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I glanced down. Oh, right. I was in the black dress I’d picked out for today and that had been delivered earlier this week. A matching black hat was sitting conspicuously on top of the nearest cardboard box. My black hat.
I had on the last outfit I’d ever wear for my dad.
And my office here at Rosary was full of cardboard boxes now. It wasn’t even really my space anymore. The boxes declared I was moving.
I was finally going home.
The owners of Rosary were good enough to let me do it slowly. And no one had stopped me coming in here today. After all, who wanted to confront anyone on the day of their dad’s funeral?
“I…” I looked at Wesley and shook my head. “What am I doing?” I paused again. “Thinking?”
“Oh.” He skimmed his gaze over me. “And is thinking more important than rehearsing the eulogy you had me edit fourteen times? Why are you even here?” He looked around, his arms wide.
I shook my head. “I know I shouldn’t have really come. I just feel a bit…adrift.” It was the only word for it.
I didn’t belong anywhere right now. Not at Rosary anymore, but not at Gold Moon, either.
Wes chuckled, but it was light on real amusement. “Neither of us should really be here,” he reminded me. “We don’t work here anymore. I think they only let me through the door to chase you out.”
I grinned at that. When I’d given my notice after Dad’s death, Wes had given his, too, opting to follow me to Gold Moon and be my PA there rather than being passed onto Clark in sales. Clark was nice enough, but he was human. He didn’t really get shifters, and he certainly wouldn’t understand Wes’s need to sometimes just take off and run out his frustration.
I sighed and sat on one of the boxes. It sank a little under my weight. I should have chosen to sit on the one I’d stuffed to the brim with books. “You know what, Wes?”
“What?” He took my lead and perched on a box, too. A sturdier one, apparently.
“I was never even supposed to be here at Rosary. How’s that for kind of ironic, that we’re both leaving here right now?”
He tilted his head. “Where were you supposed to be?”
I grinned, but the brightness behind the smile was fake, and stretching my mouth like that hurt my face. “I was always pretty much destined to be my dad’s right-hand man. That’s the ironic part, really. I was supposed to be at Gold Moon.”
“Right.” Wes nodded. “Of course you were. So what was this little disruption to your life plan? Rebellion?”
I shrugged and sighed again. “Nah. This was running away.”
“And what were you running from?”
I paused. Did I want to open this whole can of worms right now? Was today the day to bare my soul to one of my best friends? Hell, why not? Confession was good for the soul, right? Confession was also instant forgiveness.
Confession set everything afresh. And if any day demanded a fresh start, it was today.
“It sounds kind of stupid now, actually.”
“It still bugs you?” Wes was way too perceptive sometimes. Especially times like these, when his eyes were gentle and he only used a few words in an equally gentle voice.
I nodded. “Yeah, it does.”
“Then it’s not stupid.”
I nodded again. It was stupid, but I was gonna tell him about it anyway. “We’ve got time for this, right?”
Wes checked his watch. “We’ve got all the time in your world, honey. Your dad’s able to wait. You know what I’m saying?”
I blew out another sigh. Dad might be waiting quite a while unless I just gave Wes the abridged version. “We’re going all the way back to when I was a senior in college.” I grinned a little.
Wes whistled. “Holy shit. A whole ten years?”
I grinned wider and nodded. “A whole fucking ten years,” I agreed. “I had a friend. A really good friend called Ingrid.” I stopped as I recalled the night we becamenot friends.
