“Yes. Avoidance is the key to success. Keep up, Flowers. You and I are on the same page. How about we get back to business?”
That seemed like a good plan. “Okay, what do you have for me?”
“I sent you an email,” he said, without looking at me. “Five new proposals. I want a first glance assessment of all of them by EOD.”
“You know you sound like a dork, when you talk in acronyms like that,” I told him.
“You know you sound like a wounded Disney princess when you cry.”
I scowled at him.
He scowled back.
His scowl was better.
“Fine. I’m leaving. Just tell me one thing. What does your family think of me?”
I couldn’t imagine what they thought.About my past, about my behavior. About E.G.’s behavior toward me. It all had to seem abysmally strange.
“They like you more than me.”
“Then my elaborate plan to replace you has worked,” I said, tapping my fingers together like an evil genius.
“Seriously, they want to adopt you.”
“I should let them. That would make me your sister and then I could be as obnoxious to you as I liked.”
His body froze, and his expression shut down, and just like that, we were back to weird.
“Or not,” I added, in denial about where that went weird. “I’ll just go and read those proposals.”
“You do that. Oh, and Flowers?”
“Yes, boss?”
See what I did there? Threw in a little boss action. Him. Boss. Me. Assistant. Nothing to see here, folks.
“We have an appointment at three o’clock today. I put it on your schedule.”
“Okay. What’s it for?”
“We’re going to the DMV. You’re going to apply to get your driver’s permit and then I’m signing you up for driver’s ed.”
My jaw dropped. “I’m pretty sure you can’t make me do that.”
“Driving is a life skill, Flowers. One you should have. Don’t fight me on this.”
“I’m going to learn. Eventually,” I said defensively. “When I need to.”
“You need to now,” he insisted.
“Why? I get everywhere I want with public transportation, and if that doesn’t work, I can spring for the occasional Uber.”
“Because I might need you to drive at some point. For some reason. Maybe if we have to travel out of state. Whatever. The point is, it’s something you should know how to do, and as of now, your job requires it.”
There was absolutely no reason to be annoyed by this. It made sense. It’s not like I didn’t want to learn how to drive. It wasn’t some kind of phobia holding me back. I just hadn’t made it a priority.
Still, I just didn’t like his high-handedness about the whole thing.
