She kept typing for a few seconds, which felt deliberate. Then she looked at me, her face giving me nothing, not anger, not warmth, just flat professional blankness that was worse than either.
“Fine,” she said, and went back to typing.
I stood there for a second longer than I should have, then went back to my office and spent the rest of the day watching the clock.
After hours. The floor emptied out, the lights dimming to the low after-hours setting. She walked into my office and closed the door behind her. Sat in the chair across from me, arms folded, spine straight. Not making this easy. I didn’t expect her to.
“I told Lorraine it’s over,” I said. “At the pack gathering, face to face. I told her I never saw her as anything more than a colleague and I told her to stop telling people we’re together.”
“And?”
“And I told my mother the same thing. She called, she cried, she brought up my father. I didn’t give in. I hung up on her.”
Andrea’s arms uncrossed slightly. “You hung up on your mother?”
“First time in my life.”
She was quiet, studying me, measuring what I was saying against what I’d done. I could see the scale tipping but it hadn’t balanced yet.
“This is your last chance,” she said. “I need you to hear that. Not a warning, not a threat. A fact. You do this again and I’m gone.”
“I hear you.”
She looked at me for a while, weighing, deciding. Then she asked something I didn’t expect.
“Why her? Out of everyone, why did your mother pick Lorraine? And why did you let it go on so long?”
Quieter than the ultimatum. More personal. She wasn’t just holding me accountable. She was trying to understand.
“Our mothers decided we’d be together before either of us could walk,” I said. “Margaret and Regina, Lorraine’s mother, they planned the whole thing. Family dinners every week, holidays together, the two of us pushed into the same room every chance they got. By the time I was old enough to realize what was happening, everybody already treated it like it was settled.”
“And you just went along with it?”
“I didn’t go along with it. I avoided it. Dodged every conversation, changed the subject, never said yes. But I never said no either, and that was enough for them to keep building on.”
“Why not just say no?”
“Because saying no to my mother meant a fight I didn’t want. Saying no to Lorraine meant hurting someone I grew up with. Saying no to Regina meant blowing up a thirty-year friendship between two families.” I rubbed my jaw. “And honestly? Before you, I didn’t care enough to fight about it. I figured I’d deal with it eventually. There was nobody I wanted badly enough to burn everything down for.”
She was contemplating my answer. “And at the office? When she grabbed your arm?”
“I froze. That’s the honest answer. I’ve been trained my whole life to keep the peace, don’t make a scene, don’t embarrass anyone in public. She grabbed my arm and the training kicked in before my brain did. By the time I realized what was happening, we were past your desk and the damage was done.”
“You looked at me.”
“I know.”
“You saw my face.”
“I know, Andrea. I saw it. I’ll see it for the rest of my goddamn life.”
She was quiet. Her face had softened but her guard was still there, visible in the set of her shoulders.
“I’m sorry you grew up like that,” she said. “I am. But at some point you choose for yourself, Finneas. And you chose wrong.”
“I know.”
She looked at me across the desk, chewing on her lip, and then asked something that caught me off guard. “What scared you the most? When your dad died. Not the King stuff, not the pack. What scared you personally?”
