“I’ve been visiting this building my whole life, but I never saw it from this angle.”
He grins like this is a huge accomplishment. “I like to get to know the ins and outs of a place.”
“My mom would have been so mad if she knew I came up here.” I lean back on my palms, staring up at the thin crescent moon. “Disrespectful to TKCORP or something.”
“Hey, Ruby, I…I’m really sorry about your mom.”
People say that all the time, rote and polite, but the way his voice softens when he says it gives me a hazy feeling in my gut.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“How have…things been for you lately? With your family thing?”
“Oh, you know. Family—it can be a lot.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Mm, seems like a bad idea to tell my boss’s boss’s boss about my mommy issues.” I give him a toothy grin. In eighth grade, Greg dubbed it my Bugs Bunny grin, because my top front teeth are bigger than the others. (Is that supposed to be an insult?I’d asked, and Greg blushed.No, it’s too cute,he said.Be careful how you use that thing.)
“At least, not on the first roof excursion,” I add. “Maybe, like, the tenth.”
Mark Winterson makes a dismissive sound. “I’ll see you your mommy issues and raise you my daddy issues.”
“Oh, you have those?” I say so brightly, it makes him laugh. “All right, you go first.”
It’s funny—somehow, feeling like he’s out of my league and there’s no chance anything can happen turns me into my weirdest, pushiest self.
Mark Winterson smiles open-mouthed and glances around theatrically, as though he’s hoping to make eye contact with some bystander and say,Can you believe this girl?But of course we’re alone up here.
He leans forward on his knees. “Maybe…you’ll think it’s dumb. And I can’t complain, in life. Had a lot of advantages, growing up.”
For someone who seems to be all swagger during the daytime, this blush of self-awareness is a bit disarming.
He re-adjusts where his feet are planted, and the motion once again draws my eye to his dress shoes, and the way his socks hug his ankles. They’re so…shapely? Wow, maybeI’mthe Victorian child.
“Now I’m in suspense,” I say.
“My dad’s tough,” he says, finally. “Big personality. Impossible to impress. Always reminding me how I fall short.”
I nod, watching the blinking lights of a plane as it glides across the sky overhead. “Can’t tell you how deeply I relate to that.”
“Oh?” He turns his head to look at me.
“Yeah, I always feel like a failure.” I say it with a laugh, tone jokey. Letting him in, but not enough that I can’t deny it happened later, if I need to.
“You work at TKCORP. You must be doing something right.”
“Do they pay you to say that? Do you get a commission?”
“A modest two percent,” he says, grinning at me.
The wind picks up on the roof, ruffling my hair. “My mom’s…very critical.”Oh shit, wrong tense for this audience.“I mean, she was. That was her way of showing she cared. Always wanting me to be better. Have a better life than her.”
That precarious feeling of saying too much overtakes me.
Mark Winterson knocks the side of his shoe playfully against mine. “Can’t believe we have so much in common.” He’s matching my light tone, but there’s something wistful at the end.
“I should get back,” I say, standing again. “Erica’s going to kill me if I don’t finish this thing by tomorrow morning.”
