It had been two weeks since Emily left us. I have only heard from her a couple of times. The last message I sent asked what happened between Alex and Dylan. Emily never responded.

Most likely, she was still busy settling in. Emily sounded nervous about meeting Dylan's parents. They wanted Emily and Dylan to get married as soon as possible.

Emily's parents disapproved of the situation and wanted Emily to leave Dylan and move back home with them. Emily often rebelled against her parents. The last thing she wanted was to move back in with them.

A new researcher, Autumn Byers, started three days after Emily's last day. She transferred from a different department and worked for Westlake Marketing for ten-plus years. She was a shorter middle-aged woman who looked like one of my high school's librarians. Dana and Charlotte used to work with her in the customer service department.

Dana and Charlotte asked me to have lunch at a nearby café during our break. Our eight-story office building was only two blocks away. The café was cozy, with large windows looking out into the busy street. They served great sandwiches and soups. The soup always hit the spot on all the rainy days we had.

"God, she's a bitch." Dana groaned.

"Oh, really?" I only spoke to Autumn a few times, and she seemed nice.

"We don't work in that department anymore for a reason," Charlotte stated.

"She knows how to push everyone's buttons." Dana crossed her arms.

I sipped from my coffee and watched people running in the rain. The weather forecast stated partly sunny—no one thought to bring an umbrella.

"Remember the time Autumn blamed you for her hanging up on a customer?" Dana laughed.

"Oh my god! I couldn't believe it!" Charlotte laughed as well.

I leaned forward with curiosity. "How could it be your fault Autumn hung up on someone?"

Dana leaned in over the small round table. "Autumn was in the middle of a call. The customer must have been angry with her. We could hear Autumn getting irritated with them. She suddenly took off her headset and hung up the call. Charlotte sneezed a few seconds later. Autumn's cubicle was in the middle of Charlotte and me. The customer called back and told us our manager Autumn had hung up on them. When the manager scolded her, she claimed Charlotte's sneeze made her jump so bad that she bumped the call button."

I snorted as I laughed. "You're kidding me! That's ridiculous!"

We all laughed for a few minutes. I could feel tears coming on as I saw Dana and Charlotte doubling in their chairs. At least they could laugh about it now.

The laughing settled down.

"Is it bad that I hope Gray makes her quit?" Charlotte asked us.

"Nope. Not at all. I hope Gray makes her cry." Dana drank her tea.

"She's that bad, huh?" I wondered what else Autumn had done.

"Yes. Do not trust Autumn or listen to her. She may do some silly things, but she is a narcissist and can be manipulative." Dana pointed her finger at me.

I looked over at Charlotte. "You know I always try to see the good in people. But with her, I cannot."

I was almost impressed by that. Someone even Charlotte didn't like. Well, besides Dylan. The image of Charlotte's disgusted expression when she saw Dylan last made me chuckle to myself.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Dana asked me.

I told them and tried to make the same face as Charlotte. It took a couple of tries because I kept laughing. After I finally managed to do it, we all cried while laughing again.

After lunch, we all walked back to our building's parking garage. I noticed Gray getting out of his car and Alex walking by. They glanced at each other as they reached the elevator and stairway. Gray took the stairs, and Alex took the elevator. Dana, Charlotte, and I followed Alex in the elevator.

"Hey." I looked up at Alex and saw he was frowning.

"Hey." He almost whispered.

The elevator ride was silent the rest of the way up. None of us knew what to say to either Alex or Gray lately. We tried to avoid mentioning Emily around either of them. Sometimes it slipped, and the conversation would awkwardly end.

Once we all got to our department, I headed straight to my desk. The first thing I see is Autumn hovering over my desk. She looked to be chatting with Chloe, who was reading an email on her computer.

"I don't understand why I have to be retrained. I had worked on hundreds of reports when I worked in finance. " I heard Autumn say as she moved some folders around my desk.

Chloe noticed me walk up and rolled her eyes. It seemed like Autumn was already getting on Chloe's nerves. "I thought you were only in finance for two months?" Chloe smirked.

Autumn straightened up and finally noticed me standing by my desk. She grinned at me.

"Oh, hi, Gabriella!"

"Hi, Autumn. Did you have a good lunch?" I slowly sat in my chair.

"Yes! I took my daughter to that new place on the west side. The food was excellent. But there was a thirty-minute wait to get a table."

"And about forty minutes of driving across town and back." I heard Dana say as she and Charlotte strolled by.

I stifled a laugh. Autumn took her lunch almost an hour and a half before we left, and she still hadn't returned.

"Yes, well." Autumn paused. Dana caught her off guard. You could feel the tension between them. Then Autumn smiled at me again. "Anyway, could you help me with this data? Gray doesn't know how to show me things the right way."

My eyes widened as I looked at the paper Autumn held in front of my computer screen. There were only four clients listed with their information. It should have been a simple report to complete.

Data entry was the first thing I remembered being trained on, and it was simple enough to do once I got my groove. Gray wasn't the best trainer with his mood swings, but he was smart and knew how to do everything in our department well.

"I don't think I can. I'm not a hundred percent sure what to do with that." I lied.

Autumn tsked. "Gray must not be a great trainer if you still can't do it right."

I was taken aback by her comment. Chloe spun around to face us.

