Hate Notes

The office was eerily quiet.

It was early, but not so early that I expected to unlock the front door to the office suite. Even though I’d stayed until after seven last night, I hadn’t gotten as far as I’d wanted to with Iris’s project list. So I’d come in at six thirty this morning to get a jump on the day.

After flipping on all the lights and booting up my computer, I headed to the break room to make a pot of coffee. While I waited for it to brew, I decided to clean some spills inside the refrigerator that I’d noticed on Monday. It looked like a container of orange juice had spilled on the shelf at one point, and no one had bothered to wipe it up. I grabbed some paper towels and Formula 409 spray from underneath the sink and bent to clean the glass on the middle shelf while the smell of coffee percolating filled the air. The back wall of the refrigerator had some hardened orange gunk, too, which I could only reach by pulling the shelf slightly out and stretching my entire arm inside and up the rear wall. That was exactly the position I was in, my body bent as I scrubbed the inside of the refrigerator and my ass prominently on display, when a man’s voice from somewhere behind me scared the shit out of me.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I jumped and whacked my head on the shelf above where I was cleaning.

“Ouch! Shit.”

Attempting to stand, I realized that not only had I banged my head, but I’d also managed to get the top of my hair stuck on something inside the refrigerator.

“What the fuck, Charlotte?”

Of course, it had to be Reed.

Visualizing what he was seeing, I took a deep, cleansing breath before speaking. “I’m stuck.”

“You’re what?”

I waved my hand, pointing to where my hair was caught. “My hair. It’s stuck on something. Can you take a look?”

He mumbled something I couldn’t make out and then came to stand behind me. Leaning down, he had to bend over my ass to see what my hair was caught on.

“How the hell? Your hair is wrapped around the lever that you crank to make the shelf higher and lower.”

“Can you just unwrap it? Or cut the piece off if you have to. This isn’t exactly a comfortable position.”

“Stay still. Stop squirming. The way you’re moving around is making it tighter.”

I stayed as immobile as I could while Reed had one hand on my head and the other working to untangle whatever I’d snagged. It wasn’t easy, considering my body was acutely aware of the close proximity of his. But once I stopped moving, it took only a few seconds for him to free me.

Rubbing my head where the root had been yanked, I stood. “Thank you.”

Reed folded his arms over his chest. “Do I even want to know?”

“I was cleaning a spill and my hair must’ve gotten caught.”

“You came in before seven in the morning to clean out the refrigerator. We do have a cleaning crew, you know.”

“No. I came in here to make coffee. But while I waited, I figured I could clean the spill since I’d noticed it the other day.”

The coffee machine beeped, signaling the brewing was done, so I turned and grabbed the mug I’d brought in and poured a cup. Turning back to Reed, I held up the pot. “Do you have a mug?”

“No. I just use the Styrofoam ones we keep up in the cabinet.”

I frowned. “Those things are so bad for the environment. You need to get a mug.”

Reed squinted at me. “Did Iris tell you to say that?”

“No. Why?”

He reached over my head, opened the cabinet, grabbed a Styrofoam cup, and then took the pot from my hand. “Because she’s been harping on me about that for years.”

I offered him a sugary smile before sipping my coffee. “Maybe you should listen for a change.”

Allowing him to consider that thought, I left him in the break room alone.

While Reed and his brother primarily focused on real-estate sales, Iris’s side of the business managed properties that the Eastwood family owned and provided management for clients who owned commercial buildings. Although there was some crossover where the brothers kept a building to manage if they had sold it or had a relationship with the owner.

One of the projects on Iris’s list was to compile one database of all the cleaning-company vendors that they used so she could solicit bids for managing multiple properties for a cost savings. In order to do that, I had to go into each of their individual folders on the system and pull up information on every property. While Max’s files were a disaster, with Word documents and Excel spreadsheets strewn all over the place and no clear file-naming system in place, Reed’s were as organized as I would have expected. Each property had a separate folder named with the building’s street address, and inside each folder were separate subfolders that were logically organized, such as the one labeled MAINTENANCE, where I found most of the information I needed.

