“Fine,” I finally concede. “I’ll think about it.”

He smacks me on the back, hard, knowing that I already decided I was going to call Zoey but needed that extra push to man up. “About damn time. Last sprint. Loser buys breakfast. On your mark, get set . . .”

He doesn’t say go because he’s already running, leaving me in the dust once again.

“Motherfucker . . .” I hiss before I take off too. With the possibility of a phone call with Zoey urging me on, I do manage to catch up, but he still beats me to our cars.

Egg white omelets are on me, I guess. Although the way I’m feeling, I could go for some bacon, too.

*

I love my office. It’s big enough that I’m not bumping into the walls without rattling around like a marble in a shoebox, and while centrally located, it’s still on a side street that’s not too busy. I was overjoyed when I found this place. It’s luxurious without going overboard, giving off an aura of success, and best of all, it has a coffee shop on the first floor that makes the best brew I’ve ever had.

The only downside is my neighbors. On my right is Meredith, a psychologist who specializes in depressed teens. So on almost a daily basis, there’s a kid who barely grunts if I say hello, and once, one of them actually barked when I said excuse me as we passed in the hall. The parents can be even worse.

And Meredith’s the more normal of my neighbors because on the left is Margaret, a voiceover actress in her sixties who, despite the soundproofing she’s done, I can hear quite clearly through the air vents.

The first time I heard her, I thought she was a phone sex operator. And yeah, I listened closely after that. Like, literally standing on a spare chair with an ear pressed to the vent when I realized she was doing audio for a romance book. I’d been shocked and then intrigued. And hell yeah, I read that book. It was good too.

But I didn’t listen to it because it would’ve been weird to visualize someone like my grandmother talking like that as I listened.

And when she gets jobs for certain kinds of ‘adult animation’, I have to pull my headphones on.

I don’t need the nightmares.

Coming in this morning, I see Margaret fumbling with her purse as she tries to juggle her morning coffee. Hurrying over, I offer my free hand. “Hey, Margaret . . . can I help? Need me to hold your rocket fuel?”

Oh, God. I did not just say that, I think, mentally slapping myself. Rockets and rocket fuel probably mean something very different in her line of work. And now I’m blushing, which is not an attractive look on a grown man.

“Vanilla rooibos,” Margaret corrects me, handing me the cup, and luckily, blissfully unaware of my embarrassing attempt to eat those words back down. “Coffee’s bad for the vocal cords. But thanks.”

Today, she’s wearing a turtleneck, pearls, a cardigan sweater, and SAS shoes. I don’t get it. How can someone at her age sound decades younger and say such filthy things? She looks like she should be offering me a fresh-baked cookie, but I’ve heard her begging to toss a salad. And I don’t mean the kind with iceberg lettuce. Not that cookies and ‘salad’ are mutually exclusive, but . . . nope, stopping that thought right there.

Margaret gets to her door and I hand her back her tea. “Busy work day today?”

She nods, giving me a grandmotherly smile. “Of course. I’ve got a new one just waiting for me. So hot it’ll blow your socks off.”

“Do I want to know?” I joke, half-praying she doesn’t tell me and half-curious what she considers ‘sock-blowingly hot’. Margaret shakes her head, giggling like a school girl. “Good to know. Thanks. Have a good one.”

I unlock my own office and pull on my noise canceling headphones just in case while checking my email. There’s nothing new, no new major policy changes I need to make anyone aware of, no lawsuits, and thankfully, nobody died, so I don’t have any claims to process.

Overall, a nice, slow start to the day.

Cracking my knuckles, I turn my music off and turn my attention to the one part of my job I don’t like, voicemail. I get it, all of my ads include my phone number. And a lot of my clients are older folks who are used to old school communications.

But trying to decipher a garbled, scratchy voice mumbling information into a voicemail is agonizing. Especially when you get the one where someone’s information gets half cut off and you’re left with ‘867-5309, Jenny wants—’ before getting a click. I remind myself that any calls at all, even prank ones, mean Amy’s marketing brilliance is working, and when the new commercial hits television screens all over the city, I’ll have even more calls, emails, and policies to write. More people to help.

I’m just about to play my third message when there’s a knock on the door. That’s unusual. I’m not expecting anyone. And my office door says I’m not open for another hour, although that doesn’t always stop folks.

I get up and open my door, and on the other side is a blonde woman. At a glance, I’d say she’s in her early to mid-forties, but I could be off. Her makeup’s muted, and her hair’s pulled back in a plain ponytail. She’s in a low-cut black blouse and slacks, nice looking but not so fancy she’s out of place in an office building.

Actually, she looks like the mom of one of Meredith’s kids next door, one of the ones who actually wants to help her kid and not just demand Adderall. “Are you looking for Meredith? Her office is next door if you’re picking up your kid.”