His frowning intensifies. “We don’t.”
“But Greg said?—”
“We don’t.” His jaw hardens. “Reese got a promotion and heads up the Retirement Products Group now, so I know that for a fact..”
“Know what, baby?”
The woman herself is back now with Sophia on her hip and the two boys running circles around her like orbiting comets.
“CJ’s still trying to find ways to sink our company,” Wyatt says.
Reese turns to me with polite confusion on her face. “Really? Why would you want to do that, CJ?” She reaches out and takes Wyatt’s hand, as if I needed the reminder of their work-life partnership. “Then again, it’s not like you can get fired twice.”
I raise my eyes heavenward, but instead of finding a secret trove of patience or a vengeful god ready and willing to smite my enemies, I see a lone red balloon that escaped the display around Santa’s chair and is now bobbing against the large steel beams crisscrossing the ceiling of the Beaucoeur community center. Oh, to be able to join that balloon and escape this conversation.
For the briefest of moments, I’m tempted to tell them the truth: I’ve been keeping an eye on Howard Randall since I got fired, and I’m starting to develop a theory about why he maneuvered me into a position to recommend cutting Wyatt’s division. But those suspicions involve the Retirement Products Group budget, and I’m not about to kick the hornet’s nest that is Reese’s new kingdom. There’s no reason to give them yet another opportunity to look at me like I’m the evil one.
Thankfully, there are children nearby, and they’re great subject changers.
I turn to Wyatt with a clenched-tooth smile and say under my breath, “For the sake of the k-i-d-s, I’m?—”
“Tristan and Kai know how to spell.” The you dumbass is only implied.
“Fine. For the sake of the ildren-chay, I’m going to ignore the hurtful yet unsurprising attacks on my character to ask if it’s okay to point them to the booth with ot-hay ocolate-chay and, um, cookies.” My pig latin runs out of steam by the end, and I add, “They’ve got nondairy, sugar-free, and gluten-free options for everything, if they need it.”
I watch Wyatt shift from “I hate CJ” to “I adore my siblings” mode, and he says gruffly, “They’d love that.”
“Great,” I clip out before turning to address the three humans in the group who don’t loathe me. “Who’d like hot chocolate and cookies?”
The answer is, of course, everyone, and Sophie shocks me by leaning away from Reese and holding her chubby arms out to me. Both Reese and I glance at Wyatt, me nervously and her in dismay, but he just makes a sharp gesture for us to get on with it. I cautiously approach Reese for the child transfer and find myself cuddling Wyatt’s youngest sibling against my chest.
Then, like always, my need to get the last word rises in me like a self-destructive tide.
“I meant that, by the way,” I tell Wyatt. “Your division encourages employees to ask questions and hopefully avoid predatory retirement plans. It’s important work. Kind of makes me wonder why Howard wanted to cut you in the first place.”
I stare hard at Reese, then flee toward the cookies in the middle of a pack of children. Once they’re settled at one of the long tables with all the sugar they can handle, I leave them in the care of their brother and his awful girlfriend and rejoin Em at the start of the line.
“Well?” she asks. “The hot dad is taken?”
“Not a dad,” I tell her. “But very taken.”
And still very hot, the asshole.
Eleven
Now
CJ
* * *
Wyatt’s sisters are happily performing acts of bioterrorism when I slide into the Oakwood’s massive kitchen, fully clown-elfed just to be safe.
“Hi!” Becks flings her arms around my neck and squeezes. “This is the most fun.”
“I fear I’m turning you into a criminal,” I say, squeezing her back and resolutely ignoring the food-prep schmutz on her gloved fingers.
“Nah, but I might major in chemistry once I get to college. This is cool.” She turns back to her work slipping peppers into the mozzarella, prosciutto, and pickled peach skewers bound for Howard.
