Tell Me It’s Right (Sweetspire #1)

Chapter 44

Chapter Forty-Four

GRACIE

It’s immediately apparent that my wardrobe is not up to par. I opted for a plain black dress and cream cardigan for the first day to play it safe until I saw what everyone else was wearing, but instead of blending in, it paints a neon New Kid sign on my forehead.

Because everyone here looks fucking fabulous.

People stream in and out of the elevator as it stops a dozen times. Everyone looks older than me. More polished. I smooth the hairs that escaped my low bun and tuck them behind my ears.

When I reach the fifteenth floor, it’s easy enough to find the suite I need because Bezzels is an explosion of color through the glass doors. The furniture, the decorations, the clothes.

I swallow hard as I step up to the front desk. A woman with cat-eye glasses and bright purple lipstick types away on a computer, her complexion tinted pink from the neon sign behind her.

I wait and wait, but she doesn’t acknowledge me.

I clear my throat and drift forward another step.

Still, nothing.

I double—triple—check the time, then the welcome email. But no, this is exactly when I’m supposed to be here.

“Excuse me?” I ask.

Finally, the woman glances at me over her glasses.

“I’m Gracie Collins.” I force more confidence into my voice than I feel. “I’m a new hire. I’m supposed to start today.”

She looks me up and down. “I’ll get Selena for you.” She picks up the phone then cuts her eyes to the waiting area behind me. “Have a seat.”

I sink onto one of the bright red leather chairs that’s shaped like a pair of lips and try to keep my eyes from widening too far as I take everything in.

The office seems to be mostly an open floor plan, and the offices that have walls are made of glass. Girls in dizzyingly tall high heels stream this way and that in a blur of leather, fur, and sparkles. I melt a little at the sight. I might not be super into fashion myself, but I can only imagine how well all those looks would photograph.

“Gracie?”

I jump to my feet as a woman rounds the corner.

“I’m Selena.” She holds out a hand for me to shake, and something about her presence is relaxing. Maybe it’s how wide her smile is, or the simplicity of her outfit compared to everyone else. She still looks like she stepped straight out of a magazine, but the oversize blazer and jeans combo is much easier for my brain to comprehend than some of these other outfits. “I’m the art director here at Bezzels. I’m so excited to have you join our team. Come, come.”

I hurry after her as she heads down the hall, smiling and waving at the cubicles we pass. “I have three other designers on my team, who you’ll meet later today. They’re in a meeting right now. You’ll answer to me for the most part, but when I’m busy, you’ll be under Aria, our senior graphic designer.”

She grabs my wrist and pulls me against the wall as a man and a woman sprint by us with a box full of scraps of fabric.

“Sorry, Selena!” the man calls before they disappear around the corner.

I turn to her with wide eyes, but she looks completely unfazed. “You get used to it. We’ll start slow until you get a better grasp for how things run around here. Your desk is this way. You’ll find a sheet with all of your logins and passwords there. I’m afraid I don’t have too much time for training right now as we’re getting close to the deadline for a major campaign, but Heather, one of my other designers, has quite a few tasks she doesn’t have the time for and would love to pass them on to you. Ah, here they are.”

We pause at a collection of cubicles near the corner as the door to the conference room across from them opens.

“Heather?” calls Selena as people flood into the walkway carrying laptops and folders.

A very tall woman with very black hair and a very deep tan turns to us.

“This is Gracie, our new junior designer.”

Heather offers her hand to shake as Selena checks her watch.

“I have a meeting—can you take over showing her around and getting her started?”

Heather bows her head slightly. “Of course.”

“I’ll swing by again around lunch to see how you’re settling in, Gracie!” says Selena as she takes off, walking much faster than she had with me. “Welcome to Bezzels!”

“Come on,” says Heather. “Your desk is next to mine.”

Mine is entirely plain and devoid of personality, especially in comparison to the ones around me. Just a white L-shaped desk, plain black monitor, and a sheet of paper beside the keyboard with Selena’s welcome instructions.

Heather’s is absolutely covered in plants, bright pink sticky notes, and random trinkets.

“Are you from the Midwest?” she asks suddenly.

I stare at her. “I—no. Why?”

She shrugs one shoulder and boots up her computer.

Do I give off Midwest vibes? What does that even mean?

“You should familiarize yourself with our social media accounts today. Take a look at what we’ve done in the past, our captions, engagement. I’ll email you a list of some upcoming announcements, sales, and whatnot, and you can draft some sample captions and concepts. If I like any of them, I’ll give you the go-ahead to make the posts. It’ll be good practice, and if they’re no good, it’ll help teach you what we’re looking for instead.”

Draft concepts.

If I like them.

Practice.

This is fine. Of course I’m not going to hit the ground running on the first day. Learn the ropes. Pay my dues.

It’s a bit of whiplash coming from Liam’s shop where I started everything from scratch, had complete creative control, and made all of the decisions myself. I can’t help but feel like I’m taking a dozen steps backward.

But this is fine. It’s just going to be an adjustment. And once I show them what I can do, hopefully the training wheels won’t last for long.

The training wheels have been surgically attached to my ass.