It took me a few hours to compile almost everything. Information from only one property of Reed’s was missing: 1377 Buckley Street. After checking the property’s folder a second time, I clicked around to check a few other folders that were not labeled with addresses. One such folder was simply labeled PERSONAL. Inside there were a dozen subfolders. I perused the titles for anything that might be misfiled and found folders such as MEDICAL, CONTRACTS, LEGAL . . . there was even one labeled WEDDING. Curious, I left-clicked on the mouse to look at the last time the folder had been opened. It hadn’t been accessed for more than six months. I was just about to close out and take a walk over to Reed’s office to ask him if he knew where I might find the information for the remaining building when I saw there was one lone, unfiled Word doc. This file was labeled BUCKET.

Thinking nothing of it, I clicked to check out the contents. What I found shocked the crap out of me. Reed had made a fuck-it list of his own.

Throughout the entire morning, I couldn’t get Reed’s list out of my head. Although it wasn’t necessarily the contents of his list but more the fact that he’d made one at all that boggled my mind. The man had laughed when I’d told him I was working on my list. Yet he’d made his own bucket list? And I’d checked the time on the file. It had been created at eight o’clock last night and last updated a little after ten. He’d still been in the office when I left around seven. I just couldn’t imagine that he’d stuck around for hours, working on his own list. It seemed too out of character for him. There were definitely two sides to Reed Eastwood—a side that he showed me and the rest of the world, and a side that he kept hidden. I could totally see the man who penned the beautiful blue note having a bucket list of things that he wanted to achieve in life, but certainly not the condescending Reed that he was to me most of the time. Then again, there were these brief moments when I felt like I was catching a glimpse of the other Reed. But they never lasted for very long.

I strolled the aisles of the dollar store on my lunch hour with a basket in my hand, lost in thought. I’d come to pick up silver baking trays, paper towels, and rubber gloves—three things I used in excess when I worked with pottery clay—but I never left the dollar store without a bunch of junk I didn’t really need. My basket had tissues, a few plastic bowls, hair ties, and a bunch of spices that were too cheap to pass up even though I didn’t have a clue what I’d use them for. When I arrived at the shelving with seasonal mugs, I decided to pick one up for Reed so he’d stop using the Styrofoam ones for his coffee.

Fingering through mugs with Halloween pumpkins, Valentine’s hearts, and menorahs on the front, I snorted when I picked up one particular red mug. It was Christmas-themed, and the cartoon picture on the front was of a group of boys wearing sweaters and scarves while singing Christmas carols. I couldn’t resist buying it, considering what he’d written as number three on his bucket list.

Sing in a Choir.

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, it dawned on me that maybe Reed had planted that list on the server to screw with me. Could he be poking fun at me? Or did he have an epiphany after hearing about my list and truly decided to make his own? I couldn’t very well come right out and ask him since I’d be admitting that I’d snooped in his personal files. Well, I could, of course, but last time I did that he’d gotten pretty pissed off. So I decided that I’d gauge his reaction to the mug I’d bought him. If he’d planted that list and made up the crazy part about singing in an all-male choir, I might be able to see it in his face. So around five o’clock, I made a fresh pot of coffee and fixed a cup just for my boss in his new mug.

Reed was looking down at a stack of papers when I knocked on his open office door. It was the first time I’d seen him wearing glasses. They were a tortoiseshell-colored, rectangular pair—very studious—that really worked with his chiseled face. God, he looks like a sexy Clark Kent. They must’ve been only for reading, because he took them off when he looked up.

“Did you need something?”

In that moment, quite a few unprofessional answers popped into my head. I shook the thoughts away and stepped forward with the full mug of steaming coffee. The picture on the front was facing me still. “I thought you could use some coffee.”

He looked at me, then the mug, then back to me and tossed his glasses on the desk. “You found me a mug, I see?”

“I did, actually. I went to the dollar store at lunch and picked you up one so you can skip the Styrofoam.”

