Page 23 of Unleashed

That’s probably not super true either. I’m mad at my mom, and years of therapy have proved it’s probably going to stay that way.

Brooke gives me a soft smile. “I love you too.”

There’s no but. No qualifier. No limit put on her affection. And it makes my throat tight. I’ve never had unconditional love. Barely had love at all. Did I ever expect to get it from my best friend/boss? No freaking way.

Do I know what to do with it now that I have it? Also no. Yet another thing therapy has taught me is unlikely to change.

I can talk about my childhood till I’m blue in the face. Analyze it from an adult perspective. Understand why things ended up the way they did. But I can’t get over it, and I don’t think I should be asked to.

I manage to give Brooke what might qualify as a smile before turning away and marching my crabby ass to the room Trevor uses for interviews.

I was hired as a temp and then Brooke brought me on directly, so I’ve never been in the hot seat here. But I did stock the room plenty of times during my first few months here. And it’s weird to be walking in for a reason besides replenishing coffee pods and notepads.

I’m a little surprised when I enter and it’s only Ruth inside. That prick pawned this task off on the two of us? She has her computer set up in front of her, and gives me the basic smile she regularly offers in greeting.

I really like Ruth. She’s helped bring balance to the new group of friends I’ve found myself part of. Up until she arrived, I was the only one who wasn’t a bucket of fucking sunshine. Mariah is the sweetest, friendliest, kindest person ever. Brooke is on the quiet side, but she’s still genuinely a sweetheart.

Then there’s me. A bad tempered gremlin made of nothing but trauma and spite.

Ruth is somewhere in the middle. She’s serious. Calm and collected. Smart and hard-working. But also won’t hesitate to put someone in their place when they’re being a dipshit.

I expect she does that regularly, considering who she works for.

Pen and pad in hand, I lower into the seat next to her. “You got dragged into this too?”

“I take notes at all these things. Otherwise Trevor ends up with nothing but three words on a notepad and he doesn’t have any clue what a single one of them means.” She looks me over, one brow angling in a way that has me worried she’s going to ask why in the hell I was fucking Trevor in Brooke’s bathroom. Instead, she turns back to her computer. “I like your outfit.”

I look down at the black skirt, black tights, and the plum-colored short-sleeved sweater I thrifted last week. “You don’t think it looks depressing?” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my tone.

It’s what most people say about my primarily black wardrobe. I’m guessing it’s because they never had to figure out how to look like they have more clothes than they actually do. It was a lesson I learned as soon as I was old enough to get a job. No one notices you wear the same pants every day if they’re black. As long as you switch out one item, they think it’s a whole new ensemble.

It’s a strategy I’ve continued to stick with even though I now make enough money I don’t have to be as careful with how I spend every cent. Not because I wouldn’t love a new wardrobe, but because I’m not the only one I have to think about. Zara’s clothes are more important than mine, and she grows out of them really fucking fast. So I still buy as much black as possible, and get as much of it from the thrift store as I can.

If Ruth picks up on my sarcasm, she doesn’t mention it. Instead, she just shrugs. “Black goes with everything.”

It’s another reason I like Ruth. I don’t know the full extent of her history, but she seems to get where I’m coming from more than Mariah and Brooke do. Probably because she’s also spent time as a single parent.

The atmosphere inside the room shifts, and I don’t have to turn to know why. I can feel Trevor’s presence like a wrecking ball. It slams into me, heavy and hard.

Literally, on Saturday.

I press my thighs together, hoping I can avoid any sort of a reaction my lady parts might try to have over the memory of how decent he ended up being. Because it doesn’t matter if he was the best sex I’ve ever had—a fact I would never admit to anyway—I can’t have sex with him again. I’m not interested in a booty call kind of situation. Especially with a man I don’t even like.

His gaze flickers to Ruth before leveling on me. I don’t like the way I know what he’s thinking, and I definitely don’t like how close it probably is to what I was just thinking.

I expect him to sit at the head of the table, but he drops his leather bound portfolio in front of the chair right beside me. Because of course he does.

He doesn’t sit down, however. Once his pen has dropped to the laminated surface, he goes straight to the coffee maker, popping a cup into place before selecting a pod and setting it to run. He keeps his back to me the whole time, and I glare at it. Scowling at the width of his shoulders and the graceful way he moves as he dumps a few sweetened creamers in before stirring the concoction and popping on a lid.

I’m well-versed in glaring at his back, and I know just when to look away before he turns around so he doesn’t catch me giving him the stink eye. I keep my gaze averted as he eases into the chair next to me.

But then the cup of coffee he made ends up directly in front of me, and my eyes snap to where he sits. “I’m not babysitting your coffee.”

“It’s not for me.” He flips open his portfolio, looking at my pen a second before grabbing his. “I don’t like that creamer. It’s for you.”

I know what to do when Trevor is an asshole. I’ve had lots of practice. But I don’t know what to do when Trevor is being nice. It confuses me. And when I get confused, I get angry.

“How do you know how I like my coffee?” I grab the cup, because I actually could use a little caffeinated pick-me-up. “Are you stalking me?”