Page 245 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

NINE

Siena was beginning to hate the passage of time. Or rather, how time no longer passed by for her the way it used to. Before all of this had happened—before John came into her life, and was then taken from her—she never paid much attention to getting through her days, or how slowly they crawled by.

None of that ever seemed important before. She got through the days by focusing on her work, and getting lost in books. By using the black and white simplicity she applied to her love of numbers, and the little joys she got in her private moments alone.

Back then, she had yet to find something that was worth counting her seconds, minutes, hours, and days for.

It was no longer that easy.

Now, time felt like a snail sliding ridiculously slow across ice. No amount of work could keep her distracted or focused enough, and she worked all the damn time. Still. Her eyes continued to travel to wherever the clock was on the wall, and she often found herself counting down.

It had become a game of sorts.

Twenty days since I last saw John.

Twelve hours to John’s next phone call.

Three days until yoga.

Whatever she had to tell herself to get through the fucking day, and into the next, that’s exactly what Siena did.

Problem for her was, that method only went so far, and her distractions were not without some kind of consequence. Mostly, her work.

Siena blinked, and rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes. The numbers on the screen might as well have just bled together for all she understood of the mess in front of her. She wasn’t even sure where some of these goddamn numbers had come from, or how she got them to this point.

Her bottom line number in the Excel spreadsheet lit up bright red. A sure sign that the total had ended up in the negative, which meant nothing good because that wasn’t where those numbers were supposed to be. Not even close. That told her she had done something wrong at some fucking point.

But where?

How?

Which account had the mistake?

Siena sighed, and pressed her fingertips into her temples to relieve some of the pressure starting to form there. A migraine from eye-strain and stress, likely. She was getting them far more often than she liked lately.

In her head, she started going back through numbers, accounts, and their individual books. She had worked on at least fifteen different accounts for Kev’s restaurant today—a pretty average day, all things considered.

Still, she needed to find that error.

The books couldn’t ever be filed in the red.

She was paying heavily for her distractions. More hours at a computer fixing books she should have already had done a week or more ago. A sore back, and stiff fingers from working so much because this shit had to be done, and she was the only one doing it for her brothers’ businesses.

“You’re still not done yet?”

Siena quickly glanced up from the numbers on the screen to find Kev standing in the doorway. He stared back at her, seemingly unbothered or unknowing of her troubles. She couldn’t decide if that was a good thing, or not.

“No, I’m not done yet,” she finally said.

Kev looked at the watch on his wrist. “It’s almost five, Siena.”

“I’m aware, Kev.”

She had been watching the clock, after all.

“Jason had shit to do today, Siena. He’s been waiting on your slow ass all day.”

“Jason?”