“That was nice of you.”

I smiled. “No problem. It’s from their off-season seasonal merchandise. Hope you don’t mind a little Christmas spirit in July.” I turned the mug so he could see the picture on the front and focused on his face so I could observe if he had any reaction.

Reed just stared at the caroling boys on the mug for the longest time. Blinking in confusion, it was clear that I’d caught him off guard. Without a hint of laughter coming from him, I knew there was no way that he had planted that list for my amusement. He would’ve gotten the joke if that were the case.

He peered up at me. “Why did you pick this one?”

Uh . . .

Oh no.

I could feel a case of the nervous giggles coming on. Occasionally, when I’m put on the spot, I just laugh. And once it starts creeping in, there is no stopping it from happening.

This was not good.

Rather than answer him, I fell into a fit of laughter that gradually went from slight to hysterical. Tears were forming in my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said as I tried to stop. This went on for almost a minute—me laughing and Reed just watching me incredulously.

He finally asked, “What the hell is so funny about this mug, Charlotte?”

Oh my God.

Either I admit to him that I was snooping and found his bucket list or he’s going to think that I’m making fun of his choir wish.

Never! I would never be so cruel as to laugh at someone’s dreams. I mean, I thought this was a joke on me—that he’d planted that list. Now that I knew it was real, I could never make light of something he truly wished for. My laughter was more about getting caught in a sticky situation. I was laughing at myself . . . but he wouldn’t know that.

There was only one way out. I had to tell the truth.

“I’m sorry. This is a misunderstanding.”

“Care to explain?”

“I . . . stumbled upon your bucket list. The one that you saved on the company server.”

Reed’s expression soured. My heartbeat accelerated in anticipation of his response.

He let out a breath, then said, “It was on the server, yes, but it was in a personal folder, Charlotte.”

“That’s right.”

“You were snooping in my personal files, and this mug is your way of poking fun at what you discovered?”

“No! You have it all wrong. You see . . . I just couldn’t believe that you would be making a bucket list in the first place. You were sort of making fun of me for my own. I didn’t want to have to admit that I’d opened that file, even though I figured that anything on the company server couldn’t be that private, even if marked ‘Personal.’ But I apologize. I was wrong. Anyway, I thought maybe you left the list intentionally for me as a joke. I was trying to gauge your reaction with this mug to see if my suspicions were correct. But it’s become apparent that I was very wrong. I wasn’t laughing because you want to sing—at all. Please know that. I was laughing at the situation I’d gotten myself into. It was nervous laughter. And now I’m rambling. I’m sorry.”

He just sat there staring at me while he took a few sips of coffee from the mug. I caught a hint of a slight smirk. It seemed that he was enjoying watching me sweat.

When he finally spoke, he said, “You’re a real pill, you know that?”

Unleashing the smile I’d been holding back, I said, “So . . . it’s true? You started to make a list because you wanted to? It was real?”

He placed his mug down, then rubbed his temples. His deep brown eyes seared into me when he looked up and said, “Yes.”

“Really?”

“Did I not just say yes?”

Taking a seat in front of him, I crossed my arms and leaned into his desk. “What made you do it?”

“You made some good points, okay? I never said your list was stupid. I never made fun of you for it, either, like you seem to think. So yes, you did motivate me to think about a similar list for myself.”

I got chills. Once again, he was proving that the more sensitive man I’d originally imagined him to be when I’d found the blue note was in there somewhere.

“Wow. That’s so amazing.”

Reed rolled his eyes at my enthusiasm. “The concept of a bucket list is not that amazing.”

“What I mean is . . . I didn’t even think you liked me. Meanwhile . . . I inspired you? That’s so cool.”

He got up out of his seat suddenly, walking to the other side of the room. “Let’s not get carried away.” It looked like he was pretending to sift through files just to avoid this conversation.

“So, I noticed that you only jotted down a few things. Will you tell me why you chose them? Climb a Mountain makes total sense to me. I mean, I would imagine that’s simply exhilarating. But the men’s-choir thing . . . do you sing?”

