One
SHOULD ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THIS:
CRIMINAL
EVIL VAMPIRE MASTERMIND
TERRIBLE GUY
COME TO LIGHT
PLEASE EMAIL THE COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATELY AT
[email protected]Amelia
My friends and family HAD enjoyed teasing me with the adage the only sure things in life are death and taxes ever since I became an accountant.
After hearing it for the hundredth time, though, it stopped being funny. For me-a single, thirty-four-year-old CPA a year away from making partner at a big accounting firm-the only real sure things in life were an intractable caffeine addiction every tax season, and my mostly well-intentioned family giving me grief over my life choices.
Most people didn't understand that I loved my job. I loved the way the Internal Revenue Code made careful sense, and how it always gave you the right answer as long as you knew what questions to ask. Tax work was complex, but it was also neat, orderly, and consistent in a way the rest of life seldom was.
Most of all, though, I loved that I was good at what I did. It was hard to beat the high that came with knowing that very few people could do my job as well as I could.
But the night my world turned upside down, I was questioning my life choices for the first time in recent memory. It was the middle of tax season, which was always my most brutal time of year, but this year it was worse than usual. Mostly because of one absolute nightmare of a client.
The Wyatt Foundation had the biggest budget of any organization I'd ever worked with. In a show of confidence from Evelyn Anderson, the Butyl & Dowidge partner I reported to most frequently, I was handling this file solo. That was the good news. The bad news was within hours of getting the file it was obvious Wyatt was the least organized client I'd ever had.
The Wyatt Foundation was, to use a word you wouldn't find anywhere in the Internal Revenue Code, a shitshow. Its board seemed to have no idea how to run a nonprofit, and its chief financial officer seemed incapable of following simple directions. He'd been sending me new documents daily, some of which were from years I'd already told him the IRS didn't care about, and many of which were impossible to reconcile with other statements they'd sent.
I had less than three weeks to wrap everything up and get Wyatt's filing to the IRS. To say nothing of all my other files that were languishing from inattention.
I was good at working hard. But even though I was an accountant, I was still human. And I was nearing the breaking point.
I missed dancing around my Lakeview apartment to Taylor Swift. I missed spending time with Gracie, my temperamental cat. Above all, I missed my bed. Especially the way I used to spend at least seven hours in it every night.
I'd left my apartment at the crack of dawn that morning so I'd have a chance of getting on top of my other work before Wyatt's daily missives arrived. I had been focusing for so long on my Excel spreadsheet that when my phone buzzed with a series of texts, I nearly jumped out of my chair.
I fumbled through my briefcase until I found my phone, then reached for my glasses and slid them on. I'd taken them off hours ago; staring at my computer for too long made my vision blur. I needed to visit an optometrist, but that would have to wait until after tax season. Just like all the other forms of self-care I'd been putting off.
I smiled when I saw the texts were from my best friend, Sophie. She'd been dropping by my apartment every night the past two weeks to feed Gracie and take in my mail while I was working inhuman hours.
Sophie: Queen Gracie is fed and your mail is in its usual spot on the counter
Sophie: Also, Gracie asked me to ask you if you are coming home soon
Sophie: In cat language of course
Sophie: She's worried you're working too hard
I smiled. Sophie was so good to me. I glanced at the time and saw it was already six-thirty.
Shit.
If I didn't want to be late for my monthly dinner with my family, I needed to leave the office in the next ten minutes. And I was nowhere near finished with what I'd hoped to get done that day.
Amelia: I'm actually meeting my family for dinner tonight
Amelia: Could you apologize to Gracie for me?
Sophie: I mean I'm sure she'll forgive you
Sophie: She's a cat
Sophie: But I'm not a cat and I'm worried about how late you've been working
Sophie: You okay?
Not really, I thought. But I wasn't going to dump how stressed I was on Sophie. In addition to being a mom to twin toddlers, her attorney husband had been in San Francisco the past three weeks for depositions. She was no stranger to ridiculous demands on her time; she didn't need to hear me complain about mine.
Amelia: I'm fine. Just busy.
Amelia: Tell Gracie I hope to be
home by 9:30.
Amelia: Please give her scritches for me and tell her I'm sorry
Sophie: Will you be having dinner someplace where you actually can eat something this time?
Amelia: It's an Italian restaurant this time so hopefully.
I'd been a pescatarian since college, and a lactose intolerance that cropped up when I was in grad school meant I was off dairy. Ever since my brother Adam's twins were born eight years ago, though, my dietary needs were usually an afterthought at best when it came to family get-togethers. Because Adam's kids were young, only casual restaurants with a children's menu and a high level of background noise were options. And Dad liked red meat too much to take us anywhere that didn't offer it.
It was fine, though. I was the only one in our family who was single. And I didn't have kids. In the interest of being accommodating, I usually just went along with whatever the group wanted when we got together. Maybe it was the middle child in me, but making as few waves as possible had been my modus operandi for as long as I could remember. Sometimes I'd get lucky and my parents would pick an Italian restaurant with at least a few cheese-and-meat-free pasta options-like tonight. If I wasn't lucky, I'd have to wait until I got home to eat dinner.
As if on cue, my stomach chose that moment to do a comically loud rumble.
Sophie: Well I picked up some Chinese for the kids. They're getting fussy so I'm about to take them home, but I'll leave the leftover veggie lo mein for you in your fridge.
Amelia: You're the literal best, Soph.
Amelia: When does Marcus get back from San Francisco?
Sophie: His last deposition is Thursday
Sophie: So he'll be back Friday
Sophie: In THEORY
Amelia: You should have him on diaper duty for at least a week straight when he gets back.
