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The only problem with this diet was that I was hungry. All the time.
And even the gross oranges—there was just something about the texture of them that I didn’t like—were sounding pretty good to me at that moment.
“I gave it a lot of thought over the last couple of days, and I think that it would be best to start over now.” Zip winced. “When news gets out of what Singh Circus participated in—even if we’re not the ones that had ever participated in it—shit’s going to hit the fan. Associating our name with Singh Circus could be detrimental. We can brand it as new ownership, and when things do go a bit nuts in the future, we can say that we’d disassociated ourselves with that particular brand. We’re new management, something like that.”
I nearly rolled my eyes. She’d literally said verbatim what I’d said the other day. But she’d said it as if it was her own logic, and not mine.
Not that I didn’t love my little sister and all, but the woman was practically deaf when it came to us talking sometimes. She heard what she wanted, retained what she wanted, and then came up with information later on that would ‘help her case’ but was actually something we’d said to help our own cases.
Val looked at me with smiling eyes.
“Well, you were the only hold out,” I said. “And I have an appointment at the courthouse next week. I’m changing my last name.”
If I hadn’t been wanting to change it last week, I would certainly want to change it after learning what I did today about my mother and father’s business relationship.
God, it was sickening.
I wanted to tell Val and Zip right then and there, but for some reason, I was holding back. I wanted to know for sure what her role in all of this was before I relayed anything.
“Val,” I said quietly. “Any news?”
Two months ago, she’d discussed finishing up the residency program so she could start working as a doctor. And, since we were all supportive to what everyone wanted to do lately, we’d all readily agreed that it was exactly what she needed to do.
“I’m waiting to hear back from my old advisor. But it’s looking like, if all things go well, I can start the first of next month.” She blew out a breath, causing the papers in front of her to blow away a bit. She caught them with one hand before saying, “I’m terrified.”
“Why?” Zip asked as she leaned forward and took another large bite of the cake.
“Because it’s been nearly four years,” she said. “I can forget a lot of stuff in four years.”
I snorted. “You will forget more stuff in four years than I’ll learn in ten. You’ll be fine.”
Val was incredibly smart.
She would have no problem going back. In fact, I’d be more surprised if she went back and didn’t walk right back out because she remembered how sucky it was to be ‘under someone.’ She hated being the subordinate in any situation—professional setting or not.
Hell, she couldn’t handle playing poker without being the dealer, she was that bad.
Her ‘always in control’ attitude was stifling sometimes.
“Since the subject is on you…” Val looked at me with her all-knowing eyes, the ones that knew when I was lying. “How about you tell me what really happened in that bathroom today? I know what really happens when you have sex—you had sex hair when you came from your run the other day—and today wasn’t it, babe.”
I rolled my eyes. “He had some stuff to talk to me about, and the bathroom was where he dragged me.
I knew what she would ask next, but I let her ask it anyway before I said my peace.
“And what did he want to say?” she asked.
I scrubbed at my face. “He had a lot of stuff to say. But what I really need right now is time. Please.”
Val was a practical mind reader. There was a reason she acted like the all-knowing mind reader of the group—she saw stuff no one else could see.
And right then, she saw that I wasn’t ready to talk about it.
“If you don’t want to talk about that, you can tell me how the hell you’ve met Winston before,” Val offered.
I sighed. “Please, Val?”
“You have like a week,” she said. “Then I’m getting everything out of you whether you want to give it or not.”
That was more than I expected of her.
“You got lucky,” Zip said. “Now, how about we talk about how little food there is in the break room, and how I’m going to get out of getting yelled at by Keene when he finds out I ate all the chocolate cake that was supposed to be for Bertha’s party tomorrow.”
Bertha being our new front office person who was practically running the entire show.
