Don’t Let Me Break by Linda Verji
CHAPTER 25
Nothing happened.
After a few kisses and some cuddling, the couple went to sleep in each other’s arms. No funny businesses happened in the middle of the night, and Marley woke up with all her clothes in place and unruffled. She wasn’t sure whether to be offended or impressed with Sebastian’s self-control. For her peace of mind, she decided to go with impressed.
Sebastian was so deep asleep that he didn’t even stir when she crept out of the bed. She showered, dressed and made him breakfast, all without waking him up. Rather than ruin his much-needed rest, she left him a note stating that she was on her way to work and had left him breakfast. After going through the house to make sure that everything was just as she’d found it, she left.
The moment she stepped into About It, questions began to fly her way. When she went to the break-room to get herself a cup of coffee, Eugene, Zion and Quinn followed her there.
His eyes wide with both shock and curiosity, Zion asked, “Was it really poison?”
“The cops told us it was poison when they were questioning us, but we didn’t really believe it.” Eugene was similarly stunned. “Was it?”
“It was,” Marley admitted, drawing sharp gasps from her friends. “Someone tried to poison me and ended up poisoning Sebastian instead.”
“You don’t think I did it, do you?” Quinn asked with worry swimming in her eyes. “I know it was my cake but I would never do something like that to you.”
Marley wanted to say ‘no’, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter the word. The truth was that Quinn was as much as suspect as anyone here. Actually, she was more of a suspect since the cake was hers.
Thankfully, Eugene cut in before Marley had to answer. To Quinn, he suggested, “Maybe it was an accident.”
“Accident? How? Do you think I just keep poison in my fridge and it accidentally spilled on the cake?” Quinn looked even more frantic now. “Marley isn’t the only one who got a piece of that cake. Y’all did, and some of you even got more on Monday like her. If I’d poisoned it, even accidentally, you should’ve ended up in the hospital too, but you didn’t.”
“Well then, are you saying that it was me or Eugene who poisoned it?” Anger flashed in Zion’s eyes. “We only did you a favor by passing it to Marley.”
“I’m not saying you did it,” Quinn’s eyes were now tearing up. “But you two are the only ones who touched her piece.”
“Come on!” Eugene rolled his eyes. “That’s just a roundabout way of saying that we did it. We didn’t!”
“Well, I didn’t either.” A tear slid down Quinn’s cheek. “But everyone in the office is saying that I tried to poison Marley. Why would I try to poison her? We’re friends.”
The tears were enough to make Marley feel guilty. She was the one who’d done this. She’d made Quinn cry. She sidled up to her friend and rubbed her back. “Quinn, I- I know it wasn’t you.”
“Really?” Quinn’s teary eyes lit up with hope. “You don’t think it’s me?”
“No, I know it’s not you,” Marley assured even though she really didn’t know.
“So if it’s not her, then who is it?” Vicky suddenly appeared in the doorway.
As usual, Vicky’s flower girls, Dawn and Felix, were right beside her. All three had anger written all over their scowling faces and it seemed like they’d come looking for a fight.
Marley tensed as alarm threaded through her.
Her lips drawn in a thin angry line, Vicky glared at Marley. “Was it one of us? Do you think we poisoned you?”
Dawn bit out, “I hear you told the cops to question us.”
Felix demanded, “Do you think we care about you enough to poison you?”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Eugene instantly forgot the fight between him, Zion and Quinn and went into protection mode. “Don’t come at her like that.”
“We can come at her anyway we want,” Felix retorted. “She tried to throw us under the bus.”
“Yeah,” Vicky agreed. “She came at us first.”
“If she can’t keep our names out of her mouth,” Dawn threatened, “then she better be prepared to get the taste slapped outta that mouth.”
“So what’s the plan? Are you going to fight her?” Quinn asked. Her tears were all gone and had been replaced by anger. “This is a company not some high school hallway. Learn to act professionally.”
“How are we supposed to act professionally when Little Miss Thing there is telling the cops that we’re after her?” Dawn scowled at Marley. “We weren’t even there when she was getting the cake or when she was giving it to Sebastian.”
“Why were you giving him cake anyway?” Felix jumped in. “Were you trying to kiss up to him?”
Marley’s nervousness rose by several notches at Felix’s questions. She knew that answering them would expose her and Sebastian’s less than professional relationship.
“And who is Leslie?” Vicky butted in before Marley could answer Felix. “Why the hell would we know her?”
Fortunately, Quinn saved Marley from having to respond.
“Go ask the cops all those stupid questions,” Quinn retorted. She grabbed Marley’s wrist and pulled her towards the door. The two of them stopped right in front of Vicky. Quinn ordered, “Move.”
Vicky didn’t move. So Quinn shoved her backwards. Startled, Vicky stumbled backwards and would’ve landed on her ass if it wasn’t for Dawn catching her.
“What was that?” Vicky protested even as Dawn and Felix moved forward as if to fight Quinn.
“We’re at work,” Eugene cut them all off. His timely reminder diffused the situation like a needle pricking at a fully blown balloon. After a few more silent glowers, everyone scattered to their respective stations.
However, the whole incident left Marley with a bad taste in her mouth. She felt uneasy, nervous and guilty, like it was all her fault for causing strife between her coworkers. At lunchtime, she headed up to the rooftop because she preferred to deal with her complicated feelings alone. Also, she didn’t want to go to the cafeteria then have to deal with more confrontations or just being the center of attention.
