I wait by the door for her to knock and when she does, I swing it open. I was wrong. The dress isn’t just red, it’s fucking scarlet. Like her name. The silk material is wrapped around every inch and curve of her body, hugging her frame like a corset. The dress falls halfway down her thighs, exposing her long tanned legs. The top part of the dress scoops into a cowl neck, covering most of her chest but leaves enough up to the imagination. She’s a few inches taller in those heels, but I’m taller, still towering over her.
“You gonna let me in or just stare some more?” she asks, peering up at me. Her brown eyes narrow and I can’t think of a dumb enough excuse, so I open the door wider and let her in.
“Do you want a tour?” I gesture towards the large black hallway. She walks behind me, and I look back at her as she admires the minimalist black and white paintings that are hung modestly on the walls.
“Why? So you can show off?” She scrunches her nose at the painting before looking at me, taking a sweep of my outfit. “I’m good.”
That’s fair. I can’t tell if she’s playing one of those games where she pretends she doesn’t care, or if she genuinely is not interested. It would be a waste of time anyway.
I’ve seen pictures of the Voss estate. It’s not bigger than ours, but that doesn’t matter when it seems like there’s is full of love and family and warmth. Real security. The kind of security that actually matters. Here, the sadness practically echoes off the bland walls, showing everyone who enters that there is no real life here.
Well, except for Mila who comes rushing towards me now, all golden fur and chub rubbing between my legs. Scarlett’s still beside me, her eyes scanning the walls and then down to Mila.
“Such a good girl, aren’t you?” I say, scratching her behind the ears. As the words are leaving my mouth, I look up to Scarlett and she’s looking down at me, almost smiling, more at Mila than me, but I take it as a win.
“Are you talking to me or the dog, Branson?” she asks, one of those lined dimples appearing on her cheek. Mila sniffs around her legs and Scarlett crouches a little, scratching her on the head before straightening. So sheisa dog person.
I shrug and continue walking down the corridor, saying, “Not sure. Can’t figure out if you’re into the praise thing or not.”
She barks out a laugh. “Hopefully we’ll never know,” she says as she steps in to walk beside me. “What are we doing for the project today?”
“I think we have a good base idea down. Maybe we can start to work on expanding it. Like adding the finer details, you know?”
She nods. “Sounds good.”
And we do just that.
I bring us into one of the spare offices; a medium sized room with navy walls, an iMac on one of the desks, a black plush sofa against one wall. She took the seat at the desk, using the iMac to write up plans while I lounged on the sofa, using my notebook of ideas we’ve accumulated to form a more concise plan.
There’s not much talking while we work. Some people wouldn’t call it working together, but that’s exactly what we’re doing. We know what tasks we need to complete and she just does what she needs to do, while I do what I need to do. For once, this project seems to be something we actually agree on. I knew she would like my idea, but every time I look up, she’s typing away furiously, completely invested in what she’s doing.
I wonder if this is a good distraction for her. If this is what she needs to take her mind off everything going on with her family. That’s what numbers and spreadsheets do for me; they allow me to keep my mind focused on something that doesn’t contain emotions or words with real meanings. They just make sense together and when they don’t, it’s easy to find a mathematical solution as to how it went wrong. You can't do that with people.
We’ve not spoken for another long stretch of time until Scarlett sighs loudly, leaning back in the chair as it creaks low beneath her weight. “I’m going to see if I can connect with a software developer. I think this could be a real app.”
“You think so?” I ask, sitting up straighter on the sofa. She nods, her eyes wandering a little. She must be tired. She’s been staring at that screen for almost two hours. Maybe we should take a break.
“Yes. It would help us get more credits too. I doubt anybody else has thought of this,” she explains. “I’ll call someone this weekend.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” I reply, about to go back to writing but then a thought pops into my head. “Have you got any more leads on the stuff going on with your family?”
She raises one eyebrow, rolling in her lips once before pushing them back out. I know there’s something she isn’t saying and it’s getting harder to mention it casually. We’ve hardly spoken about it since the stakeout, and I don’t want her to think that us doing that was a onetime thing. I’m all in.
She swallows, looking out into the backyard that’s a forest of tall pine trees as she says, “I think I found the guy that was outside the store. I recognised him and I managed to identify an ID badge that matches the description.”
“That’s good news right?” I ask, sensing the hesitancy. From the way she got excited just from thinking about driving to the stakeout shows enough of her character. That excitement isn’t here anymore. Instead, in its place is worry and uncertainty.
“Yeah, I guess,” she says, turning back to me, her brown eyes finally settling on my face. “He owns a restaurant downtown, but I feel like it’s going to be another dead end. I just don’t want to waste my time.”
“Well, you won’t know if you don’t go,” I suggest. She nods, shrugging one shoulder. I thought we agreed to work together on this, but she still seems hesitant. She’s probably trying to dismiss the idea so I add, “I can go with you. I’m not busy.”
“What makes you think I want you to go with me?” she retorts with that annoying as fuck head tilt.
“I think previous events show what a good partner in crime I am,” I say proudly.
She laughs, the sound reverberating through my body. “Do you mean when you almost shit yourself?”
“We could have been killed!”
