He stops and stares at me.
“Excuse me?” He sets his napkin on the table.
“I have a job. I don’t want to talk about it. Yes, it’s legal. No, I’m not stripping on the internet. Can you give it a rest?”
I have interrupted him, and I’ve challenged him.
My father opens his mouth, then closes it. He narrows his eyes at me. “This conversation is not over.”
“Sure,” I say, hoping my voice isn’t wavering too much.
After dinner, my father takes his coffee into the study and slams the door. I join my mother in the kitchen to help with the dishes.
“He’s not angry, sweetheart,” she says, handing me a plate to dry.
“He’s sure not happy,” I say, wiping down the plate and setting it in the rack.
“No, I suppose not. You’ll tell us when you’re ready, sweetheart.”
“Yes, Mom. I love you.” I give her a big hug, and she sighs in surprise, then hugs me back tightly.
I walk quietly upstairs to my bedroom and sit on the edge of the bed. My phone is already in my hand and I text Margot.
alive. interrupted him at the table.
you WHAT?! proud of you. how bad did he react
tbd. I wouldn’t tell him where I work and he was angry.
not as angry as he’ll be when he finds out… love you, girl.
I am twenty-two years old. I have a job I like, and I’m good at it. I have a crush on a man I shouldn’t, but this is my life. If there are mistakes to make, then they are mine to make and mine to fix.
This is the life I’m choosing.
CHAPTER 3
CARMINE
Two boxes of nitrile, large. One of medium. Half a box of small.”
Clarissa is on the floor of the supply closet with the clipboard balanced on her knee, pen between her teeth. Her hair is half up, half coming loose. The shop opens in twenty minutes.
“Barrier film?”
“Three rolls. We’ll need to order by Friday.”
I write it on the sheet and lean against the closet doorway, balancing the supplier sheet and schedule book on top of my coffee.
Clarissa glances up at me, and the top button of her blouse is open. It’s been open every morning for two weeks, and every morning I tell myself not to look, and every morning I look. The swell of her heavy tits, a creamy dessert under the thin fabric of her blouse. If she leaned forward another inch, I’d see her bra.
My cock thickens against my jeans, and I grip the coffee mug harder.
I look at the sheet. “Supplier invoice from the seventeenth.”
“Filed.”
I look up. “Under?”
