Accidentally Amy(59)

Who, over the course of the afternoon, had been renamed The Douche. “I like ethics as much as the next guy, but you can’t keep a secret like that. Not if you really care about the other person.” He stroked his pencil-thin mustached and said, “You deserve better.”
Josh nodded in agreement from his spot beside her in the back row, his words just short of slurry when he said, “Quick point of clarification, Chuck. You told at least thirteen lies while we were at the bar. You’ve told two since we got in the van and we’ve only made it five blocks. You wouldn’t know ethics if it bit you on your big rosy ass.”
Then he turned toward Izzy and said, “But Chuck is right. You deserve so much better than The Douche. He can kiss Chuck’s lying butt.”
Chuck added, “And he should’ve asked you before he told his boss about your relationship. Total dick move, not talkin’ to you first.”
She nodded and said, “Honestly, I'm dying to know what he said. Like, word-for-word, I want to know."
“Ask The Douche,” Chuck said, gesturing to her phone. “Make the asshole tell you.”
Izzy giggled. “Should I?”
“Yes!” they all said in unison. She gnawed on her lip before unlocking her phone and texting: What exactly did you tell Brad about us?
His response was almost immediate.
Blake: I told him that I started dating you the second I saw a post-acquisition org chart draft showing HR would soon begin reporting to someone else. Obviously that changed, but at the time I thought we were fee and clear. Man, Iz, my heart exploded.
That sounded really good to her, even though Chuck and Josh were talking about how douchey of a move that was.
Blake: Can I please call you?
She was about to text "yes" when Josh yelled, “NO!”
“Give me that,” he said, snatching her phone from her fingers. “No matter what your ultimate decision is, you have to be aloof in right now. You can’t let The Douche think you’ll forgive him that easily.”
She pictured Blake’s face and felt melty. Yeah - she was definitely ready to consider being easy on him. Still, she said, “I don’t want to run the risk of losing whatever this is that we have, assuming I want to take him back.”
She looked around the van and noticed they were waiting on her to do or say something.
She cleared her throat and said, “Assuming I want to take The Douche back.”
Cheers and clapping erupted in the van.
“You won’t,” Chuck said. “Just let him spend the night thinking he might lose you. Trust us on this.”
She looked from Chuck to Josh and decided that yes, she would trust them. She sucked at love and relationships, so they had to at least know more than her, right?
“Fine,” she said, noting a light slur in her own voice. “Keep my phone and don’t let me have it back, even if I beg.” “Donezo.”


    Izzy
She regretted that the minute she woke up the next morning. She reached for her phone, only to discover it’d never been returned. Awesome. She sat up and looked out the window, her head pounding, and sure enough, his car was gone.
Josh had gone to work and left her phoneless.
A week ago, she’d have just gone up to his apartment and retrieved it, but after The Darkling puked on his stuff, he’d started locking his door. “Dammit,” she groaned, her head aching as she flopped back onto her pillow. She laid there, feeling devastated about Blake. Her fuzzy brain was having a hard time keeping track of whether she was mad or sad, but there was no question that there was a massive aching emptiness without him.
An instant later, she remembered she was unemployed.
“Gawwwwwd.” One of those things would’ve been the worst, but the two of them together? This was nuclear-bad on her heart. She rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow, but that wasn’t comforting because it made her think of the way Blake’s pillow had smelled like a combination of him and bleach.
After a half-hour of crying in bed, she decided to get up and eat. She was wickedly hungover, and the only cure was going to be cold pizza. She climbed out of bed and shuffled toward the kitchen. She grabbed a slice and a Red Bull from the fridge, and took them over to her desk.
After waking the laptop that she always forgot to turn off, she plopped onto the chair and logged into - ugh - LinkedIn. Because as much as she’d like to spend the day loafing, the tiny balance in her savings account was pushing her to start job hunting immediately. She clicked on the search window and typed human resou-- before noticing the little inbox notification on the side of the screen.
25 New Messages. She knew they were all spam, but clicked into the messages, anyway. The first one was sent at 8am that morning, from someone named Ashley Lea at MOA. Izzy was familiar with the huge insurance company, but no one named Ashley. Hi, Isabella. We currently have an opening for an HR Generalist, and a little birdie told me that you might be looking. If you’re interested, please call me - I’d love to chat.
Izzy took a bite of pizza and read the message again. It looked like a legit message, but that was just a little too good to be true, wasn’t it? She moved down to the next message, which was also sent earlier that morning. My name is Emily Carson, and I’m with Price-Harper Corporation. We’re looking for a Senior HR Generalist, and your name was mentioned with a glowing recommendation. Would you be interested in discussing?
Izzy dropped the cold slice onto the table and leaned closer to the laptop screen. What in the actual hell? She started clicking through the rest of the messages, and they were ALL legitimate, I’m-not-dreaming employers, reaching out to her about jobs. She couldn’t believe it. Pam must’ve made some calls on her behalf - it was the only explanation. The woman was the sweetest and felt horrible when she’d let Izzy go, so that had to be it.