The Checklist by Addie Woolridge (color ebook reader TXT) 📗

“Hang on.”

She turned to face him, resting one hand on the door.

Covering the receiver with his hand, Tim leaned forward. “Is that book any good?” Dylan looked at him quizzically. “The one with the shirtless dude on the cover?” he asked, pointing to her overflowing bag.

She felt the same shade of eggplant he had worn minutes before trying to appear on her own face as she struggled for some clever way to disavow ownership of the novel. Gunderson grinned as if he had won a small victory. That could not happen. Consuming her pride, Dylan shrugged. “So far. I can lend it to you when I’m done.”

Tim shifted his hand away from the phone, his smile steadily working its way back toward his ears, and returned to his call.

Dylan rushed back to Marta’s office as fast as she could without breaking into a sprint. To say her meeting with Tim had gone well would have been an overstatement. At least she hadn’t set his ridiculous oversize desk on fire. Pressing the power button on her laptop, she held her breath. The last thing she needed was to have to call Kaplan’s IT department on top of everything else. After what felt like an eon, the thing booted up, and the usual pinging sound of incoming emails began, followed by the ding of a chat message. There were roughly twenty Kaplan emails about the state of the office kitchen, as well as an email from Jared marked URGENT. Dylan decided to deal with the chat first.

Stacy Castello’s name blinked at her, drawing an unexpected smile from Dylan’s memory. She and Stacy had been best friends through high school, surviving braces and frizzy hair together. Of the three Delacroix sisters at Roosevelt High School, Dylan had been the least likely to get invited to anything other than a student council meeting. Stacy was also the odd one out in her family, making the two of them fast friends. At exactly five feet two inches, she was a Filipina made up of all curves and bleached-blonde hair, a holdover from her family’s move from Everett in the seventh grade. The Castellos owned a series of car-part-recovery locations that made them the unusual combination of blue collar and wealthy in a neighborhood dominated by white-collar tech professionals. Everyone had wanted to hang out with Stacy; they just hadn’t wanted to deal with her truck-driving, BB gun–loving, ATV-worshipping brothers, who referred to themselves as the Trailer Park Mafia.

Still smiling, Dylan clicked on the icon.

I hear you’re back in town. True or False?

Dylan felt guilt clawing its way to the front of her mind. She avoided coming home as much as possible, and when she did get here, she made it a short trip. Not seeing Stacy was a byproduct of the unintentional time constraint.

True! I’m here for the next couple months.

Good, then you have plenty of time to come to Lenny’s tonight.

Lenny’s was where everyone who’d graduated from Roosevelt and never left town spent their evenings. Dylan could think of about a million reasons why she didn’t want to go there but very few good excuses not to. The bar was literally within walking distance of her house and divey enough that she could wear her pajamas and be considered “dressed to kill.” She wanted to see Stacy; she just didn’t want to see her at Lenny’s surrounded by the ghosts of high school football stars past. Her fingers were hovering over the keyboard, searching for an excuse, when a second urgent email from Jared came in. The subject line was Anyone Home? Grumbling, Dylan flipped back to her chat with Stacy, deciding that Jared’s email was the perfect excuse to avoid an evening at Lenny’s.

Sorry. My boss just sent the email from hell. Looks like I’m gonna be working late. Maybe this weekend?

Of course! I ran into Neale today. She says you have some huge account or something.

It’s becoming more intense by the minute. Remind me to tell you about the romance novel and the bathroom . . . oof

Dylan felt bad putting off Stacy, but there was too much to do, and social time just wasn’t carved into her calendar. Pressing send on a response to Jared, she watched as another email hit her inbox, this one from Tim. She opened it with smug satisfaction, knowing Tim had bent to her will.

To: Technocore All

From: Tim Gunderson

Subject: New Consultant

All,

I would like to welcome our new consultant Dylan Delacroix of Kaplan & Associates. Previous consultants have been hired to assist in restructuring and occasionally downsizing our workforce, which is not her role. I ask that you please cooperate with Ms. Delacroix as she asses our work.

Tim

Asses our work. Blinking rapidly, she read it again.

Nope. Dylan was still assing things. Tim hadn’t noticed the typo; maybe the rest of Technocore wouldn’t either? She dropped her head into her hands, only to have someone knock on the door. Jerking her head up, she watched Deep pop her head into the office.

“Hey, so what time did you want to ass me?” Deep didn’t linger in the doorway to see if Dylan was laughing. Grinning, she turned to a man walking by and said, “So you’re being assed first, then?”

Cringing, Dylan looked from Deep to the people giggling in the hallway and said, “How about we do your assessment tomorrow?”

“I see. Too much assing for you to do tonight, then?” Deep cackled.

Dragging her attention back to the screen, Dylan clicked on Stacy’s chat.

I can’t wait to hear all about it. Brunch on Sunday?

Actually, I could do with a drink. Lenny’s at 7:30?

A martini was the least her Kaplan expense card could do for her after the day she’d just had.

CHAPTER FIVE

Dylan barreled into Lenny’s, feeling the curl return to her hair as the Seattle mist sank through the layers of strategically placed hair product. So much for the salon’s promise. Stopping to let her eyes adjust to the grimy lighting, she felt her