“It’d be good practice.”
“Sure, baby Blue.”
Benson’s on my other side with his hands in his pockets, saying nothing. Rowan’s already three strides out front.
We pass three doors down. I glance at the house, knowing somewhere in it that my hockey stick is still being held hostage. She has no idea that she’s completely lost this war.
I don’t slow down.
But I look.
Twice.
And every single one of these idiots notices, and every single one of them keeps his mouth shut. We walk to the rink together in the cold like we’ve got nothing to worry about in the world.
Chapter 16
Aspen
I lie in bed Monday night, and I don’t sleep.
I spent the day ignoring Stanley. His hockey stick is in the corner of my room, staring at me in disappointment. I’ve seriously had it for too long and haven’t given it back yet.Thatis how I know something is wrong with me.
I have his stick. He has my mug. I owe him a text.
Eight fifty-five the next morning, I’m at my desk. Camera on, hair up, the report open in front of me. I have read it three times since six. This morning, I am more prepared for a Tuesday analytics call than I have been for anything in my professional life, because preparation is the one thing in this entire situation I still have control over.
I’m drinking out of a backup mug I don’t like. My good mug is three doors down, on a man’s dresser, being held for ransom.
I join the call. Diego’s running it. The grid fills in. Standard Tuesday roster, standard Tuesday faces. One minute in, a new box drops into the grid.
Robert Ermington.
He lifts one hand to the camera with a genuine smile. He doesn’t unmute. He gives a small nod to the room in general.
Diego says, “Welcome, Robert.”
Robert nods back.
He doesn’t say hello to me. He doesn’t, that I can see, look at his own camera. He just tunes in, and it takes everything in me to tune him out.
I look at Diego. I look at my notes. I look at the grid as a whole, evenly. I don’t let my eyes flick to box one. My report is in twenty minutes. I hold the mug I don’t like in both hands.
Diego cues me after some time, so I deliver the report.
I have never, in my life, been more aware of my own voice — every pause I don’t take, everyumI don’t make, the exact behavior of my own face.
I finish without breaking a sweat. Diego thanks me. He moves to the next analyst.
Robert’s box does not move. He doesn’t type in the chat. He doesn’t unmute. His expression, as far as I can read it through a webcam, does not change.
I don’t feel sick to my stomach, which I consider a professional triumph.
At nine forty-five, his square goes dark. Gotta jump. Thanks, team, in the chat, and then he’s gone.
I finish the meeting on autopilot. When it ends, I close the laptop and sit at my desk for a long time, and I notice that my hands are shaking.
He came to look.
