I cringe. “Not exactly at home.”
“Jesus, Kingston.” He cringes. “Do you have any idea the trouble you’re bringing onto yourself, onto this family, if you get some random chick pregnant or contract a flesh-eating dick virus?”
“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t have sex with anyone.” Or, at least, she says I didn’t. I’ll admit, I was surprised.
“How do you know you didn’t have sex with her if you blacked out?” Hayes uses his most parental tone. He’d be a horrible dad, and that’s saying something coming from a guy who is sired by the worst kind of human being.
“Can we please get off the subject of my night and move on to what the hell I’m going to be doing here for forty hours a week?”
His eyes take on an evil glint. One I recognize from adolescence. Hayes was the ultimate torturer. Cherry Kool-Aid in the showerhead so I thought I was bleeding to death. Wrapped my car in cellophane in my school parking lot. Got me pulled out of class by the police on a tip that I had plans to shoot up the school. I had to meet with a therapist for months before they trusted me enough to let me back on campus. He never did confess to that, but I know it was him.
“Yes.” He rocks forward and puts his elbows on his desk. “I have stacks of backlogged paperwork that need to be put in alphabetical order by name and sorted by date.”
Dread settles in my gut. “Alphabetical order.”
He smirks, mistaking my tone for irritation rather than what it really is—full-blown panic. “That’s right, Romeo. Some real preschool shit. You think you can handle that?” He nods to some unseen spot behind me. “I set up an office for you.”
I slowly turn around to the open door that leads to a room. “What the fuck?” I turn back around. “That’s a closet.”
“A walk-in closet.”
“Hayes—”
“It’s bigger than most New York apartments, so quit bitching.”
The weight of my paper-pushing future sends my head into my hands and a groan from my throat. “This sucks.”
The door to his office flies open. A woman races inside and stumbles into his desk, panting. Her blonde hair looks like it started in a French braid days ago, and her shirttail is wrinkled and pulled free from her pencil skirt.
“The contract, Mr. North,” she says breathlessly while offering Hayes a file folder. When he takes it, she tucks in the back of her shirt, buttons up her cuffs, and tries without success to smooth her hair.
Hayes tosses the contract into the garbage bin at her feet. Ouch. “I drafted the contract myself an hour ago.”
The woman’s face pales, all the blood in her head vacating instantly. “I worked all night on that contract.”
“Your deadline was nearly two hours ago.”
Her delicate jaw tightens. “I told you it was coming—”
“Too late.” He dismisses her with a flick of his wrist. “Get busy on the Seymore bid. It’s due tomorrow at ten o’clock. But after what you pulled today, Gillingham, I expect it at nine.”
Her shoulders deflate, and when she turns her back on him, I see her swipe at her cheeks. I applaud her for not letting the prick see her cry. “Thank you, Mr. North.”
He doesn’t say a word as she slumps out of the office, closing the door softly behind her.
“Why do you insist on being such a cock?”
“It’s business.” He spins his gold pen in his fingers. “Not personal.”
“Yeah? Tell that to poor Gillingham. Looked pretty personal to her.”
He tilts his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember reading on your resume that you had managerial experience or that you were looking for an executive position. Oh, wait, that’s right. That’s because you don’t have a resume because you’ve never had a fucking job.”
I hold up a finger. “That’s not entirely true—”
“So stop telling me how to do mine.”
“—I was a pool boy at Paloma Beach in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.”
His thick brows pinch together. “Seducing older women on the beaches of Southern France isn’t a job.” He uses air quotes.
So says he. Two summers at Paloma Beach taught me the most valuable life lessons—seduction, manipulation, and betrayal.
I learned that if I smile in a certain way, use my body and my charm, I’m able to create an image that works like a smokescreen. Attractive enough that people befriend me at face value and have no interest in digging deeper.
And thank goodness for that.
Because if they look beyond my designer clothes and pretty face, they’d see me for the royal fuck-up that I am.
Gabriella
“You probably think I’m exaggerating.” I slump back in my chair and rip the seal off a cup of vanilla pudding. “I’m not. He was by far the prettiest man I’d ever seen.” I spoon a bite into my mouth and swallow. “And yes, I do mean pretty.”
I’ve been sitting with Walter for the last few hours, knowing that his time was quickly approaching. Without any family—or even a single visitor—I didn’t want him to feel alone, so I read to him, played an old Hank Williams album, and confided in him about my handsome visitor. Dying people are the best listeners.
“Ask him for his number? No, I didn’t even ask his name. He didn’t ask mine either.” I swirl the plastic spoon through the creamy sweet custard. “I told him he’s not my type. I wasn’t lying. Fate? No, I don’t believe in that. Do you?” I take another bite of pudding.
Soft footsteps sound behind me, and I turn to see Evan slip into the dark room.
“How’s he doing?” he asks as he draws closer to the bed.
“He’s close.”
He presses two fingers into Walter’s wrist. “You ate a dying man’s pudding?” he says playfully.
“No.” I lick the spoon and toss it into the trash. “Okay, technically, yes, but he hated pudding and always gave them to me, so I felt like he’d want me to have it.”
“You’re something else.” He smiles in a way that reaches his eyes, softening his tough-guy appearance. He’s a decent-looking guy, tall, strong, built like a bouncer rather than an RN. “You’re the only person I know who can stomach food while watching people die.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
His smile is sweet and safe, nothing like the dangerous smirk of the stranger from the other night. “Not bad, just different.”
Different. Synonym for: Separate from. Bizarre. Peculiar. And he’s not even referring to my face.
He pops his stethoscope into his ears and presses the metal disc to Walter’s chest. I watch in silence. One minute. Two. No movement. His mouth is slack. The tension of a long, hard life has slipped from his face.
Evan checks his watch and pulls the stethoscope from his ears. “Three thirty-seven.”
I fold Walter’s tepid hands on his chest, then pull up his blanket and fold it at his neck. “Thanks for everything, Walter. I’ll see you on the flip side.” I finger comb his unruly white hair. I know he plans to be cremated, but I want whoever is doing the job to know he was cared for enough that his hair was put in place.