Page 83 of Falling

Probably not. I’d had the practice.

“Umm, yeah, of course,” he said, voice getting softer as he spoke. “Good night, then?”

I nodded to him. “Night, Miles. Sweet dreams.”

I turned with a wave before he could do or say anything to stop me and headed home.

29

MILES

“Wow,” a familiar voice said from somewhere in the real world, dragging me kicking and screaming back from it.

Ryder stood on the other side of the desk, expressive brow raised. He set a takeout coffee holder with two cups and a fantastic-smelling bag of pastries on the desk.

My stomach responded before I did. I hadn’t been up to breakfast this morning. I still didn’t really want to eat, but I knew I’d have to, eventually.

“I’d ask why the long face, but that doesn’t seem like it’d cut it. Aren’t we celebrating? Library saved, you got together with Book...”

The whine that escaped me was as involuntary as it was humiliating.

“Okay,” Ryder said. “You know, I think this is a conversation for your office. Come on.”

He picked up the tray and headed for the little office behind the reference desk, leaving me to trail after him.

The sound of the door clicking shut behind me set off a wave of feeling that closed up my throat and made my eyes sting. Dammit.

I wasn’t like this. Not normally.

Ryder pressed a coffee into my hand, leaning back against the desk with his own. “Glad I got you the salted caramel syrup now,” he said, pushing the swivel chair out with his foot. “Sit. Tell me everything.”

I sat.

I wasn’t in a position to argue, since I’d also barely slept last night, waking every few hours, tossing and turning. The squirrel had come back to harass me and I’d thought about letting it in so I’d have a different problem to contend with.

“I screwed up,” I said.

That was where my clarity of understanding began and ended. That I’d screwed up was obvious to me. How, why, and when remained fuzzier. I’d been turning those questions over for the past twelve hours, replaying everything I’d said and done.

“Gonna need slightly more information than that if we’re gonna figure out how to fix it.”

I sighed. Where to start?

“I went on a date with Booker last night,” I said, then realized that was not the starting point. “No, wait. When I first got here, I was still applying for jobs.”

I told Ryder the whole story—the dream job, and what I’d done before I came here, how I lost that job and that I’d only taken this one out of desperation. Then Angela, and how impressed she’d been even though I told her I’d done basically none of it myself, and then... telling Booker.

Which I realized was where it’d all gone wrong.

“I was so scared to tell him,” I confessed. “But then I thought, y’know, I can tell him anything. I’ve always been able to tell him anything. And I could, it’s not as though... he... it...”

This was where I wasn’t sure. I kept shying away from replaying the part where Booker had politely excused himself after telling me...

“He told me I should take the job,” I said, clutching my coffee to my chest for support as tears welled up in my eyes again.

I’d wanted his advice. I’d asked for it.

“Exact words?” Ryder asked, brow raised.