dozens of them, I found out, and I had no idea if I’d make it through that many, but I had to read more.
Audiobooks I usually reserved for travel, but I went ahead and got those too and wore my earbuds for all my errands, something I hadn’t done before. I almost completely forgot my grocery list and it took me forever to get through the store because I had to keep stopping and listening.
By the time I’d gotten everything done that I wanted to get done, I had switched back to ebooks and was well on my way to finishing the second volume.
For a moment, I considered sending Cadence a message that I’d started the books and was enjoying them, but why would I do that when I was going to see her tomorrow? Cadence was my employee, not my friend. Mary had been both, but that was after years of us being together. For now, I needed to keep a distance between me and Cadence. Strictly professional.
* * *
She was late on Monday, and she arrived with coffee on her pants and her hair frizzing around her head.
“I’m so sorry. There was traffic and then they didn’t make my order so they had to make it again and then I tripped.” She was babbling and I wanted to put my hands on her shoulders like I did with Camille and tell her to breathe.