The taste of lime on her lips made his head spin, and he fought the urge to crush his body to hers and kiss her harder. He’d let her take the lead for now. Rushing her into something she wasn’t sure she wanted was bound to backfire.
She inhaled deeply and pulled away, a smile curving her lips as she looked into his eyes. “Hmm.” She lowered her gaze and blinked up at him. “That was nice.”
“Yeah.”
She slid into the driver’s seat. “I hope I’ll see you again soon.”
“Me too.”
She closed the door and waved as she drove away.
Gage shoved his hands in his pockets and watched until her car disappeared around the corner. What had happened there? Had she really kissed him? He played the moment over in his mind. The way her breath felt against his skin. The softness of her lips brushing his. That had been way more than a friendly kiss.
“So, you and Erica hit it off.” Lindsay grinned at him from the sidewalk, pulling him from his thoughts.
He sauntered toward her. “We’re just friends from high school.”
“Just friends don’t kiss each other on the mouth.”
He chuckled. “No, I guess they don’t.”
“Do you know what happened to her?” She adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder. “I’ve been afraid to ask.”
“She was burned in a house fire when she was a kid.”
Lindsay grimaced. “How awful.”
“It was.” Way more awful than she most likely imagined, but it wasn’t his story to share. Erica rarely talked about it when they were young, but she’d trusted Gage enough to tell him the whole guilt-ridden story.
“Did you know her then?”
He shook his head. “We met sophomore year.”
“If you like her, you need to tell her. Don’t let this turn into what you had with Allison.”
He furrowed his brow. “I never had anything with Allison.”
“You might have, but you never told her how you felt. And by the time you got up the nerve to flirt with her, she had no clue you were serious. Don’t screw this one up too.”
He pulled his keys from his pocket. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
She grinned. “I guess I’ll be seeing more of you at work now, eh?”
“I may venture up to the sixth floor a little more often.”
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She clicked a button on her remote, and the headlights on a Toyota Camry switched on. “Bye, Gage.”
Shuffling to his Jeep, he slid into the driver’s seat. Don’t screw this one up. No pressure there. He’d screwed up every relationship he’d tried to start. How could he possibly not screw this one up too?
He pulled up the text thread from Chelsea on his phone. It looked like he had a lot of reading to do.
Chapter Four
As Erica lay in her bed, she pulled the blankets up to her chin, fighting the chill that seeped all the way to her bones. Fluttering her lids open, she squinted to focus through the haze. She blinked as a face came into view, floating directly above her head.
“Jesus Christ!” She flopped out of bed, tangling her legs in the sheets and plopping onto the floor with a thud. Grinding her teeth, she took a deep breath to slow her pulse and glared at the ghost in her bedroom. “What the hell are you doing?”
The spirit hovered above her bed. “You have to help me.”
She kicked the covers off her legs and stumbled to her feet. “Look, ghost lady…What is your name anyway?”
“Sandra.”
“I don’t know how to help you, Sandra. I don’t even know why I can see you.” She marched to the kitchen and pulled a container of salt from the cabinet. “I want you out of my apartment. Go.” She waved her arms in the air as if she could shoo the spirit from her space.
Sandra looked at her with sad eyes, her translucent shoulders drooping as she floated near the sofa.
“Get out.”
The ghost dissipated, and Erica grumbled as she sprinkled salt around the perimeter of her entire apartment. Hopefully it would be enough to keep the annoying ghost away. Why on Earth this spirit thought she could help her, Erica had no clue.
She finished salting her apartment and put the almost-empty canister back in the cabinet. She’d have to add extra salt to her next grocery list. Tossing the tangled mess of sheets onto her bed, she glanced at the clock. Six a.m. She wasn’t due at work until eight, but if she got there early, she might be able to avoid seeing Brian. She’d dragged Gage out of the bar before the situation could get out of hand last night, but she was dreading what Brian might have to say this morning.
She smiled. The way Gage had laid into him had been impressive. No one had ever stuck up for her like that, and she had to admit it was kind of…hot.
And the way Gage’s lips felt pressed against hers… Her stomach fluttered as she replayed the memory in her mind. She hadn’t planned to kiss him. Nothing more than a peck. But as she’d touched her lips to his cheek, his warm, masculine scent had drawn her in. Held her there. His soft, full lips were impossible to resist.
Had Gage really changed that much? Or was she finally able to see something in him that had been there all along?
She finished her morning routine and stepped out the door. A wispy fog clung to the grass in the field behind her building. The sun hadn’t fully peeked over the orange horizon, but in another hour, its heat would burn the moisture away. She paused to take in the beauty of the sunrise before turning to the staircase. Sandra waited for her on the landing.
Erica sighed and stepped around the spirit. “If I knew how to help you, I would.” She started down the stairs.
“Please.” The ghost rushed her, passing through Erica’s body like stinging, icy wind clawing at her insides.
Erica stumbled. Her foot missed the next step, and she toppled down the rest of the concrete stairs. She caught herself with her hands on the sidewalk, scraping the skin from her palms. “Damn it, Sandra.”
