“So you decided to throw down in a team meeting? Is that the smartest thing you could come up with?”
“I’m sorry that meeting didn’t go the way you wanted but…I’ve tried to talk to you about these things for weeks, and you either ignore my texts, or tell me to schedule a meeting but there’s never time on your calendar, and you don’t want to meet for dinner anymore. What am I supposed to do? I know you’re having a hard time with this SMP thing—”
“It’s not the reorganization,” I murmured, and my control over the riot in my head faltered. I wanted to sprint upstairs to my office and convince Andy to bring our relationship into the light of day.
She’d probably beat the shit out of me with her Perspex ruler.
“Okay, I guess that’s good to know, but…what is going on? I thought we were doing well, Patrick. We finally have cash reserves to cover a fewyearsof investment projects, and we haven’t worried about making payroll in ages. And do you know how it’s been since I’ve had to clean up a single Angus disaster? Five months, two weeks, and six days.”
My head was swimming with too many competing thoughts to keep still, and the idea of Andy wagging a ruler at me was more than a little arousing.
“Things are finally good, really good, but Patrick, how the fuck am I supposed to know that we’re creating a post-apprenticeship role for Andy if you don’t tell me? And yes, I know we’ve talked about how amazing she is, but you’re also a fucking ogre when it comes to her. If you hate working with her so much, maybe this isn’t the right firm for her. I was expecting you to come in here one of these days and tell me you needed her gone.”
That sucked the air right out of my chest. I gripped the ornate mantel to catch my breath. “This is the right firm for her.”
“Patrick. Talk to me. You look like you’re giving yourself a hernia. Please, whatever it is, just talk to me.”
I paced between the bank of windows facing a roof garden in bloom, and the windowed wall separating Shannon’s office from the bullpen where Tom and her support staff were staring at us. “Do something productive,” I yelled at them, and they snapped into action.
I was thankful Shannon had the sense to stop speaking while I wore the rug thin. I paced for at least ten minutes, repeatedly building and disassembling evasions as I walked, and constantly finding myself at impossible junctions. There was only one solution that prevented me from going to war with my business partner, best friend, and sister. That same solution would probably have Andy abandoning me in a bathroom somewhere, too.
But Shannon didn’t betray confidence. She never trafficked in rumors, she took trust seriously, and that unyielding bond made us good together. I pivoted to face Shannon. It was the only solution. It meant we could go back to being open and talking to each other, and we could get the house in order.
“If I tell you something, can you swear on your life that you’ll keep it between us?”
“Does this need to be an attorney-client privilege conversation? Is there a warrant out for your arrest? Who did you kill?”
“Don’t joke,” I warned. “This is serious, and yeah, consider yourself my attorney right now.”
“The fact you even have to ask if I’ll keep something between us, and then invoke privilege, makes me realize that something went down and it wasn’t good, and I need you to be honest so we can figure out a path forward. I won’t run a business with you if you can’t be upfront with me.”
I searched for my perfectly crafted speeches, but they were lodged in a sticky part of my mind and wouldn’t form on my tongue. I met Shannon’s concerned gaze, and as adrenaline borne from months of secrecy jolted my blood, the words tumbled out. “I’m in love with Andy.”
The rush of admitting my relationship with Andy throbbed in my veins, and it felt real. With that clandestine weight lifted from my shoulders, I allowed realness to wash over me until an infatuated grin replaced my fire-breathing snarl. It was then that my confession echoed in my head, and ‘in love’ started playing on an infinite loop. I loved her, and it was finally real.
“What?” Shannon screamed, her palms slapping against the desk when she surged to her feet. A flick of my wrist sent the audience back to their computers and phone calls. The glass was thick enough that they heard only raised voices. This kind of attention would draw my siblings in a few minutes, but nothing was wiping that smile off my face. “What! What? You’rewhat?”
“I’m. In love. With Andy,” I replied haltingly, the words feeling foreign as I repeated them. “Be quiet. Your minions are trying to listen.”
“Wow, that wasn’t even on the short list of what I was expecting,” Shannon panted, dropping into her desk chair. “I am experiencing this at a rate of several hundred what-the-fucks per minute.”
“Shannon,” I warned, realizing her disapproval could rock me to the core.
“Where do I even start? Did you not care that she’s your apprentice? I thought you didn’t like her. No offense, but is she in your league? Do you even talk or is it a lot of silent scowling at each other? And isn’t she a lot younger than you?”
“Shannon, you have to swear you’re not going to say anything to anyone. Not Sam, not Matt, not Lauren. No one. And you definitely can’t say anything to Andy.”
“Does she know?” Shannon asked incredulously. “Is this like…unrequited love? I didn’t think you even talked to her.”
I chalked that up to successful avoidance tactics. If Shan didn’t think we talked, she certainly wasn’t thinking we were groping each other in any empty corner we found. The bathroom. My office. Garages. Stairwells.
“She sort of lives with me,” I said, my hand grasping the nape of my neck. “She stays with me four or five nights each week, but no, I haven’t told her that I’m in love with her yet. I didn’t really process that until just now.”
“What! What?” Shannon was on her feet again, and her bony fist slammed into my chest. “You’re in love and living with someone? When the fuck did that happen? That explains…you know what, that explains so much of your dickish behavior.”
Sinking into a wingback chair to avoid looking at Shannon’s overly interested assistants, I scratched my head. “March. And sit down and be quiet before the runt finds a reason to run in here.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Patrick? You’ve been living with a woman and you didn’t bother to tell me until now?”
