(Complete)Ainsley Douglas has been on more blind dates than she can count, but each one is worse than the one before. Although living alone can be lonely, she isn't looking for happily ever after. With a career she loves and some of the best friends...
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When Ian Gillespie arrived at his office, his team of software developers had already gathered. Each morning they had a stand-up meeting meant to go over objectives. In five or ten minutes, he learned where every project stood and what each of his staff would work on that day. Stand-ups were standard in the industry, but he introduced the practice to his department when he was lured over to the publisher two years before.
Raj teased. "The boss is late."
"Don't start. A cab splashed muck on me. I had to go home and change."
Ellen, the middle-aged mom of the group, frowned. "It's a good thing you're not wearing your brace anymore. How's your knee feeling?"
"Okay."
Ian wasn't about to admit that it ached by the end of the day, and physical therapy made it feel worse. It was all necessary if he wanted to go back to climbing again. He tore his ACL at the rock gym. After surgery, he worked from home for a couple weeks until he was ready to Uber back and forth to work. He had only just started taking the T again.
The splash had caught him off guard. He was too busy texting his sister. She was always nagging him over something. The latest was to let her crash at his place on her next trip to Boston. She was his half sister, but they were only three years apart, so he hardly remembered life without her. He definitely didn't remember his parents together, because they never were. He was the result of a one-night stand. Luckily, they had met through mutual friends because his father was a great part-time dad. If forced to choose Ian would have to admit he was closer to his father than his mother. The reasons were an essay question, but he loved them both.
He smiled as he thought of the words exchanged following the murky splash. Wet and dirty. The sexy blonde was probably both. It wasn't unusual to see her in the morning. She looked familiar but he couldn't place her. She could work for the publishing company and he wouldn't know. The IT department was on the lower level and his staff entered through the parking garage. They joked when they had to venture above ground. Only the help desk crew couldn't be bottom dwellers because they had to fix actual hardware.
It was his overactive imagination suggesting the petite blonde worked nearby because she took the red line and he took the green line to Government Center and transferred to the orange for State Street. Hobbling to his office he dropped into his chair and stretched out his leg. He called an Uber after he changed instead of heading to the T in the rain again. The thing about being a bottom dweller was there could be a hurricane and they wouldn't know it because there were no windows.
His gut told him it was past noon, when he stopped and pulled out his sandwich. Before his injury he occasionally ventured to the company cafeteria, but he had been packing lunch since his reduced mobility. He had already been using a grocery delivery service because shopping in the city was a hassle and he never learned to drive. His friends gave him a hard time, but he grew up in Manhattan with his mom and Boston with his dad. Ian had lived in Boston since he started college.