The spirit dissolved, leaving Erica looking like a fool talking to herself. Luckily, no one was around to see her tumble. Her braid had fallen to her back, exposing her mangled neck, so she did her best to smooth it back into place with her fingertips.
Back inside her apartment, she washed the dirt from her bloodied palms and patted them dry with a paper towel. The concrete had only scratched the surface, and after a few minutes, the bleeding stopped on its own. She cleaned herself up and made it to the office half an hour early. Thankfully, no spirits tried to stop her along the way. Whether Sandra had injured her on purpose or not, she didn’t know. But she was going to have to do something about that ghost.
Brian got to work at eight and shuffled to his desk with his head down, avoiding eye contact. He had a scab on his lip where Gage had hit him, and his ashen pallor and bloodshot eyes screamed hangover. He sank into his seat, disappearing behind the cubicle wall, and Erica let out a breath.
“Morning.” Lindsay dropped her purse on her chair and shuffled around to Erica’s desk. “Have you seen Brian today?”
Erica grinned, putting a finger to her lips to shush Lindsay. “He doesn’t look so good. What did he do after we left?”
“His friends stroked his ego, and he kept drinking. Found someone else to hit on.”
“Good for him.” She turned back to her computer, hoping to avoid the next question she could sense bubbling on her coworker’s tongue.
Lindsay sat on the edge of her desk. “Where did you and Gage run off to?”
She pressed her lips together and turned around. While it was none of Lindsay’s business, it had been so long since Erica had a girlfriend to talk to like this, why not share a little? “We went outside and talked.”
“And kissed.”
Warmth spread across her cheeks. “Did he tell you that?”
“I saw you in the parking lot. You had another moment, didn’t you?”
Erica’s heart fluttered. “I think the entire evening was a moment. Di
d he say anything to you?”
“Not much. He’s a good guy, you know?” Though she said it matter-of-factly, a trace of warning edged her words.
As if Erica would ever do anything to hurt her best friend. “I know.”
“Do you have lunch plans?”
“Not yet.”
Lindsay looked at the clock. “I bet he’ll be up before ten. I better get to work.”
A swarm of butterflies took flight in her stomach, a sensation she wasn’t used to feeling about Gage. But she couldn’t sit there and watch the clock, hoping he’d show up and ask her to lunch. If she didn’t hear from him by ten-thirty, she’d call him. Why not?
Tomorrow would most likely be a day straight from hell. She might as well have had an IV of dread attached directly to her arm from the way it trickled slowly through her system. It wasn’t enough to cause an outright panic, but the constant chill flowing through her veins stirred the sickening thoughts the anniversary would bring. She tried to push them aside. Today would be a good day, and having lunch with Gage was exactly what she needed to keep her mind off tomorrow.
She busied herself with her next project, losing herself to the monotony of the work until her desk phone rang, jerking her back to the present.
She lifted the receiver. “Erica Miller.”
“The file you gave me is corrupt.” The growl in his voice sent another chill flushing through her body.
“Aaron?”
“Yes, it’s Aaron. Who else would you have given a corrupt file to? I need you to e-mail the presentation to me right now.”
She cradled the phone between her ear and her shoulder and pulled up her e-mail account. “Sorry about that. Okay. It’s sent. Anything else?”
“No.”
Silence.
She hung up the phone. “Well, goodbye to you, too, asshole.” How did a man with manners like that make it so high up in the ranks? Surely, he didn’t act that way toward his superiors. The phone rang again.
“Erica Mil—”
“This one’s corrupt too.”
“What? That’s not possible. I haven’t opened it since I copied it to the flash drive for you.” She navigated to the file on her hard drive and double-clicked the icon. The presentation software started up, but a big blue box that read Error - Unknown File Type hovered in the center of the screen.
“Send me the backup from the server.”
Her stomach dropped. “Umm…”
He let out an irritated grumble. “I don’t have time for this. Send me the backup now.”
“There is no backup…sir.” She wound the phone cord around her finger as her mind raced to find a solution. She had an older version from last week on the server. She wouldn’t have to start from scratch, but it would take time to redo the presentation.
“What do you mean, there’s no backup? The server is backed up every night. Has there been a problem with IT I don’t know about?”
“No, IT is doing their job.” The last thing she needed was to drag Gage and his department under the bus with her. “The file wasn’t on the server.”
Silence.
She continued. “Remember? You told me to move it to the hard drive because the graphics were slowing it down?”
“I expected you to move it back when you were finished.”
Her heart raced. She wound the phone cord so tightly around her finger the tip of it turned purple. “Well, I forgot.”
“You forgot.” She’d expected his voice to grow a few decibels louder with his anger, but it got softer, which was way, way worse.
“You were standing over my shoulder rushing me to get it done before you left.” The words tumbled from her mouth before she could rein them in. “I’ll fix this. I’ll make a new one. How much time do I have?”
“My presentation starts in fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes? There was no way she could recreate the entire presentation in fifteen minutes. “I…”
“When I give my employees an assignment, I expect my orders to be carried out.” He enunciated each word like he was talking to an idiot.
