Page 17 of True Colors

“And?” Ria quirks an eyebrow.

Theo gives her a warning look. “Ria, give him a break. It was his first day.”

“I know, but something happened, which is bothering him, and I want to know,” my sister insists. She turns to me, puts her hand on mine. “How bad can it be?”

Pretty bad!

I sigh. “I fucked up. Big time. At the morning meeting with the pharma data analytics team.”

“How?” Theo asks carefully.

“I misread someone.”

Ria’s brows shoot up. “You? Misread someone? Impossible.” Her tone is laced with sarcasm. I tend to jump without thinking. It’s a derailer for me, and I’m working on it, apparently not hard enough since I did go off the deep end today.

“I…there’s this analyst and she….” I trail off and run a hand through my hair. Suddenly, I am so fucking ashamed.

“Luther, you’re worrying me now.” Theo isn’t used to seeing me in quite so much conflict with myself.

“This analyst, she…Dot sent one of her reports to the executive team, and I asked her a question about it. She…couldn’t answer, and I laid into her.”

They both look at me, as if waiting for the penny drop.

“She…ah…she stuttered.”

They keep waiting.

“Not because she didn’t know her material, according to Dot, at least—it was because…she has a stutter.”

“Luther!” Ria exclaims.

“I…look, I didn’t know she had a Goddamn stutter. I thought she didn’t know her material. An analyst has to be able to present their numbers and⁠—”

“What did you do?” Ria cuts me off.

“I think I may have humiliated her.”

“You think you may have?” Ria glares at me.

I shrug, feeling uncomfortable as hell. “I did…I told her that if she can’t present her data, she shouldn’t own it.”

Ria groans. “Luther! Please tell me you apologized.”

“Well….”

Fuck me!

I didn’t apologize. I should’ve gone to her right after Dot and talked to her. That’s what a good leader would do. That’s what Dad would do.

Theo whistles low. “Don’t they teach that in Leadership 101. Apologize right after you screw up and not a week later?”

“It wasn’t the right moment?” I offer unconvincingly.

Ria snorts. “It’s never the right moment for men to apologize.”

I scrub a hand over my face. “She stutters. I didn’t know. I didn’t even think to wonder.”

Ria nods slowly. “Ah. So you hurt someone whose brain works differently. It can happen. The question is: What are you going to do about it?”