I barely see Selena for the rest of the week, and the tasks Heather gives me never take me more than an hour or two. Which leaves me with six or so hours a day sitting at my desk doing…nothing.

I comb through every single thing the company has ever posted on social media, dissect every caption, every hashtag, every inch of the website, every competitor, every name and role at the company. I even end up Facebook stalking some of my coworkers.

By Thursday, I start making my concept emails more detailed, throwing in more ideas, taking more time to create the mock-ups so they look closer to finished products.

They never use anything I make.

The highlight of the week is when they use a minor color correction I made for a social post.

By Friday, I find myself scrolling through the accounts for Liam’s shop.

He’s gotten better about posting things himself—mostly before and afters of recent tattoos, a new timelapse video of him working. The number of reviews for the shop online have skyrocketed, and pretty much any video where he shows his face gets ten thousand or more views, easily.

I hope it’s enough.

“Thank God it’s Friday, right?” says Waverly, the third member of Selena’s design team.

“Thirty minutes until happy hour ends.” Aria throws her bag over her shoulder as she stands from the cubicle across from mine. “You in, Heather?”

“Obviously.” She finishes reapplying her lip gloss and fussing with her bangs, and there’s a moment of awkward silence as three pairs of eyes turn to me. I can practically see the gears turning in their brains, debating whether they should invite me.

I pretend to be utterly enthralled with packing my bag.

“Gracie,” Heather finally says. “Do you drink?”

I freeze. “I—yeah.”

She cocks her head as she considers me. “We’re heading to Smith’s around the corner.”

I think that’s as close to an invitation as I’m going to get.

I’ve passed this bar every night this week on my walk home but never ventured inside. It’s about as colorful as the office with pink decorations and disco balls dangling from the ceiling. The sight sends a weird pang through my stomach. It looks like something Christine would do. The girls head for a small booth in the back corner in what’s clearly a routine for them.

“I’ll grab the drinks,” announces Aria. She pauses, eyes cutting to me.

“Whatever you guys are having. Do you need help carrying them all?”

She waves me off and disappears into the crowd that seems to get thicker by the minute. It’s a mostly women crowd, unsurprisingly, given the décor.

Heather and Waverly slide into the booth side, and I take the chair across from them. The music overhead is so loud I can barely hear myself think, let alone whatever the two of them are saying. They don’t seem to mind. They lean back and forth, yelling into each other’s ears and laughing.

I subtly check the time on my phone. Liam and I have been FaceTiming every night at seven. It’s become a routine—leave work, grab dinner on my walk home, do some yoga as I watch the sunset through my window, then end the night talking with him, sometimes for hours. Honestly, it’s the part of my day I most look forward to.

“Here we are.” Aria appears through the crowd with four beers balanced against her chest. I jump up to help her set them on the table while trying not to let my disgust show on my face. I don’t know why I assumed they’d get cocktails or something. I’ve never met a beer I liked.

“I have some cash,” I say, but Aria waves me off and holds her beer up for a toast. “To Gracie’s first week!”

“Gracie!” the other girls chorus.

I smile and take a sip of mine. Yep, just as bad as I’d thought it’d be.

Aria leans across the table and says something to Heather I can’t hear. My face starts to hurt around my smile as I shift my weight and wonder how early would be acceptable to leave.

Liam says I should spread my wings, lean into all of the new experiences I have available to me now.

But this…this isn’t fun. It’s loud and bright and I can’t hear anything anyone is saying. My drink tastes bad, my feet hurt from being in these shoes all day, and I’m starting to annoy myself with all of my internal complaining.

Maybe I’m not giving it a fair chance. Of course I’m uncomfortable being around girls who already know each other, not to mention they’re all at least five years older than me. But I was uncomfortable at first around all of the people I now consider friends too. I force down a big mouthful of beer and lean forward, trying to hear some of the conversation.

Waverly’s eyes flick to me and she tilts her head to the side. “Where are you from again, Gracie? Did you grow up in PA?”

“Jersey.”

“Ah.” She nods slowly in a that makes sense way.

Heather narrows her eyes thoughtfully. “What’s your sign?”

Aria snorts out a laugh. “Heather’s God is astrology.”

Heather shrugs.

“Um, I’m a Cancer.”

“June or July?”

“July.”

Her eyes light up, and she leans her forearms on the table. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. No wonder. You must feel so uncomfortable with us. We’re all fire signs.” She wags a finger between herself and Waverly. “Sagittarians.” She points at Aria. “Aries.”

Aria rolls her eyes. “Aria the Aries. I know, it’s tragic.”

“Do you know much about astrology?” asks Waverly.

I shake my head.

Heather smiles warmly and pats my hand. “Fear not, little water sign. We’ll adopt you.”

“You know, every single one of us originally started out in your job,” says Waverly.

“She means to say we all know it kind of sucks,” says Heather.

Waverly swats her arm. “Don’t be a bitch.”

“I meant that in a comforting, comradery way!”

My head whips back and forth with each volley of the conversation, but as quickly as the focus had shifted to me, Heather and Waverly turn to each other and launch into a different conversation too low for me to hear over the music. It happens so fast, I feel kind of dizzy.

Aria bumps her shoulder against mine. “Welcome to the shitshow.”