Just a Girl - Becky Monson Page 0,69

you’re . . . okay. With everything.”

“I’m fine,” I lie.

“Good,” he says, his lips pulling slightly upward.

I nibble on the side of my bottom lip. “Why is it weird for you to have me there? Aren’t we professionals?” I will him to say it. Admit that all my crazy ideas have been true, that he has a hard time being around me because he wants me.

“I don’t know,” he says, reaching up and rubbing his jaw. I feel jealous of his fingers. I want to run my fingers over that jaw right now, with its chiseled structure and light speckling of stubble. He looks down at the desk. “With our . . . history and everything. It’s just . . . strange.”

Oh, our history. The one that lasted less than a week? I’d laugh out loud if I didn’t totally get what he means. We have a history, Henry and I. As short as it was.

“Well, I mean, it’s your rules that changed all that,” I say.

“It’s also station policy.”

“That you enforced,” I point out.

He looks down at his hands now resting in his lap. “Right,” he says, and then his eyes come back to mine. “And you’re dating Brady.”

“Um . . .” I trail off, looking down at my hands. I’ve woven them together and am currently rubbing my thumbs together. Do I tell him? Would it make a difference if I wasn’t anymore?

“Does that . . . bother you?” I ask, throwing the question out there. So many times, it’s seemed that it does bother him. His expressions, his looks at me, his disdainful looks at Brady. This could also just be a story I’ve made up in my head, since that’s what I do. Like right now I’m hoping he’ll say yes, and then I’d tell him that nothing is going on with Brady and that I broke it all off on Tuesday. Then he’d tell me he still wants me, and then he’d do one of those sweeping-everything-off-the-desk things with his hand, and we’d become an entangled mess on this very large, sturdy desk that’s between us.

“No,” he says, shaking his head for emphasis. “Of course not.”

Oh, that’s right. I’m not the kind of girl someone throws caution to the wind for like that. Dang you, fantastical brain.

“I’m . . . uh . . . happy for you,” he says, his hand gesturing toward me, his lips pulling upward. A placating smile.

This rankles. He’s happy for me? As if he has any right to have feelings about my love life? Are we supposed to be friends now? Because last I checked, he was my boss and that was all he was offering.

I tilt my head to the side, studying his face. His eyes are everywhere but on me. “So you brought me in here to make sure I’m okay with doing the feature? That’s it?”

“Well, yes,” he says, and then stops himself, huffing a breath out his nose.

“Yes?”

“Yes. I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

Liar.

“That’s great,” he says.

“Yes. I’m super-duper happy.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Also, super-duper? Good one, Quinn.

“Are you happy?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “Sure. Absolutely.”

We stare at each other for a moment. Henry’s brow knits together, and his gaze moves away from my eyes and slowly down to my lips, where it lingers until he pulls himself out of whatever trance he’s in and his eyes move back to mine.

Sweet déjà vu.

There are words that are left unsaid. Like a clothesline hanging between us, our thoughts written on cards and attached to it with clothespins, the words blowing back and forth with the wind. Henry has things he wants to say; I have things I want to say.

But we don’t.

Instead, I place my palms on my thighs and anchor myself to stand up.

“Thanks for the chat,” he says, giving me a thin smile.

“Sure thing,” I say, and then I turn to leave.

Before I shut the door, I look one more time at Henry, who’s swiping a hand down his face, his eyes closed, his face pinched.

I walk back to my desk wondering what that was all about, thinking it would be best to get my crazy-train brain out of here. But just as I pass by Jess’s desk, she calls out to me.

“I have a question for you,” Jess says as I turn back around.

“Sure,” I say, reaching up and running my fingers through my hair.

“You’ve been getting emails from someone named Thomas, and honestly, I can’t really tell if they’re