by Melissa West
Despite the early hour, I couldn’t make myself slow down. I raced through GSP International Airport, ran to my Jeep, and then sped the entire hour and half long drive to Aunt Sandy’s. All I could think about was how epically I’d screwed up. Jonah wouldn’t have gotten hurt if I were here. Instead, I was…
My thoughts drifted momentarily to Grace, and a new kind of guilt hit in my stomach. I should have woken her to say good-bye, or at the very least left a note, but in that moment, I’d had to get out of there and away from the memory of my putting myself before the only person in the world who truly mattered to me.
Still…I pictured her waking up, reaching across the bed…only to find an empty void.
Pushing aside the thought, I parked my Jeep and walked up Aunt Sandy’s front steps. I moved the cat statue beside her door and pulled out the key, only to have the door open on me.
“Noah? What in the world?” Aunt Sandy took a sip of the coffee in her hand. She was dressed in a light pink robe and pajamas, her hair wrapped in a low bun like always.
“I didn’t think you’d be up, so I was letting myself in.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Boy, I’ve been waking every day at six a.m. for nearly a decade. I don’t think that habit’s dying anytime soon. Anyway, what are you doing here? I left you a message that everything was fine.”
“I got it.” But hearing he was okay wasn’t enough. I had to see for myself.
“Jonah’s fine. You should have stayed.”
I glanced beyond her to the stairs. “I should have been here.”
“He’s an adventurous boy. You know that. He’s you made over.”
“Nah, he’s better than me.”
She reached out to me then, prepared to start the conversation we’d had too many times to count. “You can’t carry this guilt forever.”
“I don’t think I have a choice in the matter. It seems to like me or something.” I tried to grin, but the worry working through me wouldn’t allow it.
“Noah…”
“Can I see him?”
She opened her mouth to say more, but closed it instead. “Of course. He’ll be excited to see you.”
“Thanks. For everything. I’ll pay you back for the ER bill, whatever you need.”
“You know that’s not necessary. We’re family. When are you going to realize that you’re not in this alone?”
I nodded, unable to say anything else. Because I might have a large family, but at the end of the day, my name was listed as Jonah’s guardian. No one else. The responsibility was mine.
Aunt Sandy squeezed my hand, then walked back into her kitchen so I could head up to see Jonah. I contemplated letting him sleep, sure he needed it, but clearly I was a selfish man.
I walked quietly down the hallway, the old hardwoods creaking with each step, and stopped at the last room. Cracking the door, I prepared to take a peek, but the fifty-year-old house wanted no part of quiet. The door’s hinges squealed louder and louder with each inch, and forever a light sleeper—like me—Jonah’s eyes popped open. He took a second to process what he was seeing, then a wide smile spread across his face and he jerked upright, only to grimace in pain.
“Are you trying to break more bones?” I asked as I went to the bed and sat beside him, my focus on the cast. I remembered when I broke my own arm. It was sixth grade, and I’d climbed to the top of our barn on a dare, only to slip and fall off. It’d been a miracle that I hadn’t broken my neck…or that my mom hadn’t finished off the job herself. “What happened?”
Jonah laid back on his pillows, yawned, then avoided eye contact, the telltale Hunter sign of guilt.
“All right, spill it. We both know you’re going to, so you might as well get started.”
He drew a sharp breath, and then his voice rose two octaves as the words rushed out. “It was a lunar eclipse, and I had to see it. I had to. I tried to set up my telescope by the window, but the tree was blocking it so I…”
I hung my head. “So you climbed out the window to get a better look from the tree?”
“Dumb move?”
“Not dumb, just…” I tried to find the right words to convey that he wasn’t a moron, but maybe this wasn’t his best life choice.
“Dumb. That’s what Austin Williams said. He was there, too. At the ER. Getting stitches in his head from falling out of his bunk bed, because he was on the top and he sleepwalks.”
“Kid falls out of a bed, cracks open his head, and says you’re the dumb one? Bro’s lost his mind. Don’t pay him any attention.”
Another yawn broke free, and I knew I should leave so Jonah could get some more shut-eye. “That’s what Aunt Sandy said.”
“That’s because she’s a Hunter, and Hunters are too smart to ever be dumb.”
“Aunt Sandy said that, too.”
A smile took over my face as I leaned against the headboard, Jonah snuggled up with me.
“I’m glad you’re home. Do you have to leave again?”
I thought of my trip up to New York, and the return trip Charlie and I’d discussed for next month, but after this? “Nope. I’m not going anywhere.”
A pang of regret hit me. I should have left a note, said good-bye, something. But it was over now.
Chapter Five
Grace
“Grace? Hello, can you hear me?”
“Yes, Mom. You accidentally muted the phone again.”
