All Chapters of Decisions I made : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

63 Chapters

Monday Madness

Monday hit like a freight train.I should have known the second my alarm went off that the universe was going to punish me for having too much fun over the weekend.The second I walked into work, it started.Emails.Voicemails.Three people waiting outside my office.Two meetings added to my calendar before I had even set my purse down.And Ron already looking like he’d aged ten years since Friday.I stopped in the doorway of my office and just stared at him.“What now?”That was all I said.No hello.No good morning.Just what now?Ron followed me inside and shut the door behind him.“We have a problem.”“Obviously.”He dropped a folder onto my desk.“One of the vendor reports was submitted wrong.”I froze.Then slowly looked up at him.“What do you mean wrong?”He winced.“Hannah pulled the wrong numbers from last quarter.”I closed my eyes.Of course she did.Of course it was Hannah.And of course it happened on a Monday.“How wrong?”“Wrong enough that the vendor noticed.”I dropp

Dinner In The Office

I had just started correcting the last section of the report when my office phone rang.I barely looked up.“Lela.”“Hi, Ms. Moretti,” the security desk said. “You have a visitor down here.”I blinked and pulled the phone away from my ear for a second like maybe I’d heard them wrong.“A visitor?”“Yes, ma’am.”My stomach immediately did that little flip.Because there was only one person it could be.“Who is it?”There was a pause, and I could hear the smile in the guard’s voice before he even answered.“A gentleman named Jack. He says he has your dinner.”I laughed before I could stop myself.Of course he did.I looked around my office—papers everywhere, my laptop open, calculator on the desk, coffee cup half empty, heels kicked off under my chair—and suddenly felt a lot less miserable than I had thirty seconds earlier.“Send him up,” I said. “I’ll call down and have him signed in.”“Will do.”The second I hung up, I smiled like an idiot.Again.I called security back, gave them the

Another Error

For about ten minutes, everything felt almost normal.As normal as a Monday night dinner at my desk with a man in a hideous plaid jacket could feel, anyway.I was halfway through my burger, finally starting to relax, while Jack sat across from me stealing fries off the edge of the carton like he had every right in the world to do it. I had kicked my heels off, tucked one leg underneath me in my desk chair, and for the first time since seven that morning, I felt like I could breathe.Then my office phone rang.I stared at it.Jack looked up.“Don’t answer it.”I laughed once, bitterly.“Cute.”The phone kept ringing.I set my burger down and grabbed the receiver.“Lela.”The second I heard the voice on the other end, I knew this was not going to be good.It was another vendor.And before he even got halfway through his first sentence, my entire body went rigid.I closed my eyes.No.No, no, no.“You’re telling me the numbers in your report are wrong too?”Jack’s head slowly lifted.I c

Four Reports

Jack stayed in my office while I finished the report.Not in a distracting way.Well… not too distracting.He sat across from my desk with his jacket draped over the back of the chair—thank God—and quietly worked his way through the rest of the fries while I fixed line items, rechecked totals, and waited for Ron to call me back with whatever fresh disaster he discovered.Every once in a while I would glance up and catch Jack watching me.Not in a weird way.Just… watching.Like he was trying to figure me out.Which honestly made me more self-conscious than if he’d been talking nonstop.After about twenty minutes, my office phone rang again.I froze.Jack raised one eyebrow.“Round two?”“Don’t.”I answered it anyway.It was Ron.And for once, the news wasn’t worse.Apparently Hannah had touched four reports total.Two of them were definitely wrong.One was questionable.And one, by some miracle, was fine.I pinched the bridge of my nose.“So what are we doing?”Ron sighed.“I’m pullin

So Over Today

Just as I hit send on the corrected report and leaned back in my chair, my cell phone started vibrating across the desk.I glanced down, expecting Ron.Instead, it was Sarah.Actually—Sarah, Jenny, and Linda.I smiled the second I saw it because that usually meant one thing: they were together somewhere with drinks in front of them, already halfway into a conversation I’d eventually have to hear the recap of anyway.I answered on speaker while I gathered up a few loose papers.“Well, well. Look at all three of you behaving like you don’t have jobs tomorrow.”Jenny laughed immediately.“We were just saying you’d answer with an attitude.”“That’s because I know you people.”Linda’s voice chimed in next. “Where are you?”“At work.”There was a beat of silence on the other end.“At work?” Jenny repeated. “Lela, it’s after eight.”“I’m aware,” I said dryly, glancing at the disaster still spread across my desk. “I’ve been aware for the last three hours.”Sarah laughed softly because of cour

