Page 39 of After We Fall

“What?”

“The scenery is undoubtedly nice, but I’m wondering if I need a milder climate.”

“What are you talking about, Penelope?”

I shift forward and click on the description. “I’m job shopping. There’s an opening for an administrative assistant to someone on staff with the Arizona Cardinals.”

He leans in, filling the screen with his face. “You don’t know anything about football. I could never get you to care about it.”

Caring about the sport would have been easier if he had played. But he doesn’t have an athletic bone in his body.

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t work in a profession where I view the main activity as barbaric. Or maybe I’ll warm up to it once I figure out why throwing a pigskin around a field matters to America. It’s not my fault I grew up with a single mother who was anti-violence and took me to community theater on her days off.

“I can do research.” I squint at the qualifications of the job. “How hard can it be to learn a game?”

His face full of exasperation, he knocks on his screen. “Hello? You earned an MBA from Pepperdine. You should not be someone’s assistant.”

I shoot my gaze to his. “Are you upset? I thought you hated my current job.”

“I do hate your current job. That assistant job is beneath your capabilities. But I also don’t care for the halfway house thing. Why would you want to relive the four toughest years of your life? I certainly don’t want to go back there every day for work.”

This stings.

I know we each process our foster care experiences differently, but somehow I thought he would understand.

“I’ve found it cathartic to help people who walked a path similar to ours.” I taste the bittersweet truth with each word.

His left eye twitches. It’s Jason’s tell that he’s uncomfortable. “All I’m saying is that I couldn’t do it. Are you looking for jobs around home?”

Home. He still chooses to refer to California as home.

“No. Why would you even ask that?”

I know why. Jason’s only in Denver on a yearlong work project. At the end of his year, he’ll have the option to stay and run the program he started or return to the home base of the company in California. If I applied for a job in Denver, he would be happy. But if I went “home,” he could easily do the same. The underlying pressure for both of us to move to the same city is like the third wheel in our relationship. Unwanted but always present.

“Phillip’s arms aren’t that long, Penelope. He can’t control everyone you interview with.”

His arms might not be, but his shadow is another matter altogether. The issue of our adoptive parents isn’t the only reason I won’t go to California. I just can’t handle the codependent stress of living in the same city with Jason. I know he loves me. He means well, but he has a smothering effect.

In an effort not to hurt his feelings, I remain silent.

He sighs. “Why don’t you tell me what happened at the ranch?”

A sound at the door catches my attention, and I turn my head.

With a shoulder resting against the doorframe, one foot crossed at the ankle of the other, Luke rummages through a snack bag of Lay’s potato chips.

How can someone appear that attractive while eating junk food?

“Penelope?” Jason calls my focus back to him. “What happened to your job?”

“Right.” I sit straighter, ignoring the loud crunching from across the room. “I’m unable to fulfill my duties.”

“I doubt that.”

Luke is currently standing out of Jason’s sight, but I wouldn’t put it past him to enter the camera’s view of my call. I lick my lips. “Listen, Jason, I need to let you go.”

“Penelope?”