Elizabeth
Did that just happen?
Or did I not drink enough coffee this morning?
When I’d heard the sound of a motorcycle approaching, my first thought was that Brock had come to visit. When I then spent the next half-second determining that was unlikely since Tara was no longer here, my mind immediately went to one person. Steele Harrison.
But my mind had fought that idea like hell. I’d fired him from working here. I’d gotten between him and a cop trying to provoke him. I was his ex’s sister. There were more than enough good reasons for him to think about me, go “no fucking way,” and move on.
And yet, all the same, I knew it was him before I’d even swung open the front door of the office.
And now he’d just asked me out for drinks?
Why was this exciting me so much?
He’s your sister’s ex.
I couldn’t repeat that phrase enough in my head. It barely mattered how badly Tara and he had fizzled out, and it barely mattered how well he and I had connected at the party on Saturday. It was a flash in the pan, but the spark didn’t suddenly mean we’d turned the burner on. It just meant that a brief flash had appeared, merely a moment in time, not indicative of something more.
So why do you feel so excited?
Could it be the taboo nature of him?
It was too late to ask why, and in any case, it was only drinks.“Only drinks.” Famous last words.
I was left shaking my head, hoping that no one at the office had witnessed our encounter—fully aware probably everyone had—and walked back inside. I put my hand over my mouth as I walked through the hallway, doing my best to hide the grin that I could not put away with mere thought. I sat back down at my desk, prepared to resume the email report I was writing, and took a breath.
And then my phone buzzed.
What now?I thought, albeit with more than a hint of curiosity.
But it was not Steele. It was my sister.
“I’m sure you are aware by now, but…”
That was all the preview said in my message inbox. Suddenly, the spark of curious fire now turned into icy, cold dread. There were few phrases that were more ominous than “I’m sure you are aware by now, but…” and it’s various permutations. Perhaps “we need to talk” was right up there, but this was equally kick-in-the-gut bad.
I opened the message and just read through, too numb to stop.
“I’m sure you are aware by now, but in case Dad did not tell you, I was let go from NME Services when I walked into the office this morning. I am officially unemployed. But I don’t care. It’s a chance for me to not only have a new place but also a new job. I think it’ll be great in the long run, but I wanted you to hear about it before reading it in an email. Call me on your lunch break if you want.”
What…wait, seriously?
This had to be a joke. No, it didn’t matter Tara never played workplace jokes. It didn’t matter that the writing wasn’t just on the wall, it was on the ceiling when we went to sleep. It didn’t matter that her getting removed from the Santa Maria office might as well have been an ominous sign that was in flashing neon colors.
My dad had let her own daughter go because she had moved out on her own? Because she was dating a biker again? Because she dared to live her own life?
God, not only was my father worse than I thought, this was making my own anxieties about considering the same even worse.
It also made me realize I didn’t even know my own family anymore.
I looked back at the email I was writing. It was going to my father and a few other partners, a sort of weekly listing of our KPIs and more general, unquantifiable goals. It suddenly felt so fucking utterly meaningless. What the hell was the point of working on this if, the moment we showed any sort of betrayal to the cause of the company, we were turned into butchered meat?
I closed my office door. I shut the blinds to the windows, not that anyone would walk around and eavesdrop. I actually crouched under the desk, not wanting to take any risks about anyone hearing me. I called. Tara picked up on the first ring.
“What’s up, employee?”
She laughed. I did not.
