“Who are you chasing?” She smirks.
“I don’t chase, Ro; I attract.” I wink at her.
She hates it when people call her Ro, which we tend to do a lot. Frankly, it may be the only weapon against her because this woman is unflappable, her ability to hold her ground around usadmirable.
She glares. “You call me Ro one more time and I swear I’ll forward my file on you to HR.”
I know she is bluffing. Not about having a file on me—I’m pretty sure she could blackmail any of us in the blink of an eye. But she wouldn’t use it uselessly by starting an HR investigation. It wouldn’t lead anywhere, and it would have no impact on us.
She is smarter than that. She would use it wisely.
“What do you need, Roxy?” Without waiting, I start toward the elevators.
“When was the last time you were back home?” She trots beside me, and I slow my gait—the woman is a foot shorter than me—even though I don’t want to have this conversation.
“Why are you asking?” We pass by my team’s cubicles. “Double-check column H,” I tell a junior analyst hunched over a spreadsheet.
He looks up, gaping at me. “How did you even…?”
“I’m sure you would have spotted the error in no time.” I tap on his partition and continue my escape from Roxy.
We reach the reception, and I hit the elevator’s call button.
“I need to go, Roxy, so unless you have something work-related to discuss, I’m stepping out.”
As if on cue, the elevator dings and its doors slideopen. I don’t wait for her to explain, but I catch her expression before the door closes. Fuck.
She’s biting her bottom lip, her nose wrinkled. I’m not the best at reading faces, but she is not her usual smug self, so I hit the button to reopen the door.
“What is it, Roxy?” I sigh.
“Your father called.”
Fuck. My. Life.
The Manhattan traffic is at its usual. Loud. Hectic. And slow. So fucking slow, I start to doubt my mission makes any sense.
At the red light, I glance at my phone in the dashboard holder, my dad’s phone number mocking me in my mind’s eye.
Coward. Just call him back.I push the gas as the light changes. Saved by the bell—or rather light in this case. I’m not calling him now.
Talking on the phone while driving is all sorts of ill-advised. Because suddenly I’m obeying the traffic rules.
As I said, coward.
I avoided my father for almost two years. Why would he call now?
For a moment, I consider that something bad musthave happened. But I dismiss the thought because Lottie would call. I have been in touch with my sister regularly since I left.
She’s the only family member who saw through my bullshit, and refused to accept my version of the events that forced me to move as far from them as possible.
While I don’t understand her loyalty, I appreciate it. If something bad had happened, Lottie would have made sure I heard about it.
She wouldn’t pressure me. She would accept my decision whether or not to visit. She would just fucking be there for me. No matter what story I would feed her.
And as ashamed as I may be, I would feed her some fabrication, because it’s been easier than facing the past.
But I haven’t heard from my sister, and that begs the question: why is my father making an effort to get in touch with me? And an even bigger one is why I would rather crawl into a box full of vipers than return his call.
