The Baby Pact (Babies and Billions #5) - Holly Rayner Page 0,27
friend for that, given the way she and Zach had pushed each other away when he had moved to Philadelphia.
Of course, there was another factor involved in that.
“Come on,” Kaylie said. “Let’s go down to the cafeteria and eat some lunch. You’ve been working hard all day. You deserve to take a break, and I don’t think you ever would if I didn’t bully you into it.”
Rhea laughed. “You’re probably right,” she admitted. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Probably sit up here glued to my computer all afternoon. Let’s go eat.”
Her phone vibrated, shaking her desk.
Kaylie hesitated. “Do you want to get that?”
“No,” Rhea said firmly.
“Oh,” Kaylie said. “Do you think it’s him again?”
“He’s been calling me all day.”
“You don’t think maybe you’d feel better about all this if you talked to him? Got a little closure?” Kaylie suggested gently. “I don’t mean to tell you how to live your life, it just doesn’t seem like you’re very happy with the way things are going right now.”
“I need a clean break,” Rhea said. “Sooner or later, he’ll have to take the hint. I just need to power through whatever this phase is.”
Kaylie shrugged. “You’re the boss,” she said.
The two women made their way downstairs and into the cafeteria. Rhea had packed a lunch, and she pulled it out of the fridge and began to open it up on the table. Kaylie went to the vending machine, perused the offerings, and bought herself a bag of potato chips and a soda.
Rhea laughed when she saw her friend’s choices. “That is not lunch, Kaylie.”
“I’ll get a lot of veggies in for dinner,” Kaylie said. “I slept in this morning, and I had to choose between a balanced meal or being on time to work. I ended up eating a microwave burrito on the drive so I’m still kind of full.”
“You can just call me if you’re running late, you know,” Rhea said. “It’s not that big a deal. I’m not going to fire you over it.”
“Yeah, and how would that look?” Kaylie asked. “One of the partners is my college roommate, I’m dating a guy in operations, and I come waltzing in at half past nine? It would definitely start to look like I thought I was special.”
Rhea knew her friend was right to concern herself with the optics, but she still felt bad. Kaylie was special; not only was she one of the most knowledgeable conservationists on staff, she was also the best friend anybody could have asked for. It felt wrong to see her sacrificing her health for the sake of making a good impression at work.
“Maybe we need to change our policies about tardiness in general,” Rhea mused. “If you’re having this problem, I’m sure other people are too.”
“We can talk about that,” Kaylie said. “But right now we’re on break, and I want to talk about New Year’s Eve. I think I have the perfect solution to your problem.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” Kaylie said. “We should have a party.”
Rhea burst out laughing. “You think parties are the answer to everything.”
“They’re the answer to lots of things! And this is one of them,” Kaylie said. “Think about it. We’ll invite tons of people. Everyone we know. Lots of them won’t be in relationships, so you won’t be the only single person there. It’ll have a nice group vibe instead of feeling romantic. And even if some people kiss at midnight—”
“Like you and Spencer, you mean?”
Kaylie blushed but plowed on. “Most people won’t be kissing. So you won’t feel like you’re left out of anything.”
“You promise it’s not some kind of setup?” Rhea asked. “I don’t want to get to this party only to discover that you’re planning to introduce me to one of your cute guy friends.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Kaylie said. “I haven’t done anything like that in years.”
It was true that she hadn’t even attempted to fix Rhea up on a date since college. She seemed to have learned, genuinely, that Rhea didn’t like that.
“All right,” Rhea said. “I trust you.”
“Though it wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it, if you saw someone you liked?” Kaylie asked.
“As long as you don’t have any expectations that that will happen.”
Because I know it won’t.
No matter how great a guy was, Rhea just wasn’t in a place emotionally where she would be able to appreciate him. She would compare every man to Zach, and every man would come up short.
Which is pretty messed up, considering the fact