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“I can help her, too. I have—"
“Don’t you get it? She doesn’t want your help, Brooks. The least I can do is find an apartment in her budget so you two don’t constantly lock horns.”
“We don’t lock horns.”
She cocks her head at me in disbelief.
Maybe it’s true that Ellie and I are at each other’s throats more than we’re not. If it was just Ellie, I’d have probably told her to move out by now because she’s abused my hospitality the way she abused Tenley’s generosity. But I have Jace to think about. As much as I want my freedom, I can’t get it until I know Jace will be okay. As much as I want to provide for him, it can’t be good to see his mom fighting with me all the time.
“Yeah, but why would you want to—" I ask until she cuts me off.
“Look,” she says, pointed. “This is what I live for. What I need to do.”
I snap my head up to look at her. “You need to?”
“Yes. It’s important to me. Very important. I guess you can call it paying it forward for something that happened to me. Anyway, that’s why I want the promotion. So I can make more money and have more time to help more people.”
She’s speaking from her past hurts, trying to make a difference and help save people from having to go through what her mother did. That’s respectable. Refreshing as hell too. Definitely better than wanting it for the prestige. Like me. Growing up struggling, I simply wanted to secure my future, to ensure I’d never have to struggle again—and that Jace wouldn’t either. I’ve already started a college savings account for him.
But all of this doesn’t mean I need to bow out hand her the promotion.
After all, you never know a person’s true colors.
“For the record, while I find that all incredibly admirable, I’m still not going to hand over my chance at the partnership,” I say.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” her words are cutting but there’s a gleam in her eye that I’ve never seen before.
Are we… flirting?
Regardless, I didn’t make it this far in life by letting my guard down every time a beautiful woman waltzed into my life.
And I’m not about to start now.
23
I sip my tea and lean back against my headboard, my laptop propped on my knees as I consider the question from Stranger88.
Stranger88: If you could choose your manner of death, how would you die?
Stranger7721: Obviously I’d just have my heart give out while I was with the person I love.
Stranger88: You want to die during sex?
Stranger7721: I never said anything about sex! I’d just like to be with the person I loved most… and just kind of fade away. What about you?
Stranger88: I think I’d probably want to be alone, and have it be really fast. Like getting hit by a train.
Stranger7721: ?? Masochist!
Stranger88: I read somewhere that your body starts shutting down before your brain does. Like 30 minutes before. They say during that time, you’re aware of everything happening. So you know you’re dead, but there’s not a damn thing you can do. I don’t want to spend my last 30 minutes watching that.
Stranger7721: So you’d rather have your brains splattered all over some train tracks. Makes sense.
Stranger88: It beats the alternative. Watching the people I love suffer over something I did.
My heart does a little dance over that. He’s so honest, so sensitive, so deeply concerned for the people he cares about. It’s that part of him that tells me it can’t be—it’s absolutely not—Brooks Gentry.
But then I think about him, taking in his sister, wanting the best for his nephew… and I think maybe… just maybe… it is him.
Everything else checks out. I’ve gone through our messages a few times, trying to remember different conversations I’d had with him, at the office. He was on early when Jace was sick. He’s on late whenever we stay late at the office to work on the case. And he mentioned a case, an ass-kissing co-worker. It all seems to fit.
I can’t bring myself to believe it, though.
I want him to tell me something that assures me this isn’t Brooks Gentry I’ve been pouring my heart to every night.
Stranger7721: My turn. Have you ever been in love?
Stranger88: Absolutely
That takes me by surprise. He responded so easily, with no hesitation. So good. This can’t be Brooks. The only person he loves is himself.
Stranger7721: More than once?
Stranger88: Twice.
Stranger7721: That’s twice more than I’ve been.
Stranger88: Because you love work and not much else.
Stranger7721: I guess. I am hyper-focused on work. But also—I never really found anyone I wanted to play hooky with. Or they never liked me. I was kind of an outsider in school. Late bloomer, too. I never did my hair right and I wore Salvation Army clothes and had thick glasses for amblyopia, and I had horrible buck teeth I hadn’t grown into yet.
