Mason nudged me, mouthing,“What was that?”
I shook my head and followed after Molly. “Hey,” I said as I caught up to her. “Are you okay?”
She ran her teeth over her full bottom lip. “You shouldn’t have brought me into it.”
“The guy fucking sucks. I meant every word I said.”
She laughed, the sound bordering on hysterical. “Kaz, stop. I appreciate the vote of confidence, I really do, but you can’t do that again. Suggesting I could be your photographer on the shoot instead of Theo is ludicrous.” She glanced around and then lowered her voice. “It’s suspicious. Please. I can’t lose this job.”
Why was she choosing to stick around this place instead of doing what she really loved? She was afraid of failure. That had to be it. I could never do something like that. I could never let fear choose for me.
Except for where my father was concerned.
The realization was sobering. We were all afraid of something, weren’t we?
Mason’s hand wrapped around my wrist in warning. I shrugged him off. “I get it,” I said. “I was out of line.”
Molly exhaled with relief as we stopped by the elevators. “Are you okay from here? I need to go talk to Trinity to make sure we’re okay.”
“Go ahead,” Mason answered on our behalf. “We’ll see you later at our place?”
“Yeah, maybe.” She was already turning away. “I’ll text you guys.”
We watched her skitter away and stepped into the elevator.
“Feel like explaining yourself?”
I clenched my jaw. “The guy pissed me the fuck off.”
“Me too, but somehow, I refrained from suggesting our assistant take his job.”
We walked out of the building, and I shielded my eyes from the bright late-morning sun with my hand. “You haven’t even seen what she can do.”
Mason unlocked the car, but instead of getting in, he crossed his arms on the hood and gave me a searching look. “I get it,” he said in a low voice. “You’re still trying to work her, right? That was a good trick.”
“That’s not what it is,” I said angrily, jerking the door open. “You’d know if you took any interest in what she can do with that camera.”
He pressed his lips into a tight line. “You said you could keep whatever you’re doing with her from affecting our work.”
“Nothing came out of it anyway, did it? We’re working with Theo.”
“You better hope you didn’t just get her fired.”
Fear swirled inside my gut. There was no way I’d screwed up that badly, was there?
“As if you care,” I lashed out, my defenses coming up.
A flash of something furious crossed his face before he managed to pull it back.
I looked back at the office building, counting out the floors until I got to four. What was happening there right now? Was Molly packing up her things?
“Let’s go home. She’ll text us,” Mason said.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath and slid into the car.
14
MOLLY