My mother huffed loudly. “Why have they not developed smarter smartphones yet? It should know that it’s my chin hitting the mute instead of my finger and ignore. Instead, I hit the thing a thousand times every time I get on the phone. Surely there’s a fix.”
I drew a long breath, my thoughts drifting back to twenty minutes prior, to my hand stretching across my bed, only to find it empty.
As in empty.
As in, no hot guy named Hunter who had completely rocked my world.
At first, I thought he had disappeared to the bathroom, but with a quick scan of my room, I knew the truth—he’d left. Without a good-bye. Without a note. He just left. And for the first time in my life, I was on the receiving end of that disastrous blow to the ego that said you weren’t important enough, good enough, memorable enough to warrant a stay. Me, Grace Soaring. Never in my life had a guy left me. I’d never been stood up, never dealt with the embarrassment of an unrequited crush.
Until this moment, I had never felt the sting of rejection. At least, not from anyone other than my father. There were too many solo dinners to count, too many missed recitals and birthdays, too many Christmas wishes over the phone instead of tight hugs in person. But I counseled my way through that pain years ago. This? This was something else entirely.
Sure that I needed to process this in an adult manner (and get off the phone with my Mom, stat), I went to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee.
So what if he left? He was just visiting, anyway. We were from completely different worlds. Not just cities, worlds. It could never last, would never last, and I absolutely had not envisioned him asking to call me, visit me, pack-up-his-things-and-move-to-New York for me, just for me to say no, I couldn’t go there. Only that wasn’t true, and the longer I thought about how easily Hunter had ditched me, the angrier I became.
“Grace? Are you listening to me?”
“There is a fix, Mom. Just position the phone so you aren’t constantly hitting mute, or switch to keypad, or put the phone on speaker. But seriously, I have to get ready for work, so can we talk about this later?”
Ignoring me, she pressed on. “I need to talk to your father about this.”
Good luck with that.
“Or perhaps I could call our service provider and have the mute option removed from my phone, surely they can do that, right?”
“Um, no, Mom, I’m pretty sure they would laugh at you and hang up. Anyway, was there something you needed? Like I said, I’m getting ready for work.”
“Right, your job as a secretary.”
I ground my teeth. �
��I’m not—” I stopped myself before she baited me into the same argument we’d had since I graduated from NYU and refused to date—aka marry—Sam Whitfield, heir to the great Whitfield Investments, a business and family steeped in generations of wealth. We were both from respectable families, we had both been educated—though I disappointed my parents yet again by choosing NYU over an Ivy League option—but I had no interest in following their plan for my life.
I would choose my college and my career and my husband. My father built his empire from the ground up, so you would think he would appreciate my need to have my own career separate from Soaring, but his brain didn’t work that way.
He rarely spoke about his early career struggles, and instead focused on the newest Forbes article about him, Soaring’s latest quarter, or its stock performance. In short, success had blinded him to the person he’d been before, which was a shame, because I always felt I would have liked that version of my father better.
Disappointment bubbled up within me, swirling with the hurt I felt at Hunter ditching me, and suddenly I needed off the phone. Right that second.
“The job resembles the work of a secretary, dear. Even you can’t deny that.”
“Look, whatever. I have to go. I need to get ready for my secretary job.”
“See, I knew you were a secretary.”
I closed my eyes and tried to keep from spitting fire. “I’m not a secretary.”
“Then why did you say you were?”
Oh my God. “All right, I have to go, Mom.”
“You’ll be here tonight, though? Seven?”
“Like every single Friday since forever, Mom. Yes.”
I could hear the change in tone even before she spoke, the relief washing over her. “Wonderful, darling. I’ll see you at seven.”
I spent the next twenty minutes getting ready, my mind replaying the night before. Each thought slit my heart deeper, until I found myself staring at my reflection in my wide bathroom mirroring, wondering what I had done wrong. Why I could never fully measure up. That’s when I noticed the single line trailing down my face from my left eye.
No freaking way.
I grabbed my towel from my head and frantically wiped away the steam from the mirror, edging closer until I was an inch from my reflection. Sure enough, it was a tear. Only one, but still, it was there. A tear. The bartender made me cry! Me, a woman who prided herself on hiding every real thought and emotion I had. Now, after one night, my careful composure was unraveling. All those old, pent up feelings of inadequacy rushed back. A hiccup released, the start of what was sure to be an ugly, ugly cry, but instead of allowing it to materialize, I straightened, took in my reflection again, and allowed the anger I’d felt initially to take over. Screw you, Hunter. Screw you!
I would not let this upset me, absolutely not. No one even knew that I had invited him up. So I’d pretend it never happened. I’d forget all the warm memories that had quickly turned icy, and press on. After all, I was Grace Soaring.