He let out a deep breath, then turned to me. “I’m not going to get out of this question, am I?”

“Not a chance.”

Reed returned to his seat at the desk and downed the rest of his coffee. “Yes, Charlotte. I sing. Or rather, I sang . . . when I was younger. But my teenage ego stepped in, and I abandoned the hobby. I’d prefer not to get into it in great detail, except to say that the image on this little mug here pretty much sums it up . . . scarily so. If you ever want to hear about my singing, Iris will be happy to tell you all about it. She has quite a few cassette tapes of it as well that she’s been known to threaten me with.”

“Really? I’m definitely going to ask her about it.”

“Great.”

“You know . . .” I smiled. “A bucket list is useless if you don’t actually attempt to take action. Let me help you arrange one or two of these things.”

“I’m all set.”

“Everyone needs motivation. I can help you follow through. We can sort of be like bucket buddies . . . or in my case, fuck-it buddies.”

That sort of sounded bad—like “fuck buddies.” Sweat started to permeate my forehead.

“Why would you even want to bother, Charlotte? What’s the catch here?”

“There is none. Well, I suppose the catch is, you have to help keep me on track with my own goals. We can be each other’s cheer captains.”

He bent his head back in laughter. “Okay, let’s calm down a bit.”

“Will you at least consider letting me help you? I mean, you employ me. Why not take advantage of me?”

His voice lowered, causing my skin to prickle. “You want me to take advantage of you?”

Iris walked in at that inopportune moment.

She clasped her hands together and smiled gleefully. “Ohhh . . . glad to see you two are finally getting along.”

Clearing my throat, I said, “Hello, Iris.”

She addressed Reed. “I just heard about this car accident out in the Hamptons. You never told me about it. What happened, exactly?”

“Charlotte tried to save a squirrel and set off a chain-reaction crash.”

“Well, that was very noble of you, Charlotte.”

“What can I say? Someone needs to look out for them. The squirrels love me for it.” I shrugged, then moved on to a more pressing topic. “Iris, is it true that Reed used to sing?”

My question seemed to surprise her. “Why yes, it is, but I can’t believe he admitted that to you. Reed’s pretty secretive about it.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “He had the most beautiful voice, a perfect tenor. I would have funded any musical education he wanted. Such a shame that he didn’t continue.”

Reed was quick to change the subject. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Grandmother?”

“Actually, I was hoping to catch Charlotte before she left for the day. I’ve decided to move the annual company summer party to the house in Bedford, so I’ll need her help making some of the arrangements.”

Even though she lived in Manhattan, Iris kept a family home in the suburbs. It was where the Eastwoods and Locklears had large family gatherings, and where they celebrated the holidays. Reed’s parents also lived there part of the year when they weren’t traveling the world. Apparently Mr. and Mrs. Eastwood had decided to retire early down in Florida and enjoy their lives a bit, whereas Iris was too much of a workhorse to ever pass off her responsibilities at the company to someone else.

“I thought we were renting a venue in the city for that this year,” Reed said.

“I decided against it. The Bedford estate worked really well the past couple of years. We’ll need to rent some large white tents and work on moving the caterer. Jared will also be in town that weekend, so it’s perfect timing.”

I looked at her. “Jared?”

“My grandnephew from London—my sister’s grandson. He’s only visited the States a couple of times, so I’m going to actually be relying on you quite a bit during his stay, Charlotte, to make sure he’s well cared for.”

Reed didn’t seem to like that idea. He grumbled, “Why does Jared need a babysitter?”

“He doesn’t. I just thought he and Charlotte would get along well. She could show him around the city, take him to the hip places—you know, wherever young people go these days.”

“I’ll be happy to show Jared all of my favorite haunts.”

“Thank you, dear. I’m certain Jared will love that. Don’t you think, Reed?”

I kept waiting for a response from him, but Reed offered nothing but a death stare aimed at Iris.