“It’s the burden of having good taste,” Morgan says. “Hype is fickle and easily swayed. When it comes to food, I do my own sourcing.”
“I just feel lucky when the Jimmy John’s doesn’t give me food poisoning,” I say with a wry grin.
Morgan wrinkles her nose, making no effort to hide her disgust. It’s kind of cute.
“So,” I say, “how are things going with the investors?” I’m hoping I can suss out who didn’t show tonight and why it’s just us after Morgan’s been avoiding me. I’m glad that at least she still prefers my company to being alone, even if that’s all this is.
“Well, a few of them have required some extra… education on how this campaign will affect them, but the smart ones are seeing the value. The others will quickly follow suit.”
She shifts into a rant about one of them, then asks me my impressions from the after-parties. It’s light, casual. It feels nice.
#
There’s a lull, and I decide I want to strike up conversation again, but I’m on my way to wine-drunk, so my filter’s a little loose.
“So, I uh… have a confession to make.”
Morgan’s eyes glitter with something I can’t quite read. I have the sensation of peering behind the mask again. Openness, maybe? “What’s that?”
“I… read your Wikipedia page.”
Then the glitter is gone, replaced with Morgan’s usual self-assurance. “Oh? And what did you find?”
“Well, other than yourdizzyingnet worth… I saw youhave siblings. And that’s kind of cool—or well—is it? I’m an only child. I’ve always kind of wondered.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” Morgan says with a rueful smile.
“They can’t be that bad, can they?”
Morgan shrugs. “To be entirely honest, I wouldn’t know how they’re doing now. We’re not close. I’m the oldest, so I spent most of my childhood butting heads with my father, Cyrus. John’s two years after me and Blake two years after him. They stuck together. Both also alphas. Cyrus mostly left them alone—he had his hands full with me. So they still suck up to Cyrus and Beatrice, our mother. When I was sixteen, our parents got unexpectedly pregnant again. That’s Diana, the omega. Beatrice finally got what she’d always wanted, and Cyrus was getting old enough that having a precious little omega to tote around softened him up.”
I give what I hope is a commiserating expression. “I wish I’d had that effect onmyfather.”
“Let me be clear,” Morgan says, with an intensity in her voice that I haven’t quite heard before. “I was being sarcastic. It isneveran omega’s job to calm an alpha.”
I’m not quite sure what to do but take the statement at face value, so I say, “Thanks. It… it means a lot to hear an alpha say that.”
“I don’t deserve thanks for that,” Morgan half-growls. “The bar is subterranean.”
It kind of catches me off guard, how sincere she is about this. “Well… thanks anyway. Y’know, I kinda wish I’d been born an alpha.” I offer a rueful chuckle. “Then at least I could have protected my mother.”
I’m not quite sure why I expected this remark to be a humorous change of subject. I think because of the sheer ridiculousness of somebody like me being an alpha.
Morgan looks thoughtful. “You wouldn’t be you if you were an alpha. And I’d hate to be deprived. Leave the blame resting squarely where it belongs—on your father.”
I scan Morgan’s face. I don’t think that before this conversation I would have described Morgan as someone who felt responsible for other people. Maybe in an abstract sense, the company-as-an-organism thing.
But she’s lowered the mask for now, and her face is almost raw. I see the tension in her jaw, the faraway look in her eyes, and I get the sense that her feelings of responsibility are a greater burden than she’s willing to admit.
A quiet thought asks,does she feel responsible for me?
I push it aside. I’m an employee, an asset in this campaign, and nothing more. Tobias made that clear.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a downer,” I say, reaching for the first subject that comes to mind. “But, um, Eileen said you have a philosophical streak?”
Morgan’s eyes brighten, and the mask returns. “Oh? Pertaining to what?”
“Your life of spurious excess.” The words are out of my mouth before I can think better of them. Shit. I’m drunk again.
