THE ALPHA TRIPLETS' CHUBBY HUMAN MATE

Aurora's pov I lost my job at 9:17 this morning. I had no idea I'd lose my husband before the sun went down. The email calendar invite said HR MEETING - CONFIDENTIAL, no time to prepare, no warning, just a red block dropped onto my Tuesday. I remember staring at it for a full minute before I even stood up from my desk. "You'll want to bring your laptop," Denise from HR said when I called to ask what it was about. I sat across from her four minutes later, my laptop balanced on my knees. "Aurora, we've received a formal complaint about falsified expense reports," she said, sliding a folder across the desk without opening it. "Effective immediately, your employment with Whitmore & Cole is terminated." "That's not possible." The words came out too fast, too high. "I've never submitted a false report in three years. Ask anyone. Ask Priya, she signs off on my…" "The decision's already been made." She didn't look up. My boss, Richard, stood by the window with his arms crossed, and when I turned to him, waiting for him to say something, anything, to remember three years of twelve-hour nights and the Kessler account I'd saved single-handedly, he just shook his head. "I trusted the report that was brought to me," he said. "That's all I can say." "Brought to you by who?" My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated it, hated that they could hear exactly how much this was costing me. Nobody answered. "Richard, you've known me three years," I said, standing now, the laptop sliding off my knees onto the chair. "You went to my wedding. You know I don't cut corners on expense reports, I barely submit them on time." "This isn't about whether I know you." He wouldn't look at me either now. "It's about what's documented." "Documented by who?" I turned back to Denise. "Can I at least see it? Can I see what I supposedly did?" "Legal has advised against sharing the file during an active review." Denise closed the folder like it had personally offended her to open it in the first place. "You'll receive your final paycheck and COBRA information within five business days." "So I don't even get to defend myself." "I'm sorry, Aurora." Richard finally looked at me, just for a second, and there was something in his face, guilt. "Take care of yourself.” A security guard was already waiting outside the glass door. Which meant this had been decided before I ever sat down. I packed my framed photos, and a mug that said WORLD'S OKAYEST EMPLOYEE into a cardboard box while forty people pretended very hard to be looking at their monitors. The guard walked two steps behind me the entire way to the elevator, like I was going to make a run for the supply closet and start stuffing staplers down my shirt. Mia caught up with me at the elevator bank, glancing back toward the bullpen before she spoke. "Someone reported you," she whispered. "I heard Denise on the phone yesterday. A woman. Said she had 'documentation.'" "What woman? What documentation? I didn't do anything, Mia, you know I didn't…" "I know." She squeezed my arm as the doors opened. "I know you didn't." The doors closed on her face before I could ask anything else. I made it exactly to the sidewalk outside before I stopped pretending I was fine and let myself cry, then I wiped my face with the back of my wrist, because crying on a street corner wasn't going to pay rent. My phone buzzed before I'd even wiped my face all the way. Jenna. "Please tell me you're joking," she said the second I picked up. News traveled fast in a building with glass walls. "Mia just texted me. They actually walked you out?" "Escorted. Like I was going to steal the stapler collection." "This is insane. You've never fudged a number in your life, you triple-check your own coffee order." "I know." I laughed despite myself, "Someone reported me, Jenna. With 'documentation.' Mia heard Denise on the phone yesterday." "Who would even…" She stopped herself. "Okay. Okay, don't spiral. Go home, pour something with alcohol in it, and call me tonight." "I will. I'm okay. I promise." I wasn't, but it felt important to say it out loud anyway. "Love you," she said. "This isn't the end of anything, you hear me?" She had no idea how right she was. That's when I saw the email. Blackwood Enterprises - Offer Confirmation. My thumb hovered over it for a second like it might be a mistake, like the universe wouldn't really do this to me twice in one hour. But there it was, from a name I recognized, Ms. Delacroix in Blackwood's HR department. ‘Dear Ms. Hale, we're delighted to confirm your start date of Monday the 14th. Please arrive at the west lobby of the Blackwood Tower by 8:30 a.m. and ask for executive floor clearance…’ I read it twice. Then a third time, right there on the sidewalk, box digging into my hip, mascara probably halfway down my cheeks. I laughed. Fired at 9:17. Hired again, in another company by 9:41. Whatever this day was trying to do to me, it hadn't figured out yet that I don't go down that easy. I decided right there I wasn't telling my husband about Whitmore & Cole. Not yet. I'd walk in with the Blackwood offer and I'd tell him the whole story backwards, so the ending came first. I wanted to see his face when I said Blackwood Enterprises hired me, wanted him to be proud of me for once instead of quietly disappointed that I worked too much or laughed too loud at office parties or didn't fit into the navy dress he liked for his firm's holiday party. The subway ride home took forty minutes. I stopped in the kitchen first, dropped my keys in the bowl. "Babe?" I called toward the hallway, setting my purse on the counter. "You're not going to believe the day I had." The apartment was dim except for a strip of light under our bedroom door. "Ethan?" I called out, setting my box down by the console table. No answer. Just a sound, low and muffled, that might have been the TV. It wasn't the TV. I put my hand on the door and a woman laughed on the other side of it. Soft, familiar, a laugh I'd heard a hundred times. "Ethan..." She moaned. I froze with my hand still on the door. “Vanessa?”