One Good Reason

The beginning of a headache pulsed behind her left eyebrow. She pulled her in-tray close and grabbed a stack of invoices. She needed to stop gnawing on this stuff. It was doing her head in—literally.

It took some serious willpower, but gradually she lost herself in her work. The rest of the team straggled in, until finally she heard Tyler’s deep voice as he called out a greeting to the crew.

Her stomach tensed and she put down her pen.

Any minute now he would stick his head through the door and say hello. A dart of panic raced up her spine.

Relax. It’s a day like any other. He’ll say hi, and you’ll say hi back, and the world will keep spinning. The same as it did yesterday, the same as it will tomorrow.

The only difference was, yesterday she hadn’t acknowledged that she was still in love with Tyler. Seeing him this morning, looking into his face with all those feelings of grief and rejection so close to the surface … It was going to be hard. Damned hard.

“Morning, Gab. Anything I need to know about?” Tyler asked from the doorway.

She took a moment to compose herself before facing him. Tyler must never know how she felt. Ever.

“All good here, chief,” she said, a bright smile on her face.

“Bloody hell. What have you done to your hair?”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“It looks like a helmet. Or that snap-on plastic hair they have for Lego figurines,” Tyler said, moving closer to get a better look.

For a moment she didn’t know what he was talking about, then she remembered she’d pulled out all the stops for Jon this morning, including gluing her hair down with gel and creating a ruthlessly straight side part.

“Is that hair gel?” Tyler asked.

“I’m trying something different.”

“Like what? Sculptural hair? I could carve this stuff.” He tapped her hair experimentally.

Gabby pushed her chair back out of his reach. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess you have no idea how rude you’re being right now.”