“What are you talking about?” Her mouth is open, her startled exhale emerging as a frosty cloud that hangs between us. “I left you a note explaining everything. You’re the one who?—”
“I don’t give a shit about your explanations.” I have to pull myself back from shouting at her, aware that we’re starting to draw stares. Fighting for calm, I turn back to the water and exhale slowly as the first group plunges into the water, disappearing beneath the surface before popping back up, sputtering and screeching. “Thankfully, my girlfriend and I figured out a way to fix it on our own.”
I cut my gaze over in time to see her whole body jolt.
“Your… girlfriend?”
“You didn’t hear?” I’m taunting her now, and oh my god, it feels good. “She and I were able to show the board of directors how much money our division saved for our clients by increasing employee retention and reducing HR disputes?—”
“Which drives word-of-mouth referrals and gives Sounder a thirty percent higher contract renewal rate than the industry average,” she murmurs so faintly that I almost don’t hear it above the hooting and splashing from the lake. “And then there’s the intangible benefits of helping people without much financial experience ask smart questions when they’re picking retirement plans.”
“Halle-fucking-lujah.” I wave the towel in my hands with sarcastic elation. “She finally gets it.”
“So you came up with this miraculous plan on your own.” An unsettling light fills her eyes as she turns to me. “You and your girlfriend.”
“Yes. She’s one of the people whose jobs we saved no thanks to you. If you’d put in any effort at all doing your job, you’d have come to the same conclusions.”
In truth, Reese was the main driver of our plan to save our division. I hadn’t really noticed her around the bank before she approached me with her impressively detailed plan to save our department. And when she asked me for a drink after we presented it to Howard and the board, I agreed. Then I kept on agreeing until I somehow slid into the longest relationship of my life.
“Wow.” CJ shakes her head in disgust. “Wow. You two must be a hell of a couple.”
“Totally compatible.” I make my smile as smug as possible. “That’s why we fell in love so fast.”
She blinks rapidly, her eyes cutting to the water before snapping back to my face.
“So you and your girlfriend,” she says. “You worked on this alternative audit together. And you fell in love.”
“What can I say?” I shrug. “ She’s brilliant. And driven. And—agghh!”
With a banshee cry, CJ gives me a hard shove that sends me staggering backward onto… nothing. My arms pinwheel as I struggle to catch my balance, but my attempts to defy gravity fail and I plummet into the lake.
The shock of the freezing water knocks the air from my lungs, and for a terrifying second, my muscles lock up and I start to sink.
Apparently, this is how I die. Courtesy of the woman who, for a few exhilarating hours, I thought I would marry and be buried next to after a long, happy life. Instead, I’ll be buried at sea in an icy grave, cut down in my prime by the frigid bitch of my nightmares.
I wait for my life to flash in front of my eyes, unspooling year after boring year of me doing what was expected. Helping raise the younger siblings. Bailing Holly out of trouble over and over, as kids and well into adulthood. Plodding through high school, then college, then my MBA program. Shouldering the responsibility for everyone in my life while swallowing down those flickers of desire for myself. If the only true bright spot is that brief, dreamlike night last December when I met the person I thought I was put on earth to love, I blame my oxygen-starved brain.
When I bob to the surface, sucking a knife of air into my abused lungs, I’m hit by several realizations.
One, my balls have retracted all the way inside my body.
Two, it’s even colder above the water now that I’m wet.
Three, my bag of dry clothes was slung over my shoulder, which means it’s now a bag of wet clothes that’s slung over my shoulder.
Four, CJ Parrish was sent from a hell dimension to punish me for my misdeeds in all of my past lives.
“You-y-you…” I sputter through chattering teeth once my eyes land on her, warm and dry on the dock. “Why?”
She’s frozen, her mouth hanging open as steam pours off my wet, exposed skin. A moment later, though, she snaps her mouth shut and crosses her arms over her chest. The anger radiating off her might be enough to save me from frostbite, and it jolts me into motion. Our eyes stay locked as I stiffly paddle toward the ladder and clamber out of the water.
Before I can ask her what the actual fuck, she hisses, “You’re pathetic.”
The venom in her voice stuns me, and I rethink my immediate plan of action, which was to return the favor and toss her ass into that icy abyss.
“Me? I’m pathetic?” My teeth are chattering as water streams down my body. “After th-this little d-d-display of jealousy?”
Our interlude has attracted attention, but the next group of plungers picks that moment to jump in, and their shrieks pull the focus away from us as another shudder races through me.
