“I guess.”
“What do you mean you guess?”
“Well, it was, but—”
“There is no but, Alex. You just told me your user ID is Alex-C-four-one-three, and you’re on SMA Team F. You’ve ignored written procedures from the help desk and continued to incorrectly upload files in the system. Because of that, the site crashed yesterday, and as of right now, it’s still not up.”
“That’s not me. I don’t—”
“How can you sit here and deny it. Your user ID is all over it.”
“That was my Miriam Pratt user ID. I haven’t been given one for Seneca yet. We don’t get them until we’ve completed training, and I haven’t even started yet.”
“I’m not following. How does your username for your old job have anything to do with what’s going on now? Your old company has no bearing on your personnel information here.”
She stared blankly at me for a moment, blinking slowly multiple times, and then her gaze narrowed. “You do know that Seneca bought out Miriam Pratt, right?”
“No. When did that happen?” I had been with the company for three years, I would’ve known if we’d acquired the firm she had worked for. Hell, if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have called every company listed in the phonebook looking for her.
“Almost four years ago.”
I mulled that over for a second and then said, “You told me you had gotten another job.”
“Technically I did. I thought with the buyout, I’d finally get that promotion.”
“Well, it looks like you did.”
Her brows knitted, the creases between them deepening. “No, I didn’t.”
“Then why are you uploading advertising files to the site?”
She groaned and turned her attention to the ceiling as though she needed a moment to calm herself before speaking. “That’s what I keep trying to explain, but you aren’t listening. I told Martin yesterday, I wasn’t the one who did that. I don’t even have access to it.”
“I’m not following.”
“When Seneca took over, everything changed. Under Miriam Pratt, we all had unique user names and email accounts, but that all changed after the buyout. Only account reps are given usernames, which means I lost mine.”
“What about the emails that were sent to you?”
“Maybe you have no clue how this company works from this side of things, but down on the lower levels, everything is shared—emails included. It’s part of Seneca’s team-mentality philosophy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the inbox open on my computer and they just vanish from the screen. There are five account reps and two to three juniors on each team who all share one email. The accountability is crap at best. You can’t hold me liable for emails I’ve never seen, let alone responded to.”
“So if this isn’t you, and you haven’t had this user ID in four years, how is all of this coming back on you? Who’s the real Alex-C-four-one-three?”
“That I couldn’t tell you. I have no idea how Seneca generates those things; all I know is that used to be mine back when this was Miriam. For some reason, it must still be linked to my personnel number.”
I turned toward the computer monitor on my desk to search for her in the company’s database. I had access to the employees’ profiles, but I could only see personnel numbers and the usernames they were assigned to. Aside from that, I had no way of getting names or any other private information.
Getting nowhere fast, I grabbed the receiver off the cradle and dialed a few numbers. “Hey,” I spoke into the phone when my call was answered. “Do you happen to know how usernames are generated? Is there some method to it, or is it completely random?”
“Really, Pat? This is what you get paid for?” my buddy from the California office joked. “Let me see…” There were some tapping sounds, and then he came back on the line. “Which user IDs are you talking about? Tech or marketing?”
“Marketing. I have a situation I can’t get straightened out until I know who I’m looking for. Not sure how, but the ID responsible for uploading those files to the site is listed under someone else’s name, so basically, all the warnings have gone to the wrong person.”
“Okay…so it looks like account reps are generated by the first four letters of the last name, the first letter of the first name, and then the last three numbers of their social. It’s possible for two people to have similar names, but I can’t imagine two people with similar names and the same ending of their social.”
“I can’t, either…but something must’ve happened because I have a marketing employee in my office right now who’s being blamed for crashing the site because the ID is attached to her name. She hasn’t even had a username since Seneca took control of the firm she used to work for.”
“Ah!” His exclamation startled me. “She was an employee we bought out?”
I glanced at Lexi, for some reason needing to see her while I talked about her. She stared at me without an ounce of expression on her face. I didn’t care, because at least I got to look at her without hearing her cold words directed at me.
“Yeah, why? What does that have to do with anything?”
“I have no idea how, but for some reason, we’ve had a few issues with shit getting fucked up when merging personnel records. There was one guy in New York who went a whole year before anyone discovered his name in the system belonged to some chick’s. It was his social, but everything else was her information—talk about a tax nightmare.”
I nodded, as if that somehow made sense.
It did not.
It also didn’t answer much or make anything easier.
“Thanks, Gary.”
“No prob, Patty Cakes.” He chuckled. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“Sure thing.” I hung up and sighed to myself before addressing Lexi. “I’m assuming your old ID was generated using a combination of your first name, your last initial, and part of your social security number. And Seneca is basically the same but instead of first and last, it’s last and first initial. Do you happen to know anyone with a first name that starts with C and a last name that starts with A-L-E-X?”
“Carson Alexander. He’s an account rep on one of the other teams.”
“So he’s not even on Team F?”
