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Vicious, Dean, and Jaime were already halfway out the corporate door, showing up to work three or four times a week and spending most of their time with their families. But me, I only had Luna. Though to be completely honest, even she seemed to prefer spending time with the nanny.
“This is where you part ways with Daughter Dearest.” I tugged at my collar, because Edie motherfucking Van Der Zee made the temperature in the room rise by at least ten degrees.
“Gladly.” She plucked her phone from her purse and walked away.
Jordan entered the conference room, and I snapped my fingers, smiling. “I need to sign off on a contract for the D&D account. Be right back, Jordi-boy.”
“I never saw this account.” His brows dove down. He hated when I called him that.
“Exactly,” I said, a bounce in my steps as I went to my office to fetch the contract. After signing it—taking pleasure in the fact I made Jordan wait in the boardroom for me like a little bitch—I walked over to the main reception area of the floor, where it split into two corridors with the huge boardroom in the middle. Deciding to make him wait a little longer, I took a sharp right into the break room to brew myself a coffee with the fancy machine I’d never tried before. Was it petty? Yes. Did inconveniencing Jordan by making him wait on me for an extra few minutes make me smile? Hell yes.
I was about to push the glass door open when I stopped on my heel, watching the girls inside the kitchen.
Luna. Camila. Edie. Standing together. Looking…excited? What the…?
Edie threw her arms around Camila and hugged her, burrowing into her shoulder. Luna was standing beside them, observing the scene, doe-eyed. For the first time in a long time, she was interested in something that wasn’t seahorses. Edie cupped Camila’s cheeks, before wiping her tears with the back of her hand. She wore her emotions like jewelry. Proud and unapologetic. It made me hate her a little less for trying to steal my mother’s handbag a few weeks ago.
Then Edie did the unthinkable, and yet what every girl her age would have done.
She crouched, ran her hand over Luna’s curly piggy tails, and smiled.
Almost in slow motion, she pointed at Luna’s fluffy blue seahorse, her mouth forming an O-shaped wow.
Luna’s face broke into a timid grin. She never smiled at me like that. I blinked away my shock, trying to wrap my head around her reaction. Edie must’ve asked Luna something, because Luna nodded.
Nodded. She never nodded. Nodding was one step away from vocalizing your needs, and Luna was all about keeping me in the dark.
My daughter looked alert and attentive and invested in that moment, which was something I couldn’t say about her ninety percent of the time. And I stood there, rooted to the floor, not wanting to step into the moment and pierce the fog of magic they were cocooned in.
“Yo, assface, is the weed eating at your memory? We’re all waiting for you in the boardroom.” Dean killed my trance by slapping my back from behind, chewing his gum deliberately noisily in my ear. “Come join us before Jordi hangs you by the balls and Vicious skins you and makes a new ottoman out of your flesh.”
Reluctant, I followed his steps, moving toward the boardroom, my eyes still on the break room.
I took a seat at the conference room, sandwiched between Dean and Jaime. Jordan was sitting across from me, looking one argument away from a heart attack.
“Nice veins.” I pointed at his forehead, fishing my cell phone out and dumping it onto the table.
“You’re very funny, Rexroth. Your charm has brought you a long way, to Beverly Hills, to Todos Santos. But I see underneath it, and I’m less than impressed.” A hiss slid between his thin lips.
I shrugged. “Thanks for the analysis, Dr. Strangelove. Now let’s do this as quick and as painless as possible, so that Jordi can go back to admiring the reflection of himself on the four-grand mirror in his office. Shall we?”
“We shall.” Jaime slapped the desk, dark circles framing his eyes. His wife, Mel, had just given birth to their second daughter, Bailey. He looked as happy as a pig in shit and as tired as the person hired to clean up the pigpen.
The poll had started off with Jordan, who obviously voted for keeping his daughter employed. Then came my turn, and I surprised everyone, including myself, with the answer.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” Vicious blinked, giving me his what-the-fuck-is-your-game look. “Yes means you vote for her employment,” he explained slowly, like I was an idiot.
“I know what yes means, dickbag.”
Vicious, Jaime, and Dean exchanged puzzled looks. They were going to go with my plan, but now, I’d changed it. Jordan appeared out of sorts, looking among all of us, searching our faces, trying to make sense of it all.