"Here." Chloe held out her hand.

Autumn handed her the paper. Chloe read over it and laughed.

"This could be done in five minutes."

"Oh, really? Can you show me how? Gray didn't show me anything before he went to lunch."

I was surprised by that. Gray used to show me how to do something several times until I was confident enough on my own.

Chloe sighed. "Sure. Watch."

I looked around the room and noticed Gray at his desk. At least he didn't hear Autumn. He would have been pissed and would have probably blamed me.

Chloe finished the report and explained a couple of things. Autumn cheered and thanked Chloe before going back to her desk.

I looked over at Chloe. "Thanks. I didn't want to get distracted by her."

Chloe spun her chair around. "No problem. I know you could do those reports with your eyes closed. I just wanted her to shut up and leave too."

We chuckled and continued with our work.

Autumn was the first to leave by ten minutes. She practically ran to the elevator. Dana and Charlotte walked up to me as I grabbed my purse. We all walked to the elevator together.

"So, what was Autumn's problem earlier?" Dana asked me.

"Apparently, she still doesn't know data entry yet." I groaned.

Dana rolled her eyes. "She does. She was just in one of her lazy moods."

I chuckled. "Autumn was in that mood all day. She came up to Chloe and me two more times. The last time, Gray noticed and scolded her to stay at her desk."

"I hope Gray doesn't lose his mind dealing with Autumn," Charlotte said.

We entered the elevator. The doors started to close when a hand got between them. Gray slid inside the elevator and looked over at us.

"Don't worry about me. And don't pay any mind to Autumn. She needs to do her job herself." His eyes landed on me on the last sentence.

I knew what he meant, and I nodded my head in agreement.

The elevator felt smaller suddenly. Dana and Charlotte stood together on my right. Gray stepped to my left as he turned around to face the doors. His right hand grazed my left hand. I gasped.

"Are you alright?" Charlotte asked as she and Dana looked at me with confused expressions.

I was embarrassed by the sound I had just made. "Um, yeah. I think I left something at my desk."

The elevator doors opened. "I'm going to head up. See you guys tomorrow."

"Okay, bye!" Charlotte and Dana smiled and waved as they walked out of the elevator.

I noticed Gray hadn't moved.

"I'll go back up with you," Gray said.

"O-oh. Y-you, don't have to." I stuttered.

"It's fine." Gray pressed the close doors button and then our floor.

It was an awkward silence for the rest of the ride back to our office. Once the doors opened again, I rushed out and took a deep breath. I felt like I was suffocating.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Gray asked.

I was leaning over with my hands on my knees. "Yeah, I just haven't been liking the elevator lately." I never had a problem with the elevator before. What the hell was going on with me?

I walked over to my desk and pretended to look for something. Then I glanced up to see where Gray was. I jumped when I saw he was standing right beside me.

"Jesus, Gray!"

"Heh, sorry. What are you looking for?" He smiled.

"Um, a note I took earlier, but I'm not seeing it." I frowned.

"Was it important?"

"No. It's fine. It can wait until tomorrow." I started walking back to the elevator.

"Do you want to take the stairs instead?" Gray walked beside me.

I laughed. "No, I'm still traumatized from falling down."

"I'll make sure you don't fall again." He spoke with a straight face.

For some reason, I decided to take him up on his offer.

"Sure." We turned around and headed down the hall toward the stairs.

Once Gray opened the door, my heart started to race. I kept repeating to myself, 'One step at a time.'

I slowly took the first step. It did feel a little comforting knowing Gray was right behind me. I could feel his body heat radiating from his chest.

"So," Gray's deep voice echoed in the stairway.

It made me jump mid-step. I squealed as I stumbled on the step. Then Gray's arm wrapped around my waist. I turned to look at him. His right hand grasped the railing while his left wrapped around me and held me gently but firmly in place. We froze.

"Sorry," Gray whispered as he smiled. His dark eyes started to twinkle as they used to when Emily was around.

I smiled back. "You didn't let me fall, though."

He helped me straighten up again. We continued down to the parking garage in silence. Once we got to my car, I wondered what he wanted to say on the stairs.

"So, what were you about to say before?" I looked up at him.

He frowned. "Oh, I was going to ask if you heard from Emily recently."

I frowned as well. "Not since last week."

"Ah. I was curious. I haven't heard from Emily since she left. It seems she might have blocked me."

"What?" I was shocked. I assumed she and Gray talked at least as much as she and I did.

"I can't find her on social media, and she ignores my texts. I don't know what I did for her to hate me." He frowned.

My heart cracked. Tears formed in my eyes.

"I'm sure she doesn't hate you. She has a lot going on with the wedding and baby. Emily will get a hold of you as soon as everything settles."

I put my hand on his arm. He looked at me with a small smile.

"I hope so. Well, I'll see you tomorrow." Gray walked over to his car.

I got into my car and followed Gray home. One part of my mind couldn't believe Emily would treat Gray that way. The other part of my mind wondered why Gray and I couldn't start driving to work together since we're neighbors.

The sun had started to set. The streets were covered in puddles from the rain earlier today. I didn't feel like turning on the radio in my car. I was feeling depressed from what Gray told me. I was also feeling frustrated with Emily. Once I got home, I would text her about it.