Free Social Neighbor (The Social Series Book 1) by J.L. Mac

from those two segments of my mind that refused to go away.
    I vaguely heard the squeal of tires, the screech of metal, and the scent of scorched plastic and leaking fluid from an engine. I tried desperately to open my eyes, to see, but I couldn’t or if I did, the blood running down my face cloaked the world around me. My body went limp and I waited. For what? I didn’t know. All I knew was my ears buzzed, my heart was pounding, and sticky heat was dripping down my face and into one ear. People were yelling, though I couldn’t make out what was being said, and behind my eyes all I saw was a petite brunette with flecks of red in her hair, mesmerizing gray eyes, and lips that I could still feel against my own—lips that I wanted to feel again.
     

Flor
     
    Impromptu Dinner Invitation
     
    I t was Friday and I’d taken the day off. I had taken the time off to work on illustrations. I never took a day off. Ever! But I figured if I was going to use any of my paid time off, I’d better do it while I could.
    The landscape of the magazine was being morphed, wind swept into something new and my gut told me that my time there was limited.
    I told Chris, the boss lady at Social She, that I needed the long weekend to work on my books, but in truth, I needed a break. Sitting in the office felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every time Chris’s head popped out of her office door, my impulse was to duck under my desk. I didn’t think I was alone in that feeling. I watched my coworkers scurry around, staying busy because lingering meant worrying. It was awful.
    It certainly didn’t help that I fought back and forth with myself about texting Graham back. I last heard from him on Saturday night after the disaster at Four-19. Nearly a week had passed and I still felt drawn to call him. He’d apologized and my heart squeezed, but I was still fighting the dirty feeling that getting involved with a married man had created. A hot shower wasn’t enough to wash that away. It also wasn’t enough to wash away how much I still wanted him.
    But there it was. He was married. The way the tall brunette in expensive clothes had absently (or maybe not so absently) worried her wedding ring about her left ring finger had painted a clear picture. She had made her point. She meant to warn me off, humiliate me for being there, and make me feel sorely lacking by comparison. She had succeeded. I felt very lacking.
    It had been nearly a week and the evidence of how small and ashamed I felt still burned my cheeks. I’d assumed that the sting my encounter with Ms. Brunette had caused would last a day or two. Tops. I was wrong. Workplace stress hadn’t encouraged me to rally. It was quite the opposite.
    Over the last few days, one by one, employees were called into Chris’s office to discuss their future at Social She. Some came out looking relieved and others came out looking…tired, disappointed. I knew I’d be forced to walk the plank soon. I could feel it.
    I didn’t need another day of that kind of anxiety, especially not around this time of the year, which had always been tough for me.
    Twenty-two years since that day.
    I wouldn’t think about that now. I definitely didn’t need stress over my professional life mingling with stress from my personal life. It made for an unsavory emotional smorgasbord that I had no appetite for.
    Not now.
    I snuffed out memories of the day my life changed and chose to take that Friday off, give myself a long weekend to work on my books and lick my wounds. I’d gone out and stocked up on my favorite tea, new sketch paper and the best pencils I could find on Amazon just so I could work on the illustrations all day, and what did I have instead? A fair sized mess in my kitchen, a small box full of freshly baked cookies, none of which were for me to enjoy, and a note addressed to my noisy neighbor who had been pleasantly quiet for a few days but was very much back to his same old antics. I had neglected