It should be easy, writing her a letter. He'd already written it a million times before. She'd never taken it seriously because she thought he was drunk. And the truth was, he had been drunk for most of these. But not all of them....
There had to be some good material in here somewhere. He started scrolling down, his eyes scanning for a message where he'd at least been sober enough for proper punctuation. Ah, here was something. His eyes landed on a timestamp from the previous summer - a flurry of rapid-fire messages and responses:
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David stared at the messages, trying to remember the night he wrote them. He'd had a dinner date, but it hadn't gone well, and he'd ended the night alone in his apartment with no one for company but his Gmail account. He hadn't been drunk, had he? He couldn't have had more than a glass of wine with dinner. Penny just assumed he was drunk, and he'd played along because-
The sound of footsteps interrupted his thoughts, and he closed the email on his screen with a hasty jerk. He turned his head to see the latest in his long line of new assistants.
"Did you need anything else tonight, sir? I was just about to head out."
Yeah, he thought to himself irritably. I do need something else. I need you to not come into an office with a closed door without knocking first. That would be a good start. Honestly, it was basic office etiquette. Where did the temp agency dig these people up?
He was just about to utter some scathing reply, but suddenly he stopped himself, the words from his conversation with Leo ringing in his ears:
"You've gone through 17 different secretaries since she left.... The entire firm knows how you feel...."
He needed to cut it out with the secretary abuse. The problem wasn't the secretaries. He knew that. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this girl - except for the fact that she wasn't Penelope Stewart. It was totally unfair. Totally irrational. Penny never used to knock either. And Penny sure as hell had never called him "sir."
David forced himself to swallow his irritation. She was a fine assistant, this one. He'd keep this one around. What was her name again? Wendy? Gwendy? He cast her a closed-lipped smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Goodnight Gwen," he said. "Good job this week. I'll see you Monday."
"Thank you, Mr. Powers. Have a good weekend."
He watched her turn and walk out of the office, and then he turned back toward his computer once again. Have a good weekend indeed. Probably not the best weekend of his life. Penny was leaving tomorrow. He had one more night before she went. He shouldn't be wasting it here at the office. He should go home. Maybe he should try to take her out. A little farewell dinner somewhere. Somewhere nice. Maybe they could split a bottle of champagne. Or two. Or three....
He sighed. The plan was not to get drunk. He could get drunk as a skunk after she left tomorrow. Right now, the plan was to write her a letter. Not an email. A letter. A serious letter. A love letter.
Just write the damn thing, he told himself. Just tell her. Wasn't that what Leo had told him to do?
"Just suck it up and be a man and tell her."
A love letter. A nice, heartfelt, handwritten love letter. David turned away from his computer and reached into his desk drawer for a pen.
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