He’s clearly waiting for me to fill in the blank so he doesn’t have to guess what I am.
“Tagalog.” I try my best to say it like Mom did, at least. Tuck in myt,make thegsharp, lean into thelog.
And I don’t want to actually answer his question, so instead I mumble “nakakainis” under my breath. One of the few words I do know:Annoying!
Mark Winterson doesn’t ask me what that means. He just stares at me a few seconds too long.
“How’s, um—” He waves a hand vaguely around the area of his neck. “Your throat now?”
“Fine.” I crack a smile. “Boba-free.”
He laughs and looks at the floor, a bashful grin stretching his face.
His eyes flick back up to meet mine. “You ever seen the roof here before?”
Chapter
20
It’s been a while since I had a late-night adventure in this office. There was a time in sixth grade when Mom was spiraling about a deadline, and she didn’t have anywhere to park me—Tita Wendy and Greg were living up north then—so she brought me along and I wandered the empty floors.
It was eerie to see all these slots where people were supposed to go, but with no people in them. There were the cubicle walls to contain them, the chair to hold them, all their belongings arranged at arm’s length. I’d play pretend, tell myself I was the sole survivor after a zombie apocalypse, hiding under someone’s desk in the Data Analytics Department.
But somehow I’d never even considered going to the roof.
“They kept adding on to the original structure,” Mark Winterson says as I follow him down a narrow hall that he had to badge into. “Whenever the company expanded. But sometimes it was more haphazard than others.” He glances back over his shoulder at me. “Anyway, the path to the roof gets trickier in a minute.”
We come to a dimly lit stairwell and climb to the top. Andthere is…a metal ladder built into the wall, disappearing into a hatch above?
“You ready for this?” he asks.
“Oh yeah.” I can’t help but laugh at the sight of it. “Born ready.”
He shrugs off his jacket, folding it and leaving it on the floor.The floor!I fight off the visceral urge to grab it and dust it off. It looks expensive—but I’m not sure I could recognize an expensive one in a police lineup of cheap ones.
Then I’m distracted by Mark Winterson rolling up his sleeves. I’m a sucker for a strong forearm.
He flicks his head upward. “Ladies first.”
“You going to look up my skirt?” I’ve figured out that he likes when I give him shit, but my stomach dips after I say it, wondering if I pushed it too far.
He puts a hand over his heart and lurches forward. “You wound me, Ruby. Can’t believe you’d think I’m anything but a gentleman.” The corner of his mouth turns up. “I promise I won’t look, but I want to be there in case you slip.”
I’m debating whether to kick off my heels, but I don’t know what walking on the roof is going to be like. And Mom did drill into me never to leave my belongings unattended.
So I step onto the ladder, first rung wedged between my high heel and the sole, and hoist myself up.
“There you go,” Mark Winterson says, hands hovering near my waist, ready to catch me. And as I get higher up the ladder, he adds: “My eyes are averted, okay? Tell me when to look.”
I push open the hatch and hoist myself through, bare knees on the grit of the roof.
“All clear,” I say, peering back down at Mark Winterson—who, true to his word, is dutifully staring at a patch of ceiling off to the left.
I sit on a metal air duct and take in my surroundings. The view is really something—the campus and blocky buildings ofTKCORP spread out below, the dark expanse of Sterling Field, the old school building slumbering squat in the distance. Suburban rooftops fanning out in cul-de-sac configurations all around, cozy lights on inside every house.
Mark Winterson catches up and sits beside me, elbows resting on his thighs and hands clasped between.
“So,” he says. “Worth the climb?”
