Sadie: Nuh uh. Spill.
Noah: Can’t do that. Just talk to her.
Sadie: I will kill you.
That had gone well.
Chapter 24 – Jenny
Denver was as stubborn as Noah when it came to taking rent money from me. Did they really think I was that poor? I had attempted the sneaking cash on him thing, but it had only resulted in a kind lecture about roommates, and how he never kept cash in the house so there was never an opportunity for them to question each other. The four weeks I was here were his gift to me, and since I was still paying this month’s rent on an apartment that now belonged to Clarissa, he wasn’t charging me a cent more.
But there were other ways of being useful, so I dragged myself out of my room and into the kitchen to make dinner again.
It was a little late, but if nobody ate it tonight, I had no doubt it would disappear tomorrow. There was no such thing as leftovers in a house full of guys. Honestly, it was the only evidence I had that Denver’s other roommates existed.
I pulled all the vegetables from the fridge and began chopping like a mad woman. Nobody was around, but I had a feeling as soon as something started sizzling in a pan, they would show up. Sure enough, four seconds after the chopped onions hit the pan, Stinton came in to watch me cook. I gave him a half-hearted smile and then pulled a package of chicken out of the fridge.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
He nodded. “Denver is too. He sent me to do surveillance.”
“Oh really?” It wasn’t like Denver not to show up and bother me while I cooked, but I couldn’t say I wasn’t glad. Denver would notice something was off with me. For all his staring, Stinton still couldn’t read me well enough to know all my busyness was an attempt to not think about what was bothering me.
I didn’t want to think about Noah. Or about my job. Or about the past year. Or about how much I couldn’t read people. It was so much worse than I’d thought.
I had been a part of some grand scheme without knowing anything about it. All the clues were there. Noah acting strangely. My boss suddenly leaving. Then Noah leaving. Even the recent stuff, like Elena freaking out over seeing Noah back in carpool with us. Noah hiding under my desk.
I took the cleaver out of the knife block and slammed it back down on the raw chicken. Not my best technique ever, but, boy, that was satisfying.
I looked up at Stinton’s wide eyed stare. He pointed behind him. “I’ll just go let Denver know what’s cooking.”
“You do that.” I smiled. As a petite introvert, it was rare I scared anyone. But the smile left my face quickly, and I concentrated on getting the chicken cut up properly and in a pan. Washing my hands. Washing the cutting board. Moving, moving, moving. Moving meant less thinking. I had the kitchen to myself for all of three minutes before Sadie came in and leaned against the counter next to me.
“What’s this about you quitting your job?”
I gaped at her. How did she even know about that? I hadn’t told anybody. “That’s creepy, Sadie. Are you psychic or something?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. Noah said I had to stop you from quitting your job.”
Hot molten lava-like feelings erupted from deep inside me. I felt like growling and stomping and ripping things into pieces, but instead it all came out as hot, fat tears running down my cheeks, which only made me angrier. How dare he? How dare he know me so well he could guess what my next move was? It wasn’t his decision to make, and it wasn’t his place to care.
“Denver!” Sadie yelled. “Get off that rowing machine and finish dinner. Jenny and I are going for a drive.” She dragged me out of the kitchen, only stopping to grab her purse before we headed out to her Jetta.
For several minutes we just drove. There was a winding passage up into the hills above Denver’s house where the uber-rich built their mansions on the side of secluded cliffs, and I could tell Sadie enjoyed the concentration it took to take it at full speed.
“You ready to talk?” she finally asked after pulling over at a lookout spot and parking in front of the guard rail. “I’m not sure I’m the best person for this, but Noah sort of forced my hand, and I am here and I do have ears.”
“Sorry.”
Sadie laughed. “Don’t be sorry. I should be telling you sorry. I stink at being… I don’t even know the word. Supportive. Sympathetic. Empathetic. I couldn’t even tell you the difference between those two.”
“It’s fine. I just need to know what Noah told you.”
“Just to not let you quit your job. He wouldn’t give me anything beyond that. Every time I asked he said I had to talk to you. So, are you quitting?”
Perhaps that had been hasty. After all, the person asking me would be relying on my half of the rent going forward. But the thought of going back into work filled me with so much dread that I didn’t see any alternative. I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t know.”
Sadie drummed out a rhythm on the steering wheel. “Well, if Noah won’t tell me, and you won’t tell me, it’s a little hard for me to know how I’m supposed to talk you out of it. Are you quitting because of something that happened at work or because of Noah?”
