All of it is very elegant, very composed, very much a world that does not care that I just shook hands with the man who is the father of my child and managed to smile while doing it.
A son, I'd said. Right there in the room. I have a son.
He'd looked at me for exactly one beat and then moved on, and I need that to mean nothing.
I need it to be the throwaway line it sounded like to him: context, not confession, just a woman explaining why she wouldn't spy for her estranged billionaire father.
I need it to be nothing.
It was nothing.
My phone is in my hand before I've decided to reach for it.
Piper picks up on the second ring.
"Before you say anything," she announces, "Nico has eaten half a batch of pancakes, destroyed me twice at Go Fish, and is currently explaining the mechanics of a deadbolt lock to my throw pillow. He’s perfect. How'd it go?"
Her voice, loud and warm and profoundly unbothered by the world, makes my eyes sting for no immediately sensible reason.
"I got the job," I say quietly.
A shriek erupts from the phone so loud I have to hold it away from my ear.
"Livia."
"Stop screaming."
"I won't stop screaming, this is screaming behavior! You got it? The Ferretti one? The one you've been rehearsing for since Tuesday?"
"Yes."
"Okay, okay, okay." I can hear her composing herself to the sound of her heels clicking on her kitchen floor.
Piper Vale cannot process big news sitting down. Her brain requires movement.
Good thing I'm about to give her bigger news.
"Tell me everything. Was the panel terrible? Did you do the nervous talking thing?"
"The panel was fine." I pause. "The talking thing was...yeah, it was present."
"Obviously. And? Is the salary good? Is the office nice? Does it smell like money?"
"Pipe."
She hears it immediately. Because she's Piper, and she has known me for eleven years, and she can identify the precise frequency ofsomething is wrongin my voice the way a conductor hears one instrument out of tune in a full orchestra.
The clicking heels go quiet.
"What happened?"
I suck in a deep breath that comes out as a shaky exhale. "Something came up," I say carefully.
"Something."
"About the job."
"About the job."
