Happily Never After

I STEPPED OFF the elevator and headed for my desk, in a good mood after coffee with Max. He’d been funny and not creepy at all, and I’d felt surprisingly comfortable around him, which was weird because I didn’t usually enjoy socializing with strangers.

I don’t know why, but I’d been shocked by how attractive he was. I’d looked him up online after he texted last night and found him on LinkedIn, but there hadn’t been any photos. So yes, I’d remembered him as handsome, but it was in a suited-up, GQ kind of way. That morning, though, he’d looked like a different man. Same dark eyes and strong nose, but a totally different aesthetic.

Jeans, work boots, black pullover with some sort of logo next to the three-quarter zip, and a Patagonia fleece jacket; he just needed a hard hat and he’d look like the host of an HGTV home-flipping show.

Which made sense, because according to his profile, he was a senior project manager for a construction company.

The biggest construction company in the state.

Somehow, his realness at the coffee shop—both in appearance and personality—put me at ease.

Perhaps tomorrow’s wedding wouldn’t be so bad.

Ugh, I was already nervous, though.

Could I do it? Could I actually stand up in front of everyone at a wedding and object to a couple’s union? I was used to giving presentations to large groups at work, but a church full of strangers expecting romance was something else entirely.

“Good morning, Sophie,” I heard from the office to my left.

“Good morning, Ben,” I replied on autopilot, not even looking in that direction.

Our president was big into promoting the idea that at Nesbo Inc., we were more like a family than a corporation. He’d implemented the Daily Goodmornings, which was basically a decree that if you saw someone walking in to start their day, you took the two seconds to say good morning.

It sounded innocuous enough, but since my cubicle was all the way at the other end of the building, one of those super-collaborative open-floorplan configurations, I was subjected to a daily lineup of seemingly endless good mornings before I’d even had my first energy drink, and I loathed it.

My teeth should be ground to bits from the amount of gnashing that occurred each and every day.

“Morning, Sophie,” from my right, to which I responded, “Morning, Dallas.”

“Morning, Soph,” from the cubicle in the corner.

“Morning, Betsy,” I murmured, opening my purse to look inside for my AirPods. God, I hoped I hadn’t forgotten them, because the office was so quiet that the sounds of typing drove me insane. Headphones were my only salvation from the brink of madness.

“Good morning, Sophie,” Izabel said.

“Good morning, Iz,” I replied, rummaging through my tote.

“Good morning, Sophie,” Stuart said.

“Good morning, pathetic tosspot,” I muttered, now in a full-on panic that I’d left them at home.

“Good morning, Sophie,” I heard from the corner office.

“Good morning, Amy,” I replied, giving up on the hunt. I’d clearly left my AirPods at home and would now be subjected to the overbearing sounds of silence.

Wonderful.

I could see that Edie was already in her office and on the phone when I reached my cubicle and set down my bag, so I gave her a hand raise, to which she responded with a subsequent chin nod.

No matter how early I came in, she always beat me.

Which was fine, because she was my boss; that was the way it was supposed to work, right?

As long as I beat my team in, all was right in the world.

And I always beat them.

I sat down and opened my laptop, drinking more of my Americano as my computer came to life. I knew it was going to be one of those wall-to-wall-meeting days, so I needed to fill myself with preventive caffeine.

The Nesbo database bleeped and up popped the start message—Good morning, Sophie Steinbeck, HR Director—and the smiling-robot prompt to enter my password.

As I typed in my very secure eight-digit passphrase with both symbols and numbers, I daydreamed—like I did every morning—about the prompt saying, Good morning, Sophie Steinbeck, VP of HR. I knew I was younger than the VPs of the other business units, but I was so ready.

I was pretty sure the other VPs knew I was ready, too.

Hell, I was pretty sure Edie knew—I’d been more like her colleague than her subordinate since my last promotion; we functioned like a two-person dream team. There had been rumors of her retirement for a year now, and I felt it in my bones that she would recommend me to take her place when she left.

“Good morning,” Maya said as she walked into the department from the stairwell. “How was pizza night with the roommates?”

Maya and I started with the company on the exact same day and had been work besties ever since.

I gave my head a shake and opened Outlook. “Absolutely the same as the last, although no one ran into their room and slammed the door this time.”

“Those two are a trip,” she said, taking off her jacket and dropping into her chair. “Who would’ve thought they’d be so entertaining?”

I couldn’t remember what I’d thought before they moved in, and it’d only been a couple months. Living with them was like a fever dream, just a hazy reel of weird did that really happen? moments, and if it weren’t for the fact that they thoroughly enjoyed cleaning and paid rent absurdly early, I’d definitely be questioning my decision.

“Definitely not me,” I replied.

“There are donuts in accounting, by the way,” she said as she logged in to her computer. “But no chocolate.”

“If there’s no chocolate, there’s no donut.”

“Preach.”

A few hours later, while I was eating my Southwestern salad and listening to a mind-numbingly boring Zoom presentation about a new wellness app, my phone buzzed.

Max: I’ve got the details for tomorrow. Also—your payment will be 4k.

I stopped chewing. Four grand? I texted: You make 4k interrupting weddings??

Max: The rate varies and isn’t set by me.

That didn’t make sense; maybe Max was a sketchball. I texted: Is there some sort of governing board that sets the rates for objectors? Is there an Objectors Union that negotiates the wage?

