Accidentally Amy(5)

She suddenly felt like she was on trial. He looked like a stern judge - hot thought to be revisited later - and Pam was like a juror, quietly watching the cross examination. Izzy opened her mouth and was about to consider grabbing onto his middle name excuse like the liar she’d apparently become, when Pam said,
“No - her middle name is Clarence. Right, Izzy - isn’t that what you told me when you filled out the I-9 form?”
Pam laughed and said to Blake, “I think she said it was her grandfather’s name. Isabella Clarence - can you imagine?” Izzy rubbed her lips together for a second - shit, shit, shit - and then she said, “Amy isn’t actually my name at all. It’s, uh, kind of a funny story.”
Blake’s head tilted just the tiniest bit. She said, “Just let me explain.”
Pam kept smiling, looking at Izzy like she was waiting for a hilarious tale, but Blake was doing that jaw-clench thing and absolutely not smiling anymore.
He kind of looked pissed.
“Okay, so, I was running a little behind and didn’t want to be late for my first day at Ellis. I paid for my drink, but the line was super long. Like, so long that I was going to have to bail before I even got my coffee, right?”
Pam was still into it, listening in amused anticipation, but Blake just looked impatient, like he knew the rest and wanted her to shut the hell up.
She looked down at her feet and rushed out the words, “So after they called for Amy three times, and no one came for the drink, I, um, I might’ve told the barista I was Amy.”
“You did not,” Pam said, glancing at Blake while laughing uncomfortably.
Izzy tried giving Blake her best playful smile as she said, “It didn’t pay off, though, because I ended up spilling the drink all over Blake here.”
“Um.” He cleared his throat. “Are you saying that you took someone else’s drink?”
“Well, I mean,” Izzy said, trying to make him understand. “I paid and we ordered the same thing, so--”
“So does that make it not her drink then?” He looked at her like she’d just confessed to beheading a puppy. “Amy’s drink is fair game for anyone who prepaid for the same order, is that what you’re saying?”
“It was a very uncool thing to do, I know,” Izzy said, mortified by his offended reaction.
“I don’t know about uncool,” Blake said, his eyes pinning her in place like he was the hawk and she was the mouse he found too annoying to eat so he just wanted to play with her until she was dead. “But it was definitely dishonest.”
“So very, very dishonest, Mr. Phillips.” Izzy gritted her teeth and forced herself to stay calm because she wanted that job more than she wanted to tell off the ultra-hot, uber-judgmental Chest. She crossed her arms, breathed in through her nose, and said, “You have no idea, at his moment, how much I regret every single thing that transpired today in relation to that dishonest cup of coffee. If I could go back and undo all of it, every single moment, I absolutely would.”
His eyes stayed on her, unwavering, and his expression was unreadable.
“I’m going to take off and let you get back to work,” she said, raising her lips so her baring of teeth looked like a smile. “It was very nice meeting you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Was it?”
“Of course,” Izzy said, coughing out at little laugh and smiling at Pam to make sure she knew that everything was fine. But the second Pam looked away from her, Izzy couldn’t stop herself from giving Blake a tiny head shake and mouthing the word NOPE.
That made his jaw clench and his eyes narrow just the teensiest bit, which made Iz feel like she'd scored some sort of point.
“We’ll get out of your hair now, Blake,” Pam tittered, and Izzy let Pam lead her away from the office and out to the elevators. She knew she’d just gotten herself fired, and right as she thought that, Pam explained that even though he could sometimes be perceived as arrogant, Blake Phillips was actually a really nice guy.
He was just very serious and incredibly focused.
Izzy rolled her eyes.
Focused.
Was that what it was called?
It seemed to Izzy that he was focused on being a total dick.

Chapter Three



“Iz, your cat’s in my apartment,” Josh yelled from upstairs as she checked her mailbox.
“Seriously?” Izzy sighed and rolled her eyes, wondering who’d been in her apartment since she’d left that morning. She glanced in the direction of her door, and yep - it was ajar.
Thank God the general entrance to the building required a key.
Her grandparents owned the apartment house - it was their “investment property.” An older building, it sat in the middle of a mid-century middle-class neighborhood, offering four one-bedroom units. But instead of leasing the apartments to college students and young professionals to make a pretty penny on premium rent, all four units in the building were leased at a discounted rate to Millie and Burt’s grandchildren.
Izzy was grateful for the sweet deal on rent, as well as the landlords who adored her, but it came with a few less-than-ideal caveats. First, she’d lost count of the number of times she’d come home to find her grandpa tinkering in her apartment or her grandma “tidying things up a bit.”
Also, to make things “easier for everyone,” her grandparents had given each of them a copy of the master key so they didn’t have to mess around with individual locks.
Sometimes it felt like she lived in a big house with her cousins instead of her own apartment.