Sleep

By the time we got upstairs, I was running on fumes.My makeup felt heavy.My feet hurt.My brain was still half stuck in vendor reports and bad numbers and Hannah’s inevitable execution the next morning.I dropped my purse on the chair in the corner of my room and kicked off the last of whatever was left of my workday.Jack stood near the end of the bed, hands in his pockets, taking in the room the way people always did the first time they saw it. My room at my parents’ house never really felt temporary, even when I was trying to convince myself it was. It still looked like me—soft neutral colors, books stacked on the nightstand, a throw blanket at the end of the bed, framed photos on the dresser, and the television mounted on the wall opposite the bed that Dad insisted every room in the house needed.“I’m taking a shower,” I told him, already heading for the bathroom.Jack nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed like it was the most natural thing in the world.“Take your time.”I

Dugan

I woke up to Belle barking.Not the lazy, half-hearted bark she gave when one of my brothers pulled into the driveway too fast or when the garbage truck rattled down the street too early.This was different.Sharp.Relentless.The kind of bark that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up before I was even fully awake.For a second, I had no idea where I was.The room was dark, the TV had long since shut off, and all I could hear was Belle downstairs absolutely losing her mind.Then I felt the weight beside me.Jack.Still asleep.I turned my head and looked at the clock on the nightstand.2:45 a.m.“What the hell…” I whispered.Belle barked again.And again.And again.I pushed myself up on one elbow and looked at Jack, who was somehow still dead asleep beside me, one arm thrown across the pillow, completely unaware that my dog sounded like she was about to break through a wall downstairs.“Jack,” I whispered, shaking his shoulder lightly.Nothing.I frowned and shook him again.

Why?

For a second, nobody moved.Nobody spoke.The name just hung there in the middle of the foyer like smoke.Dugan.Uncle Carmen’s right-hand man.Not some random drunk.Not a burglar looking for jewelry.Not a kid trying door handles in the neighborhood.Dugan.I stared at Paul, waiting for him to laugh and say he was kidding.He didn’t.My mouth went dry.“What do you mean it’s Dugan?” I asked, even though I had heard him perfectly the first time.Paul’s jaw tightened.“I mean it’s Dugan.”“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Why would Dugan be here?”“That,” Paul said flatly, “is exactly what I’d like to know.”Belle was still pacing in circles around my legs, whining now instead of barking, like even she could feel the tension in the room. I bent down automatically and ran my hand over her head just to give myself something to do besides panic.Jack’s hand stayed at the small of my back.Quiet.Steady.Grounding.I looked up at my brother again.“Did he say anything?”Paul laughed once, b

Tears

I cried harder than I meant to.Not dramatic sobbing.Not the kind where you collapse onto the floor and can’t breathe.Just that awful, quiet kind of crying where the tears won’t stop and your chest hurts and you’re trying so hard to pull yourself together that it almost makes it worse.Jack didn’t say much.Thank God.He just held me.One arm around my shoulders, the other resting at the back of my head, keeping me tucked against his chest while I stood there in the middle of my parents’ kitchen crying in an oversized t-shirt and pajama shorts at three in the morning.Belle stayed pressed against my legs like she was personally offended that I was upset.After a minute, Jack guided me toward one of the kitchen chairs and sat me down.Then he disappeared for all of thirty seconds and came back with a wet paper towel and the box of tissues from the powder room.I laughed through my tears the second I saw the paper towel.He looked at me carefully.“What?”“That is the most dad thing I

The Text

For a second, nobody said anything.The silence was so complete I could hear the kitchen clock ticking over the refrigerator.Jack stayed perfectly still beside me.Not stiff.Not panicked.Just very, very still.I looked at Paul.“What do you mean he was asking about Jack?”Paul leaned back in the chair, exhaustion and irritation written all over his face.“I mean exactly what I said. Chris has been asking around about the guy you’ve been seeing.”My stomach dropped.“How does he even know I’m seeing someone?”Paul gave me a flat look.“Lela.”I stared back at him.“No. Seriously. How?”He folded his arms across his chest.“You think you’ve been hiding this?”I blinked.“Yes?”Jack actually laughed under his breath.I turned to glare at

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