Page 40 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

I stand there another second. There is something incredibly irritating about being handed someone else’s work at eight in the morning and expected to make sense of it before most people in the building have finished their first coffee.

There is also something considerably more irritating about the small spark of satisfaction I felt when I found the mistake.

I like—love—this part.

“Merryweather?”

I realize I’m still standing in my boss’s office, staring blankly at the wall.

“Right. Ten o’clock.”

I leave before she can give me an eighth folder and I have to sleep at the office on a Friday night.

My phone buzzes as I reach my desk.

VERONICA

Merryweather Marie

ME

I have an actual emergency

VERONICA

So do we

Just come downstairs

I should say no.

I have less than two hours to untangle a forecast that several people with absolutely higher salaries than mine apparently failed to notice was wrong.

“This is not information.”

“It absolutely is.”

“You made me come downstairs because they’re discontinuing the licorice candy corn?”

Dani looks offended. “I thought you liked them.”

“Dani, who in their sane mind likes candy corn that tastes like licorice? They’re gross and I have no idea how they got approved in the first place.”

I look at Veronica for support, but she’s busy stirring something into her coffee and making no effort to hide her amusement.

“You said emergency.”

“I said Dani had information,” Veronica replies. “Which, in our defense, she did.”

“Guys, Hell is fucking riding my ass with these forecasting issues,” I whine, turning my body in the direction of the bank of elevators on the far side of the lobby. “You made it sound important.”

“It is important to Dani.”

“Thank you,” Dani says, and slurps on whatever iced beverage she is drinking today.

“You’re both terrible. I shouldn’t trust you with anything. First the witch, now this.”

The lobby café is crowded enough that I have to move closer to them when someone squeezes behind me with a laptop bag. Friday mornings are always like this, the entire building collectively deciding that whatever coffee exists on our respective floors is inadequate and we all deserve seven-dollar lattes instead.