Accidentally Amy(55)

Under normal circumstances, this would be gut-wrenching. But how the hell was he supposed to not tell Izzy? He’d always looked at the integrity of his role though a simple lens. It wasn’t uncommon for him to have to give depositions and represent the company under oath; mergers and acquisitions, state and federal filings, managing compensation, the benefit plans, the 401(k), leading employee investigations and terminations, workplace injuries – those fell under the umbrella of Blake’s responsibility.
And he took his responsibility to the company and its employees seriously. So he’d always purported himself as if every decision he made could be questioned under oath. Because it could. If he were always honest and followed the rules and regulations, he’d never have anything to hide. It had always seemed remarkably black and white to him. Gray existed all over business, but not within these specific areas. He could testify under oath that he'd never shared confidential information with an Ellis employee because he never had. But how could he keep this confidential when it was Iz?


    Izzy
Izzy walked into the conference room and grabbed the seat at the far end of the big table. She still had no idea why Blake had decided it was okay for them to be more than friends, but she trusted him. He was Mr. Integrity, so he obviously knew something or was working on a way to make it all okay.
The only problem was that her brain didn’t like mysteries. When she’d been with Blake all weekend, work had seemed a million miles away and she hadn’t cared about the why. Dark eyes and a deep voice had been her entire universe, providing every little thing she could ever need and shutting out the rest of the world.
Since walking into Ellis that morning, though, a tiny twinge of unease had settled into her belly.
She trusted him implicitly, but couldn’t wait to find out the how of their relationship. The why is it okay now when it wasn’t before.
Pam came into the conference room with a stack of files, closed the door behind her, and proceeded to explain that Ellis had acquired a company in Boston – Danovich Holdings. Izzy listened, fascinated, because her previous jobs had all been with small companies who definitely weren’t acquiring other businesses.
Izzy felt a weird little spark of pride as she realized that must’ve been what Blake had been doing in Boston. He was the one of the people Ellis had sent to acquire a multi-million dollar corporation. How cool was that?
Her Blake was a Boss.
After giving a high-level overview of the company they’d acquired, Pam began to describe the similarities and differences between their two benefit plans. Izzy took a lot of notes, as this was going to give her quite the workload, but she couldn’t wait to begin.
Izzy went back to her office and opened the Excel spreadsheet of all the new employees that she’d need to reach out to. She had a lot of work to do all of a sudden, but she was still in love with her new job so she didn’t mind. She got lost in the paperwork and reports, forgetting everything but work. Pam was in meetings somewhere else in the building, so it was easy to just fall into the work without interruptions. But when her stomach growled and she looked at the clock, her mind went right back to Blake. Because it was Monday - Caniglia’s Food Truck day.
She stretched, smiled, and texted: I’m on my way to Caniglia’s for spaghetti, FYI.
There was no guarantee he’d be there, but after their weekend, she’d be surprised if he didn’t show. She grabbed her coat and bag, pulled on her gloves, and headed for the elevator.


    Six o’clock. Izzy stared at the clock, still stuffed from the Blake-free lunch she’d had. He hadn’t been at Caniglia’s, which wasn’t a big deal, but he hadn’t sent her a single text all day, either. There was no reason to be concerned, yet – why in the hell hadn’t he texted? She grabbed her phone and sent: Are you still at work, Chest?
He responded almost immediately. Blake: Yup
Izzy didn’t like one-word answers with zero punctuation; that made her inexplicably nervous.
She replied with: Was the day as stressful as you thought it’d be?
Blake: Worse
She really, really, really needed an emoji or a superfluous exclamation point to ensure her that everything was fine.
She texted: I’ll stop bugging you so you can leave.;)
Blake: Tks
Ugh. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, that he was distancing himself from her. Which was ridiculous. He had been the one to initiate their more than friends, so that didn’t make any sense at all, right? She scarfed a piece of leftover pizza before going for a run with Josh, who was always down to accompany her if it was getting too dark. But when she got back and there was still no text from Blake, she knew something was up.
She showered and tried to stop checking her phone, but his absence gnawed at her. The combo of her not knowing why he suddenly thought they could date and his disappearing act after they actually did date left her very uncomfortable. She texted again before bed, a lowkey nothing message: The Darkling vomited on Josh’s couch and now he’s holding my pillows and blankets hostage until I clean it up.
It was true - that dick - and it was something that would amuse Blake. But an hour later, still no message.
And that kind of pissed her off. And scared her. She understood a stressful day, and she also understood that his obsession with ethics might prevent him from continuing their relationship if he’d been wrong about his mysterious whatever, but why in the hell would he ghost her? He was obviously home from work by now and capable of using his huge fingers to smash out a polite response.