Max: Listen, wiseass, I’ve never had to set a rate. Every time I’ve done it people have just offered me payment, as in “I’ll give you 2k to do this for me.”

That kind of made sense. I set down my fork and texted: And TJ offered you 4k to break up his redneck nuptials?

Max: Correct. Is that a workable wage?

I made a good living at Nesbo, but I really wanted to ditch the roommates. They were sweet but a lot, so any bonus funds I could bank toward living alone in Stuart’s former residence would be very welcome.

Me: Yes. Details please.

Max: So the wedding is at 4pm and very casual. Jeans and boots. I’ll pick you up at 3:15 and we can talk through it on the way there, so you’re ready.

I picked up my Diet Pepsi and couldn’t believe I was actually going to go through with it. It was an absurd thing to do, but every time I thought about backing out, I remembered that moment last winter when I’d decided my only option was to marry Stuart and get divorced.

I’d felt trapped and helpless and utterly alone.

Thank God Asha found Max.

I usually kept my thoughts about love to myself, because it seemed like I was the only one who got what a ridiculous farce it was. The rest of the world bought into the absurd notion that there was someone out there just made for them, and I knew my opinions were pointless in swaying their wide-eyed optimism.

But if I could help TJ escape, I wanted to.

Besides, his fiancée sounded like a trash human who deserved to be publicly dragged.

Me: Can you forward me a brief outline of your speeches that I can review?

Just as I took a big gulp of soda, my phone started ringing. I looked at the display and gasped, sending my pop down the wrong tube.

It was Max.

I was violently coughing when I answered the unexpected and what the hell, why is he calling me? call.

“This is Sophie,” I managed.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Fine,” I said between hacks. “Gimme one sec.”

I set down the phone just in time to see Edie watching me through her office window as I coughed so hard tears leaked from my eyes. Damn it. I finally got myself together enough to get back on the call. “Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, I don’t have any speeches, white papers, or PowerPoint presentations to forward,” he said, his deep voice rich with sarcasm. “I’m kind of an off-the-cuff guy.”

“Wonderful,” I replied, googling wedding objections to see if I could find anything similar. “So I’m going to show up totally unprepared.”

“I’ll prepare you in the car,” he said, his tone changing to something a little more reassuring. “I promise it will be easy. You drop your bombs and walk away.”

I leaned back a little in my chair and tried imagining it—standing up and doing it.

“And I’ll be right beside you to help if things go sideways.”

I didn’t like him mentioning sideways possibilities, but I knew I couldn’t do it if he wasn’t going with me.

“Do you have cowboy boots?” he asked, and just as I was about to answer, Stuart walked up to my desk.

He had that scared-to-make-eye-contact look about him that he always got when he had to talk to me. I rolled my eyes and whispered, “What, Stuart?”

“You’ve got the big conference room at two o’clock today but Edie said there’s only going to be five of you in there,” he said quickly. Breathlessly. “Would you mind moving to the smaller room on the third floor so sales can have their QBR?”

I narrowed my eyes and stared at him unblinkingly until I saw him swallow.

I could definitely move my meeting—and I would—but I was going to make him squirm first. “I’m really not sure. I’ll have to get back to you.”

Another swallow. “Do you know when?”

“I’m on a call, Stuart,” I growled, raising the phone to my ear and turning my chair around so my back was to him. “I’ll let you know.”

I felt victorious when I heard him sigh and walk out of the HR area.

“That’s not the same Stuart, is it?” Max asked.

Which brought my attention back to the call I’d been on. “What? Oh. Yeah, it is, but it’s not what you think. We work together.”

“No shit?” he asked, sounding utterly shocked at my words. “You work together after everything that happened?”

“We do,” I said, not appreciating the judgment in his voice.

“Are you, like, a doctor? An astronaut? What do you do for a living?”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the question—or why he would assume astronaut—but I answered with “I work in HR. Why?”

“HR?” He sounded confused. “So you could get a job anywhere.”

I knew where he was heading, so I said, “Please make your judgmental point instead of asking an endless stream of leading questions.”

“Okay. Why would you stay at a job where you have to see that fucker every day?”

I was ready with a glib answer, but his use of fucker made my mouth close. There was something kind of nice about it, though I didn’t feel like exploring that surefire sign of my pathetic insecurities. “It’s a long story.”

“Please make your answer concise and direct instead of a long story.”

That made me want to smile, the asshole. I lowered my voice and said into the phone, “I’m next in line for a big promotion, so I have no intention of leaving the company just because that little wanker cheated on me. He can leave, and if he doesn’t, he can deal with my presence here.”

I heard a low, deep chuckle that did something to my stomach. “Dear God, you make his life hell on a daily basis, don’t you?”

I shrugged and kind of liked telling someone. “I do my best, yes.”

“Mad respect,” he said. “And I also pity your ex just a little because I have a feeling you’re very good at your job.”

“Thank you, you shouldn’t, and I am.”

“So about the boots. Do you have a pair?”

“Yes, although I have to say it feels a bit ghoulish, destroying lives while wearing a pair of Justins.”

“You’re not destroying lives, you’re saving them.”

“That’s right, I am.”

“That’s right, Steinbeck—you are,” he reiterated, sounding sincere. “Now drop me your address, and I’ll see you tomorrow at three fifteen.”