12

Aldo: How do you feel about lunch with your fiancé?

Gloria stared down at her phone and tapped her fingers on the keyboard of her mother’s elderly laptop. It had been a week since she’d had dinner with Luke and Harper. A week since Aldo had driven her home. A week since he held her in the dark as she unloaded a decade’s worth of tearful regret.

She’d convinced herself that Aldo Moretta wasn’t in the market for a fixer-upper like her. He was just being kind. The man had a giant heart shoved into the confines of his expansive chest.

And now he was asking her to lunch. A pity invite?

“It’s better than writing a resume for a loser with absolutely no experience at anything besides baking pies and washing dishes,” she muttered. Her resume had her name at the top, her mother’s address underneath, and nothing but a high school degree on it. She was rotating between shame and frustration.

Gloria: Lunch would be great. Where? When?

The response was instantaneous, and she wondered if he was sitting there waiting for her response.

Aldo: Meet me at my office in half an hour?

Half an hour? What was she going to wear? She hadn’t even showered yet. Where was her deodorant?

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” she muttered under her breath, and she dashed down the hallway to her bedroom.

* * *

Lewiscki and Moretta Associates—of course he was a partner—was housed in a yellow brick building on the far end of Main Street. It was a quick four blocks from her mother’s house, and once Gloria had given up trying to dress to impress, she made it with a minute to spare.

She parked on the street and got out, looking at the glass front door and debating whether or not she should go inside. Her phone buzzed.

Aldo: Come inside. I’ll show you my fancy corner office.

Gloria looked up and saw him grinning at her from the second-floor window. He waved. She waved back mechanically. Just a pity invite. Don’t get your panties in a twist, she reminded herself.

She took the stairs to the second floor and hesitated for only a second or ten outside the Lewiscki and Moretta Associates door. “Oh my God. Just open the damn door, Gloria.”

She did as she told herself, the metal handle cool to the touch, and walked into chaos.

It was an open workspace with desks and flat surfaces crammed everywhere. There were blueprint-draped work tables, desks buckling under computer equipment and files. Even the industrial gray carpet was camouflaged beneath ignored paperwork. Phones rang. Faxes beeped. And a dreadlocked IT person dismantled a copy machine in the corner.