Sophie: Oh, I'm demanding a full month
I smiled at my phone, feeling grateful. Hopefully Sophie would be able to take time for herself again once Marcus was finally back home. She was so giving to others, me included. She deserved to receive occasionally, too.
Amelia: Thanks Soph.
Amelia: You're the best.
Amelia: When tax season is over, I'm treating you to a fancy dinner and I'm not taking no for an answer.
Dinner would likely go until nine, and I didn't think I'd have the energy to go back to the office afterwards. I stuffed Wyatt's latest paperwork into my briefcase, promising myself I'd finish reviewing it at home.
The thirty-second floor was still a hive of activity as I made my way to the elevator. I tried not to let the guilt over leaving at an hour some of the partners might consider early wash over me.
Because if I stayed late tonight, I'd be bailing on my family. And a guilt of an entirely different kind would ruin my evening.
My building’s HVAC system ran nonstop, but it was always chilly in the lobby during the winter on account of the giant floor-to-ceiling windows. That night was no exception. Even still, it looked much colder outside. On the other side of my building’s revolving glass doors, pedestrians were hunched slightly forward in the distinctive way of people trying to get to where they were going in unpleasant weather. The kind of early spring cold snap that always made me wonder why the hell my great-great-grandparents hadn’t settled in California instead of Chicago when they came to the United States had rolled through two days earlier. A couple inches of snow had been packed down by foot traffic over the past few days into an icy crust on the sidewalks.
I pulled my black puffer jacket a little more tightly around my body and fished out the thin leather gloves I kept permanently stashed in its pockets. The El stop was only a few blocks away; even if it was as cold outside as it looked, I could handle it for a few blocks.
Bracing myself, I walked into the only revolving door still unlocked at that hour, and hurried outside into the brisk night air-
And was so preoccupied with guilty thoughts of the work I wasn't finishing, and of how I'd probably be late for family dinner, again, and of how I'd have to make it up to Sophie for bringing me lo mein despite my being a totally absent friend the past few weeks, that I didn't see the guy in the black fedora and bright blue trench coat literally sprinting down the sidewalk until he plowed into me.
"What-!"
The impact when we collided made me drop everything I'd been carrying. My briefcase, the gloves I'd been about to put on, the stress I'd been carrying all day like a lead ball in the pit of my stomach-it all fell to the icy sidewalk. The paperwork I'd stuffed into my briefcase just minutes ago spilled out of it on impact, landing in a puddle of icy slush.
I glared at the guy who'd just run into me.
"What the hell!" I snapped.
"Sorry." The guy's fedora was pulled down so low over his face, it covered most of it, and despite what he'd just said, he didn't sound sorry. He sounded distracted, and his body looked coiled for action, like he was milliseconds away from running off in the direction he'd been heading when he slammed into me.
"I doubt you're sorry," I muttered.
The guy glanced down at my feet where my things lay, and seemed to realize, for the first time, that he'd made me drop everything. The slush puddle had made quick work of the Wyatt financial reports; everything was wet now and would be impossible to read. I'd have to go back to the office and print it all out again, which I really did not have time for.
And-oh god, what if my laptop had cracked when it hit the ground? I quickly scooped up my bag and shuffled through it to make sure my MacBook was okay. Fortunately, it seemed fine.
"I am sorry," the guy said again. "But-look. Since you've kept me from where I was heading for nearly an entire minute now, can you do me a favor?"
The gall of this guy. He could have broken my computer! "You're asking me for a favor?" I was about to tell him exactly where he could stick his favors-
But then he tilted his head to the right at the same time he pushed his fedora a little farther back on his head, and I got my first real look at him.
The words died in my throat.
Maybe the stress of too many consecutive late nights in the office was finally getting to me. That must have been it. Or maybe it was just because I hadn't dated anyone casually in over a year, or anyone seriously in more than five. Whatever the reason for it, in that moment, he looked more attractive than he had any right to look, given the circumstances. He was fairly tall, probably about six foot two, but I was no slouch in the height department myself, and because of that-and because of the angle at which he'd been wearing his hat until this moment-it had initially been difficult to see much of his face. But now that I could see it . . .
He had high, angular cheekbones. A strong chin that sported at least three days' worth of dark blond stubble. Light-colored eyes that looked, given his fair complexion, as though they might be blue. Though most of his face was still bathed in shadow from his hat, even with its slight repositioning, so it was hard to tell.
I'd always had a thing for blond-haired, blue-eyed guys. A thing that sometimes ended up with me making decisions I'd regret later. Especially when said blond hair and blue eyes came in broad-shouldered, slim-waisted packages.
Like Mr. Fedora Asshole over here.
The fact that I could now see he was wearing a black T-shirt beneath his trench coat that said Blame Bezos in bright red letters, as well as a pink gingham skirt that totally clashed with his coat and his hat, didn't do anything to dampen my attraction. If anything, it just enhanced the dirtbag Chris Pine look he had going for him.
I closed my eyes and shook my head a little as I tried to get a grip. God, I needed a vacation. The minute tax season was over, I was booking a flight to somewhere warm and sunny.
I tore my eyes from his face. This was ridiculous. I was ridiculous. "I am not doing you a favor," I somehow managed.
"Please," he implored. The distraction in his voice was gone; in its place was a raw urgency that stunned me. "It won't take long. Please-can you start laughing? As though we are in regular conversation and I am in the process of telling you something very funny?"
I stared at him, reeling from the randomness of the request from this stranger. "I'm sorry, but . . . what?"
"I am trying to avoid some people." His tone was pitched low, his words coming very quickly. As though he had limited time to get them out. "I was trying to avoid them when I . . . when we . . ." He gestured expansively between us, and then to the ruined papers at my feet.
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