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“Don’t bother,” I replied and went to close the door. But then—WHAM!Eric had wedged his foot in between the door and the doorframe. It clanked shut, but he didn’t even seem to feel anything. I pulled the door open. I wasn’t getting rid of him that easily.
“If you don’t want to talk,” he said, “then it’s fine. But I’m starting to get the feeling we should have talked a long time ago.”
I opened the door and looked him in the face. For the first time, I could see a softness in his streamlined, sharp features. It was like in the light, I could see the harsh edges of Eric. But here, in the low light of my hotel room, lit only by the soft lamp with the sounds of a seaside town coming in through the window, he was someone else. Someone I reallycouldtalk to.
“Fine,” I said, turning and retreating into my room. “What do you want to talk about?”
He looked around. “Huh,” he said. “This place looked bigger in your photo.”
“You saw that?” I said.Does Eric Slade check my Instagram?It was weird to think of him checking up on me like that.
He nodded. “I was worried about you after I saw you earlier.”
Worried?Eric didn’t seem like the kind of person who worried about anyone. And he sure hadn’t worried about me when it counted.
“Well, it was a shock,” I said. Eric stepped towards me and touched the wood of the four-poster bed. I could see his hand, feeling the varnished wood, its tiny imperfections. I thought back to his office. More than anything I could see he was interested in textures, in the shapes and colors and materials which made things. Maybe more than he was interested in people.
“Why didn’t you call?” I said.
He turned and looked at me, his expression blank and frozen in place. I couldn’t detect a trace of what he was feeling.
“I didn’t know I should have.”
“Yeah,” I said, folding my arms. “You sleep with someone you normally call.”
“Do you? I was given to believe that you didn’t, if…”
“If what?”
“If you knew it was a mistake.”
“Oh, so that’s what it was?” I put a foot forward aggressively. I had him off guard and now was my chance to force the truth out of him. About how I didn’t care, about how we didn’t care about each other. “A mistake?”
“I mean, no. Not for me. But for you it was.”
“Excuse me?” What did he mean by that?
“It wasn’t the right time for you to be involved with anyone. You should have been thinking about your career.”
“I was. When I came to see you. Youweregoing to hire me, weren’t you?”
“I still offered you the job, didn’t I?”
I scowled. “As if I was going to take it, Eric. After we…”
“Slept together. You can say it, Jamie.”
I sighed. “Okay. Fine. After we slept together—” I paused, raising an eyebrow at him—“there was no way I was going to come to work for you.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because what would that have meant, Eric? That I slept my way into the job? That you hired me out of pity, even though you didn’t want me around?”
“That’s not what it would have meant,” said Eric. His voice had turned to iron. “You know that. I offered you the job before any of that stuff happened.”
“Still,” I said. “What point is there in fighting about it?”
Eric sighed and turned. He walked towards my dresser, where Cassie’s scarf sat curled in a ball. He looked at it. “I don’t know,” he said and stepped forward to inspect it.