“Your orders? Aaron, is this the first time you’ve tried to open the file?”
“Yes.”
“The file I gave you two days ago?”
“I expected it to work.”
She closed her eyes for a long blink. “So, you rushed me through it, insisted you have the file before you left, and then you didn’t even open it?”
“I expected you to do your job. I thought you were a competent employee.” He inhaled sharply and blew a hard breath into the receiver. “Apparently, I was mistaken.”
Unwinding the cord from her finger, she gathered it into a ball in her tightly clenched fist. “Aaron, you’re as much to blame for this as I am. If you had opened the file when you got there, I would have had time to redo it for you.”
“If you had done your job properly, I wouldn’t have this problem.”
She released the cord and rubbed her hand on her forehead. “Can you postpone it? Give me two hours, and I’ll have something ready for you.”
“No.”
“Well, what do you want me to do then?”
“Nothing, Erica. I don’t want you to do anything.”
Silence.
“Crap.” She slammed the phone down. “Crap, crap, crap. Now he remembers my name.”
Lindsay peered over the divider. “What happened?”
“I screwed up. Royally.” She explained what happened with the file, the trickle from her IV of dread turning into a full-speed flush. “I guess I can kiss this job goodbye.”
“He’s not going to fire you over one mistake. And like you said, he’s as much to blame for not opening the damn thing when you gave it to him. He must realize that.”
She shook her head. “This is Aaron we’re talking about. He’s never to blame for anything.”
“I’m sure it’ll be okay.” Lindsay flashed an unconvincing smile and disappeared behind the divider.
Erica tried to focus on her work, but a sense of impending doom hovered over her head like a storm cloud. How could the file have gone corrupt? Aaron had been standing right there when she’d loaded it onto his flash drive. She’d had the presentation open. She’d saved it, closed it, and copied the file. How could it have corrupted in the five seconds after she’d closed and copied it?
She leaned her elbow on the table, resting her head in her hand. As much as she wanted to blame Aaron, this whole fiasco was one hundred percent her own fault. She should’ve moved the file to the server. Or at least left a version of it there while she was working on it. Even after Gage reminded her to move the damn thing, she still didn’t do it.
She sucked in a breath. Maybe Gage could help. Maybe he could uncorrupt the file. She glanced at the clock and sighed. Not in five minutes, he couldn’t. And anyway, he’d already come to her rescue twice in two days. She didn’t need to make a habit of being the damsel in distress.
She’d just make sure she did a fabulous job on her next project and hope that would be enough to redeem herself. And honestly, she’d be thrilled if she never had to work directly under Aaron again.
She worked for another hour, but the guilt gnawing in her gut was about to consume her whole. Maybe she should shoot Aaron an e-mail and apologize. Trying to convince him to share blame probably wasn’t the smartest move she could’ve made. She opened her e-mail program and entered her password. The screen read invalid user name and/or password. Maybe she’d typed it wrong.
She tried again.
Invalid username and/or password.
“Well, which is it? My username or password?” She tried a third time and still couldn’t access her account. “Damn it.”
“What’s wrong?” Lindsay wheeled her chair around the desk.
“There is something majorly wrong with this computer. Now I’m locked out of my e-mail.”
Lindsay grinned. “Sounds like a job for a certain hot, blond IT guy, if you ask me.”
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The butterflies she seemed to be storing in her stomach lately came back to life. “Maybe. He’ll probably think I did it on purpose though.”
“So what? Call him.”
She pressed the home button on her phone, and the screen lit up. No, she should reboot the whole system before she called. That’s the first thing he’d do anyway.
“Erica Miller?” A lanky man with dark hair and blue eyes paced toward her.
Her heart sank. This guy worked in Human Resources. And if HR was looking for her…
“Right here.” She stood and waved a hand in the air.
He handed her an envelope and scurried away.
Erica sank into her chair and slid her finger under the flap. The thin edge sliced into her skin, sending a stinging sensation shooting into her hand…a prelude to the stab in the heart sure to come. She sucked on the end of her finger until the pain subsided, and then she focused on the letter. A single sheet of tri-folded paper awaited her inside the envelope. She held her breath and unfolded the page. Her stomach dropped with a sickening plop as all the blood drained from her head.
“What is it?” Lindsay asked.
“A termination letter. My exit interview is in fifteen minutes.” She tossed the paper onto her desk and squeezed her eyes shut. “HR moves quickly when a VP wants someone fired.”
“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
She yanked open her desk drawer, pulled out her purse, and shoved her belongings inside—a solar-powered dancing flower, a quartz paperweight, a picture of the Tuscan countryside, where she longed to go one day. Her hands trembled as she picked up her phone and dropped it in with the rest of her things.
Lindsay put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine.” She sniffled. “I didn’t like working for that asshole anyway.”
“No one does.”
She rose to her feet, and her head spun. Why today? Why did she have to screw up and lose her job on the eve of the anniversary of the worst mistake she’d ever made? Tomorrow was going to be hard enough on its own. Now she had no job. No income. How the hell was she going to pay the mortgage on the theater? Her rent?
To Free a Phantom Page 5