“No. I’ve been on F since I started, and he’s never been part of it.”
I buried my head in my hands and took a long, drawn-out breath. This had become a nightmare. “No wonder they all leave this job,” I said to myself under my breath.
“Well, since it seems you have things all figured out, I should get back to work.”
I dropped my hands and sat up straight, panic rolling through me. “Wait!”
She stilled with her butt on the edge of the seat, her hands gripping both armrests.
“There’s still so much we have to talk about.”
“Does it have to do with Seneca?”
“No, but—”
“Then we don’t have anything else to discuss.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Not at all. You chose your career over me. Now I’m choosing mine over…whatever this is.”
Lexi didn’t care to listen to anything else I had to say. In fact, she didn’t even wait for me to tell her goodbye before she marched out of my office. I was left sitting in my seat, my mouth gaping, staring at the closed door, lost.
With California off my back for the time being, the site back up and running, and a new culprit to school, I headed out of my office for the first time since I arrived this morning. It was almost four, close to the end of most of the employees’ workday, and I hadn’t even had lunch. This would’ve been the time yesterday when I once again asked myself why I was here. But I didn’t do that today…my reason was a few floors below me.
I stepped into the elevator and pressed the number two on the control panel, ignoring the erratic rhythm of my heart. Ever since I found Lexi in my office earlier, I’d barely been able to think straight. And consi
dering I still had a lot of work to get done—the situation with the site took precedence over my normal duties, which had ultimately put me even further behind—I needed to focus. However, that wouldn’t happen until I spoke with Lexi. So I stopped on the second floor and headed straight for her cubicle.
The dividers were roughly five and a half feet high. With my six-foot-four height, I didn’t have a problem finding which one belonged to her. I’d prepared a speech in my head for what I’d say, but as soon as I stopped at the opening and caught the sight of her neck stretched, head pulled to the side with her fingers digging into the soft skin just behind her shoulder, I froze. All my careful planning and rehearsing gone, like I hadn’t intended on showing up at her desk to talk. And in an instant, I was twenty and back in my dorm room.
“I think I’m going to start a petition.” Lexi sat on the couch with her legs crossed beneath her and a textbook in her lap. We’d been up half the night cramming for finals—separately, considering we weren’t in the same classes, nevertheless, this beat studying alone.
“Oh, yeah? What for?”
“College tuition should include either regular adjustments by a chiropractor or deep-tissue massages. I won’t be picky.” She stretched her head, elongating her neck. Then she ran her fingers from right below her ear to the back of her shoulder, as if rubbing out a tense muscle.
“Keep doing that, and we won’t have to worry about tuition.”
Her hand stilled, and she locked her eyes on mine. “Why’s that?”
“Because we won’t pass our exams. Then we’ll be put on academic suspension and kicked out of school.”
“All because my neck hurts?”
“No, babe.” I shook my head, slid my notebook off my lap, and crawled on the floor to get closer to her. “Because you’re so damn sexy when you rub your neck, and it makes me want to say ‘screw finals, screw school, screw a degree’ in favor of screwing you.”
“You’re so romantic.” She giggled, and then her laughter quickly turned into an erotic moan when I moved her book out of the way and lowered my head into her lap.
“I’m serious.” A deep voice brought me back, reminding me of where I was. Where we were. The one thing it didn’t do, was explain who this guy was. “I’m a professionally trained massager.”
Her laugh had to be the thing I missed most about her. “Massager? Yeah, you sound professional.”
“It’s the German form of masseuse,” he deadpanned.
“You know German?”
“My name’s Carl.” He might as well have said, “Duh.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s German.”
She sat in her chair, her back to me, and twirled a strand of her hair around her finger. I lied. Her hair was what I missed most. The way it used to lie across my chest when she slept, how it smelled like flowers first thing in the morning, and most of all, how it felt wrapped in my hand when I’d hold it out of her face so I could see her eyes while she—
“But you don’t spell it with a K.” Her doubtful tone broke the trance her hair had cast on me.
“Not anymore, I don’t.” And with that, the man in her cubicle turned around. He had his hands braced against the armrests of his chair as if he were about to stand, but one look at me and he remained seated.
“Hi.” I was a computer nerd; we never claimed to have the best choice of words in awkward situations. “I’m Patrick, the new IT director.”
Snapping out of whatever had held him back, he pushed off the chair and approached me with his hand out. “Pres-C-one-eight-six. Nice to meet you.”
I shook his hand, unsure why this guy had introduced himself with his user ID instead of his name. But I didn’t get a chance to question it before he stepped around me and left. I watched him stroll away, curious as to who he was, why he was with Lexi, and what the hell just happened. When I glanced back into the cubicle, I found Lexi looking at me.
Looking wasn’t the right word. More like staring.
Or, more accurately, shooting daggers at me with her eyes.
“What are you doing here? Did you get lost?”
