have ticked me off, but instead I found it to be kind of…sexy.
“If I didn’t like you so much, I’d hate you right now,” Megan sighed. “As if it’s not bad enough you work for the hottest guy in the building. Now you have a date with a sexy detective.”
“There are some days I’d gladly trade you bosses,” I said dryly. “You know that.”
“I know Parker can be a total pain in the ass,” she said. “But don’t give me that. We both know you’d come to work even if you were miserable sick—and have—if Parker said he needed you. So don’t play that ‘I hate my job’ card with me. I know you’re full of crap.”
“He’s not that bad,” I said.
Megan snorted. “You’re the only one here who’d put up with him. Even I could only let that pretty face go so far before I’d have to slip something in his coffee.”
I couldn’t argue with her. There were some days I wanted to slip something in Parker’s coffee.
“So I take it Brandon’s no longer in the picture if you’re going to dinner with a smokin’ hot detective dude?” she asked.
“His name is Ryker and no. I got dumped last night.”
“No shit,” she said, looking completely unsurprised.
I held up a finger. “Don’t say it.”
“Say what?” she replied, all innocence.
“You know what.”
“You mean that I’ve been telling you for months now how you’re never going to have a decent relationship so long as you let Parker rule your every waking moment? That I keep reminding you that this is a job and not your life? That Parker doesn’t appreciate you and that I can’t for the life of me understand why you allow yourself to be at his beck and call to the point where you can’t even date? Is that what you don’t want me to say?”
I sighed. I couldn’t be mad at Megan. Nothing she said was wrong. I knew she only said those things because she loved me and worried about me, but it was what it was. I needed this job. I liked this job, despite the demands it made on me. The pay was awesome, the benefits were great, and I liked living in Chicago. Though Megan would call me a masochist—and probably had at some point—because most of my waking hours were consumed by Parker and my job, I liked it that way.
At my silence, Megan looked contrite. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I should just keep my mouth shut sometimes.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s okay.” It was kind of depressing when I thought about Brandon dumping me—yet another short-lived relationship to add to my tally—so I pushed the thought aside.
“So I texted Brian this weekend,” she said, and I was glad for the change of subject. Brian was a guy who worked in IT. He was really nice and very good-looking, but I thought he wasn’t terribly bright when it came to women.
“And?” I asked. Megan had had a thing for Brian since the day she first met him a year ago. They’d had to work together on a project and had become good friends. “Did he text you back?”
“Yeah, a little,” she said with a sigh. “I think I’m permanently friend-zoned, though. He doesn’t seem to get it no matter how much I flirt.”
“Of course he doesn’t,” I said. “He’s in IT. You’d have to parade in front of him topless for him to get it.”
She laughed. “I don’t know what it is with him. Any other guy, I’d just ask them out. But him… I don’t know.” She sighed.
“It’s because he’s different from all the other guys you’ve dated,” I said. “You’re actually friends, which is awesome. They’re supposed to make the best husbands.”
Now it was Megan’s turn to look slightly uncomfortable. “What was a detective doing here anyway?” she asked, changing the subject.
“No clue,” I replied. “But I think they know each other, him and Parker. Their conversation was a bit…hostile.” A massive understatement.
“Huh. Weird. Maybe he’ll tell you?”
I shrugged. “No way to know. But I’ll definitely give you the gossip if he does.” I shot her a grin. Megan loved gossip.
“You’d better.”
After I swore to tell her all the juicy details of my date with Ryker, Megan headed back to her desk and I went to retrieve the lunch tray from Parker’s office.
He was deeply involved in something, judging by his frown and fierce look of concentration, so I didn’t speak. His jacket had been discarded and flung onto the