see you in his office. Sadie made it clear that you were to make your way to the office before you did anything else.”
“Did she say what it was about?”
“Jurn–”
I was so far down the hall that I didn’t hear him finish. His words played on repeat. She and Alan left to go look at a couple of possible store locations. I had already set up the appointment to look at the locations, so why was she with Alan?
Sadie greeted me as I walked past her desk straight into Graham’s office.
“Why is Jurnee with Alan looking at locations when I set up appointments for next week?” I snapped.
Graham closed the file he was scanning. “Good morning, Anderson. Hope you had a nice weekend.”
“Cut the small talk, you’re not good at it, and I don’t appreciate it.” I sank into the chair in front of his desk. “Why is Jurnee with Alan this morning?”
“What exactly did you think was going to happen?” I stared at Graham, but he didn’t continue, so I did. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“What did you think would happen with Jurnee? Did you think she would want to continue working with you?”
Pounding my fist on his desk, I repeated myself very slowly. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The text.”
My mom’s face flashed across my phone again. I forwarded her call to voice mail. “What text?”
“The text where you told her to delete your contact information. Something about: thanks for the memories.”
“Hold on. What?”
“You’re in deep shit.” Graham crossed his arms. “She was at my apartment for most of the afternoon yesterday. FYI… Soraya is pissed at you too, and I can’t blame her.”
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through all the texts. At the very end of the list, I saw it. Jurnee Messer. “Fuck!”
“Okay, now I’m confused.” He leaned forward and rested his folded arms on the desk in front of him.
“I sent it to all the other females in my phone. I never thought to unselected her. I didn’t check. Shit!”
“Oh, you are screwed.”
“I still don’t understand why she is out with Alan.” I was already typing a new text.
Anderson - This has been a terrible mistake. We need to talk. Where are you?
“Well, when you told her you didn’t want to hear from her–”
“It wasn’t her that I wanted to not hear from!”
“My mistake. When Jurnee received the text from you stating you didn’t want to have any communication with her ever again,” I glared at him for his clarification. “She asked to be removed from your team. I assigned Alan to work with her, as he has the most experience.”
“Why would she think I didn’t want to talk to her after the weekend we had?”
“Because you sent her an asshole text.”
Dragging my hands over my face, I looked up from my phone. “That’s what she said?”
“Anderson, she was pretty upset yesterday. If you aren’t serious about her, why did you take her back to your parent’s place? By the way, Jurnee didn’t know who your family was.”
I was typing out a text to Martin. “What?”
“I think she has to be the only woman on Earth that doesn’t believe in Googling people. Something about not wanting to invade people’s privacy or something.”
Looking up from my phone, “Did you tell–”
He sat back in his chair. “Soraya was there. What do you think?”
“This is so fucked up.” My phone rang, and I looked down to see my mother’s face. “Jesus, this is not how I saw this day going. Sorry, Graham. I have to take care of this.”
“Think about what I said, Anderson. Don’t hurt her. Soraya will kick your ass.”
Waving, I was almost to Sadie’s desk when I heard him chuckling. If I wasn’t so focused on explaining what happened to Jurnee, I’d go back in and kick his ass.
“Martin!” I shouted as I got within eyeshot of his desk. “Get on the phone with Alan and find out where they are. Text me the info immediately. Do not think about coming in tomorrow if I don’t have their location in the next twenty minutes.”
“Anderson, your mom called.” He was solemn. Something was up.
“What?”
“Madeline took a pretty bad fall off her horse this morning. Your mom said she’s been trying to get a hold of you.”
My phone slipped out of my hand. “What?”
“She’s back home already. I’ve already ordered a big huge bouquet.”
BAM!
My head met the edge of Martin’s desk as I came up from grabbing my phone.
This is not how