She smiles faintly. “Well… since my parents aren’t exactly in my life anymore, I wrote a letter. I poured everything into it.”
“And?”
“I might send it. I might not,” she says. “But getting it all out? That helped.”
“Dr. Brett wanted me to write one too.” I admit, “I told him I’d rather talk face to face.”
“And?” she asks.
“And I haven’t been back since.”
The words sound worse out loud.
I turn before she can respond and walk into the bathroom to get ready for bed.
Half hoping she’ll be asleep by the time I come back out, I take my sweet time brushing my teeth.
No luck.
Jess is sitting up on her side of the bed, tablet in hand.
I slide into bed and wait for her to say something. She doesn’t. She just keeps tapping away.
“What are you doing?” I finally ask when she doesn’t even glance my way.
“What?” She looks up, startled, then realizes how close my face is to hers. “Oh. I’m looking into this software Jeremy mentioned. The one he used for automated invoices.”
Fucking Jeremy.
I scowl but don’t say it out loud.
Jess doesn’t notice my reaction. “I was thinking about hiring someone to handle invoicing, but then I remembered Jeremy talking about this app. I can’t find it though, so I’ll just call him-”
She reaches for her phone.
“No,” I snap.
She blinks.
“I mean, it’s late,” I add quickly not wanting her to think this is something it definitely isn’t.
“Oh.” She checks the time. “Right. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
“Don’t,” I say.
She frowns. “Why?”
“I’ll help you.”
She shakes her head. “No. You did all this alone before. It’s not your fault I can’t keep up.”
Her voice sounds small. Insecure. That’s not something I’m used to hearing from Jess.
“I wasn’t alone,” I say quietly. “You helped. And besides, there’s more work now. I was actually thinking about promoting Arnon.”
Her head snaps toward me. “What?”
“I can hire a new assistant.” I reply, shaking my head. “He’s way too qualified to be getting my coffee anyway.”