Sebastian called her while she was up there alone.
The moment she answered the phone, he noticed that she wasn’t fine. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s- it’s nothing,” she stammered, but by now he knew her well enough to tell when she wasn’t fine. He kept prodding until she caved in and told him what had happened in the break-room.
Worry colored his tone. “Are you okay?”
“I am,” she said even though it still felt like there was a fist tightly closed around her lungs. “I just hate that they’re fighting because of me.”
“This is not because of you. You just told the police the truth. You’re the victim not a perpetrator,” he reminded her firmly. “A crime happened. Everyone who has even a bit of motive has to be investigated. If they’re not happy about that, then they need to deal with it and stop trying to take it out on you.”
“I know. But it’s just…” Marley’s sentence faded into silence as she tried to find the words to explain herself. Sebastian gave her time. Finally, she said, “I hate that there’s so much tension here because of the things I said. Maybe we should just ask the police to stop investigating.”
It was a ludicrous suggestion. Even Marley knew that. But she hated conflict, and the thought of being caught smack in the middle of it left her feeling helpless, guilty and infinitely nervous. It was stupid, but that was how she felt.
“I know that you don’t like these kinds of situations,” Sebastian said kindly. “But you know this is about your safety, right? Which is more important? Sparing your friend’s feelings or keeping you alive?”
When he put it that way, she couldn’t argue.
“Just ride it out and ignore them,” he advised. “Once the investigation is over and the culprit is found, they’ll all forget about this anyway, so don’t even worry about it.”
He wasn’t saying anything earth-shattering, certainly nothing that she couldn’t have figured out herself given time. But strangely enough, just hearing him say those words eased some of the tension in her. She could even afford a smile as she said, “You’re right.”
“I’m a little disappointed in you though,” he said but his words were tinged with a hint of amusement.
Still smiling, she asked, “Disappointed in me why?”
“How could you leave without waking me up?” A smile in his voice, he added, “I wanted to see your face before you left.”
“I wanted that too, but you sleep like a dead person.” Feeling the urge to tease him, she added, “And you snore.”
Disbelief echoed in his voice. “I snore?”
“Like a broken train.”
“That ‘s a lie,” he denied. “I don’t snore. No one has ever told me I snore.”
“They were being nice,” Marley countered. “I didn’t sleep at all because of all the noise. I kept checking on you to make sure that you weren’t chocking.”
“Now I know that you’re lying.” Sebastian snorted. “You didn’t sleep at all? Please! I woke up at three to go to the bathroom and you were out like a dead person. In fact, I think you snored.”
“Lies!” she immediately protested. “I don’t snore. Even Kenny knows.”
“She was being nice.” He threw her words right back in her face.
“We need video evidence,” she huffed. “We’re filming ourselves tonight to see who snores.”
“Tonight?” A trace of wickedness in his tone, Sebastian asked, “Is that your way of saying that you want to sleep with me again?”
Even while knowing how innocently they’d spent the night together, Marley spotted the double-entendre in his words. Immediate embarrassment seared through her, and she shyly reprimanded, “Seeebastian!”
That drew loud laughter from him which in turn made her smile.
It was official. No matter how bad she felt, he was the ultimate happy pill.
* * * * *
SEBASTIAN CONVINCED MARLEY to spend another night at his house. Though the extra day off from work had allowed him to recover, he missed being at the office and seeing Marley everywhere. He missed her.
After work, she dropped by hers and Kenny’s place to pick some clothes then came to him.
“You have no idea how scared I was when Felix asked why I gave you the cake,” Marley said as they were having dinner in the living room. “I was sure that they’d find out that we were dating.”
Sebastian met her eyes. “And that would be bad?”
“Of course, it would be bad if they found out,” she said. But his pensive look had her asking, “Right?”
“I don’t know.” Sebastian frowned. “The company won’t penalize us for dating as long as we don’t let it interfere with our work. And I’m not a really a fan of hiding. It’s hard being careful all the time, and the fear of getting caught will always be hanging over us like a dark cloud. If honesty is an option, then I prefer to take it rather than deal with all that.”
“You’re right,” she acknowledged. “It’s just that if we tell people, we’ll end up being talked about.”
If it was any other woman, Sebastian would’ve said that he didn’t give a flying ferret about being talked about. However, he knew that Marley was different. She hated being in the spotlight. Announcing that they were dating would inevitably make them the stars of their company’s rumor mill for quite some time which was probably her worst nightmare.
“If you want to keep it a secret, then that’s what we’ll do,” he acquiesced. “But we need to figure out what we’ll do if someone figures it out.”
“How would they figure it out?” Alarm flared in her eyes. “You haven’t told anyone, have you?”
“No, I haven’t told anyone,” he reassured. However, he didn’t add that eventually they would probably have to.
Frankly, he hoped that what was developing between them was a long-term thing. If their relationship became more than dating, they’d need to tell people or risk shocking them with wedding invitations. Then again… maybe he was thinking too far ahead.
“And I won’t tell anyone until you want me to,” he reiterated. “But I just think we should have a game plan in case we get caught.”
They never got to discuss that game plan because right then security called. Sebastian had guests.
Ten minutes later when Sebastian opened the door, Officer Tony Brown and Officer Rod Weston walked into his apartment. The announcement the two detectives made left both Sebastian and Marley reeling in shock.
Weston announced, “Leslie Turner is dead.”