“That piece of shit!”
Every head in the cubicle pit swivels in the direction of my best friend.
“Kris, keep your voice down,” I grumble, rushing to close my office door. I spin back to her and lean against it. She’s half ride-or-die fury, half devastated. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what? Like I want to slice his balls off one paper cut at a time, because I do.”
I drop her gaze and return to my desk. “I get it. But I’m fine.”
“What did the police say? What comes next?”
Mouse clicking beneath my fingers, I steel my nerves on a sigh. “It’s not?—”
“Hannah! You didn’t report it?”
“Report what?” I level her with a glare, nostrils flaring. “That some guy Ivoluntarilymet for dinner had too much to drink and got handsy in the parking lot?”
Her brows jump. “Handsy? You said no and he forced himself on you. That’s assault.”
“Can we not? I only told you because there’s no way I couldn’t.”She got the CliffsNotes of the story—the details are too stomach churning for me to voice out loud.
“John’s gonna be livid when he hears this,” Kristen seethes, pacing like a woman on a mission.
“Please don’t make it a big thing. He probably won’t even be at the office today with the beating he took.”
She skitters to a halt. “Wait, what beating?”
I hold her stare for long seconds as she squares herself to me, palms braced on the desk.
“What beating, Hannah?”
My back hits the chair, arms folded across my chest. “Rowan was there.”
Kristen blinks in confusion. “Row—” She stops herself, realization dawning, face damn near comical. “G.I. Joe?!”
Nodding, I scrape my teeth over my bottom lip. Her slow grin mirrors mine.
“You’re telling me Ducati guy, Army-muscles guy, just happened to be there.”
“That is what I’m saying.”
“And he beat Daniel up.”
“Yes.”
“Is he, like, following you?”
I chuckle. “Don’t care. I’m just glad he was there.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Not surprisingly, she wants to know everything—a play by play of what happened after Daniel fled the scene with his tail between his legs. These details, I can manage. I tell her about the bar, the embarrassing amount of tequila consumed, the alley vomiting, the drive home, Mom, waking up this morning.
By the time I’m finished, I have three minutes to get to a meeting about the Boulder Children’s Hospital Gala. We head in opposite directions when we step outside my office. She’ll tell her husband about Daniel—I’d never ask her to keep it from him. But I made her swear themselves both to secrecy.
The next hour is consumed by talk of event timelines, vendorconfirmations, and assembling a final checklist to tackle in these last two weeks.
Prepped and ready for the days ahead, the meeting ends and we all head back to our work stations. Olive finds me in stride, walking through the communal office space filled wall to wall with cubicles.