Accidentally Amy(58)

“Blake.” Her voice was tight. “When?”
Fuck, he didn’t want to answer that. He sighed and said, “Yesterday morning.”
“Oh - wow.” She did a breathy cough-laugh thing that was definitely not good. “More than twenty-four hours.”
“Well I was--”
“Question two,” she interrupted, sounding like her teeth were gritted. “Did you have any part in the decision that I should be one of the eliminated?”
He felt even more queasy than he’d felt before. “Yes.”
He heard her shocked inhalation through the phone. He said, “But I didn’t know that--”
“Nope. Blake.” She talked right over him, her voice stiff and weird. “You have no idea how much I respect your honesty. I’m sure you made the right business decision and didn’t let your personal feelings interfere.”
He didn’t know if she was being sincere or sarcastic, so he said what was in his heart. “Please let me bring you a pizza.”
“No.” She cleared her throat again and said, “I mean, no, thank you. I have to go.”
“Wait.”
“WHAT?”
He didn’t know. He only knew that if she hung up the phone, things would get worse. “What was your third question?”
She growled. “Once it was decided that my position was being eliminated, which was evidently done by none other than you, is that when you told me that we could be more than friends?”
He hadn’t expected that. Holy shit, did she really think he was that big of a jerk? She had every right to be pissed at him, but he felt wounded when he said, “Are you asking me if I eliminated your job so we could be together?”
Her voice was clipped when she said, “Dear Lord, Blake. You’re an intelligent man. Don’t make me repeat the question.”
“Izzy, of course I didn’t--”
“Forget it,” she interrupted. “Doesn’t matter?”
“Are we okay?” he asked, feeling like he needed to brace his arms on his knees and put his head between his legs so he didn’t pass out.
“I don’t know. I don’t really think so.”
“Iz.” For the third time that day, he had no fucking idea what to say. “Please tell me we can be okay.”
“I can’t.” Her voice was louder now. “Because no matter how I look at this, we’re not okay. Either you fired me to get what you wanted, or you knew I was getting fired but didn’t tell me. I hate both scenarios.”
“I texted you,” he said, hating how desperate he sounded, how desperate he felt.
“In the middle of the night," she snapped, "And all you said was to call you. That's not a warning.”
“You have to believe me that I didn’t know you were on the list until Brad told me yesterday morning.”
“But you said--”
“I was looking at employee numbers and data when I made the decision - no names,” he said, wondering if that would even matter to her. “It wasn’t even until I talked to him about us that I realized you were affected.”
“Wait. You told him about us?”
“Yes.” Fuck. I was totally blowing it.  “I met with him Monday at six a.m. to discuss it.”
“Ohmygod, Blake - what if that’s why?” She sounded even angrier as she said, “Or were you just ensuring that I couldn’t be removed from the list once Brad knew?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“I have to go.”
No. “Can I come over?”
“No.”
“Iz. Come on,” he begged, feeling desperate. “Please.”
“I need to think, okay? I have to go.” She disconnected the call, and Blake stood there for the longest time, just staring at the phone in his hand.


    Izzy
“To Izzy,” Josh shouted, holding up his shot glass.
“To Izzy,” his friends repeated, and they all tossed back another shot. When she’d come home in the middle of the morning, crying and carrying her wet box of belongings, her cousin had gone into full-on supportive bestie mode. He’d taken her shopping to try and help her forget about her joblessness, and then he’d called all of his nerdy friends to meet them for day-drinking.
On a side note, she didn’t know how Josh’s friends were able to just ditch work for an impromptu afternoon party, but she was sure glad they were. It’d been a good distraction, but not good enough to make her not think about Blake.
Every time he entered her mind, she’d get that adrenaline shot to her system, the weird chemical mixture that made her feel love, hate, worry and dread, all at the same time. But the thing of it was, she wasn’t sure how she really felt. He might’ve handled it poorly, but he’d never lied to her. He had always been honest to a fault, so if he said he hadn’t known he was choosing her for elimination, he probably hadn’t. She still didn’t know where they stood, relationship-wise, but --
“Drink, drink, drink!” they all chanted over the noise of the bar, and she did. She tossed back the Vegas Bomb, happily allowing her tipsiness to catch a buzz that she hoped would morph into full-scale drunkenness. Because it’d been a very shitty day that she’d like to forget. Josh and his friends forced her to play darts with them, then pool, and it wasn’t until she was good and tipsy, on the way home, that the conversation turned 100% in her direction.
The whole group was piled into the back of their DD’s minivan when Josh’s friend, Chuck, turned around in his seat and told her over the headrest that she was too good for Blake.