Her angry sarcasm was definitely not on the list of things I missed about her. “I came to see you.”
“Why?”
I shrugged, even though five minutes ago I’d had an answer prepared for that question. I knew she’d ask. “Why not?” Computer nerds. So eloquent with verbal communication.
“I’m working, Chris—I mean…Patrick.”
“Do you have a problem with my name?”
“No, none. Do you have a problem with mine?”
“Not at all. I love your name, Lexi.”
She huffed and rolled her eyes. “It’s Alex.”
“Not to me, it’s not. You’ll always be Lexi.”
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. I’d seen this look before; it was her signature move when she was about to ask a question she really wanted an answer for but pretended like she didn’t care at all. “Again, why are you here?”
I stepped into the small space and took the chair Carl had vacated. My ass had barely met the seat when she narrowed her gaze and curled her top lip. “What?” I asked.
“I didn’t invite you in.”
“Come on, Lex. Don’t be like this. Give me a bone here.” I tried to think of something to ask her that didn’t pertain to our relationship but kept drawing a blank. Without any clue of what she’d been doing for the last few years, I was at a loss and looked like an idiot staring at her across the desk. “How’s your mom?” Technically, her mom being sick had added to the reasons for our separation, but the two were close, so I figured it would be a neutral topic that might make her smile and possibly trick her into opening up.
I couldn’t make out whatever emotion crossed her eyes, and her expression went blank. But a blind man could have seen the way she tensed. Her shoulders straightened, and her spine went rigid. She didn’t speak until she’d shut down whatever emotion that question garnered.
“I buried her.” Her voice didn’t crack, and I didn’t see a threat of tears, but her tone had gone from feisty to sullen in three short words.
Lexi didn’t offer any more information, and I wasn’t sure how well my prying would be received. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.” This was where I wanted to pull her against my chest with my arms wrapped around her and demand to know why she hadn’t told me. But as it stood, I didn’t have a right to prod her grief. She hadn’t reached out when it happened, and it was obvious she wasn’t interested in sharing that memory now.
“Look, Patrick, as enjoyable as this stroll down heartbreak lane is, I don’t have time for it.” Her eyes hardened, and her jaw tensed.
Had it been anyone else, I might have been scared of the number of transformations in her personality in a few short minutes.
“You see, I was sent home early yesterday because one of the bigwigs on the fifth floor had his panties in a wad. And rather than listen to how I couldn’t have possibly done what he accused me of, he just threw around his weight until my boss had no other choice than to give me the rest of the day off. And then this morning, I was pulled away from my desk again to explain the same things to said bigwig that could’ve been clarified by numerous other people had he pulled his head out of his ass and stopped yelling for five seconds to listen. So needless to say, I’m slightly behind.”
She spun her chair back to her desk and flipped her hair over her shoulder—the famous Warsaw brush-off. Back in college, we used the nickname to reference her Polish temperament. Then we’d say, “Bring Polly back,” hoping it would entice the sweeter, Polynesian attitude to return. It was on the tip of my tongue, but just before I opened my mouth to let it fly, I stopped myself, thinking it wouldn’t be well received. But, it was good to know not everything had changed in five years. The fight was still there, which meant the passion was, too.
I walked behind her chair and hovered close enough to ensure she
felt my heated words against her skin. “Just so you know, Lexi”—I leaned closer to her ear—“we will talk.”
On my way back to the elevator, I ran into Carl. He leaned casually against one of the partitions to another cubicle. When he glanced over his shoulder and noticed me, he stood up straight and crossed his arms. “Leaving so soon?”
“Yeah, I was on my way to speak with one of the account reps and thought I’d apologize again to Alex.” I hated calling her that. It wasn’t who she was.
“You came here from your office upstairs?” His brow creased when I nodded. “Thank God for calculators, right?”
I cocked my head to the side, completely confused. “Come again?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it, just that they make life easier. Although, the downside is that now people don’t seem to understand numbers. But hey, I’ll help you out since you’re the new guy and all. Two comes before three.”
“What?”
“I know, I know. It gets a little confusing when you go backward. But it’s five, four, three, two, one. You probably got mixed up because you were coming down, but for future reference, the third floor comes before the second.”
And just like before, he moved around me and wandered off.
It took me a minute, but while I watched him make his way toward Lexi’s desk, I realized what he meant. I guess I just hadn’t expected him to take me so literally when I’d told him I had stopped by on my way to the third floor.
There was something about that guy, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
My brain was fried by the time I made it home. Between the fiasco this morning, the whole ordeal with Lexi, and then playing catch-up with the rest of my work, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to the driveway. I’d contemplated just sleeping in my office, but the idea of bathing in the bathroom sink had me quickly changing my mind.
Luckily, CeeCee had dinner ready for me when I walked through the door. It was an instant reminder that I hadn’t eaten anything all day. I popped open a beer and sat down at the small table in front of my food.
“Um, what’s this?”
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