Needing a reminder of my worth, and okay, maybe because I didn’t want to see anyone just yet, I called for one of my parents’ drivers to pick me up. Ready in record time, I headed downstairs to find the car out front.
“Doing okay today, Ed?” I asked as I climbed into the backseat of the town car, already feeling better. That was the thing about being an adult. It was hard to wallow in misery when I had places to be and things to do.
He grinned at me from the rearview mirror. “Can’t complain. Messy day today,” he said, eyeing the window and the rain outside.
“It is.”
“Do you need me to pick you up after work?”
I thought through my day, sure it would be a long one. “Why don’t you pick me up and drop me at my parents’ for dinner. Six thirty?”
“It’s a date.”
Ed pulled up outside the Met and offered to walk me up with an umbrella, but I declined. Instead, I waved good-bye and made the wet journey into the building. I smiled once I was in the elevator, eager to disappear into my job so I could forget the guy who didn’t think I was worth more than a one-night stand. But as soon as I stepped off the elevator onto my floor, my smile fell from my face. Someone was crying—rather loudly—outside the elevator, waiting to get on, her head tucked down into her tissue. She glanced up and that’s when I recognized her. “Janey? Are you okay?”
Her bloodshot eyes found mine. “I…” She broke into a fresh round of sobs. I glanced around, curious if any of the other dozen or so people in cubes nearby were also having a breakdown, but the floor was eerily quiet, all heads down, refusing to look up. Almost like they were afraid someone would see them and they would suffer the same fate Janey had. What was going on?
I stepped back into the elevator and offered Janey a fresh tissue as I rode down with her. “Thanks. And on top of everything else, it’s pouring rain and I forgot my umbrella upstairs. But I can’t go back up there, and now I’m going to get drenched.”
I held out my umbrella. “Here, you can take mine, or better yet, my driver just dropped me. I’ll have him swing back and pick you up.”
Janey shook her head, a flurry of words spewing out faster than I could keep up. “See, you have a driver. You’ll be fine.”
Wait, what? I’ll be fine? What did that mean? No. Oh, God, surely not…
“Unlike me, who takes the subway into work. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to take the subway, though I guess I have nowhere to take it to now, do I? Which means I am less than a subway person. I’m nothing.” Her eyes widened at me as we exited the elevator and started for the main doors. “Oh my God, I’m nothing now.”
My heart clenched at the fear and worry on my friend’s face. “Oh, sweets, slow down. You are amazing. What happened?”
Her expression switched from sadness to surprise. “God, you don’t know.”
Suddenly the concern in my chest for Janey turned to fear. “Know what?”
“About the layoff. Margo had to lay off half of her staff. That’s like twenty people. Everyone we know just got fired.”
“What?” A myriad of feelings hit me all at once—shock, confusion, worry. Margo wouldn’t fire me. I couldn’t be on the list…could I?
Janey reached out a hand to me, a smile on her face that resembled the manic expression of a crazy person. “But you’re all right. You have a driver.”
“I’m sorry, I have to go.” I turned and ran for the elevator.
“You forgot your umbrella!”
“Take it!” I slipped inside and hit the button for the second floor over and over again, hoping if I pressed it enough, I would teleport to my office and could bypass the potential firing. Maybe if Margo didn’t see me, then she would forget about me, and I could survive the massacre. I thought of my first interview, the call that said I was hired, my first day on the job, and then the three years of hard work that felt less like work and more like paid fun. I loved my job. I loved the tension and challenge involved in planning an event, the thrill at seeing it all come together, and then the absolute joy that came from being told that I was good at my job. Because I was. Am. I’d spent my entire life trying to measure up to someone who would never ever see me as even close to good enough, only to land in this job and be told again and again that I wasn’t just good, I was the best. And now…it might all be over.
The doors pinged open to the same eerily quiet floor from before, and I tiptoed out of the elevator in full stealth mode, prepared to skip coffee in favor of the safety of my pretty, vintage-inspired office, when I heard, “Grace, do you have a minute?”
I froze at the sound of Margo’s voice, so drained and broken that I almost said no, I’ll catch you later. But I knew there was no avoiding this. Turning slowly, I fixed the brightest smile known to womankind on my face. “Of course. What can I do for you?”
Her gaze dropped to her shoes, and her bottom lip trembled a bit before she swallowed and straightened her spine, her eyes pinned on me with a new resolut
ion that hadn’t been there before. She knew this was her responsibility, like it or not, and Margo was nothing if not a professional. “Can you come with me to my office, please?”
I tightened my own spine, because what else could I do, and my mother had taught me well. “Of course.”
Margo closed her office door and wrung her hands together as she sat behind her desk. It was then that I noticed that there were no flowers in the room. Margo loved lavender and always kept a bright green vase full of fresh purple blooms on her desk. Today the vase sat empty.
She opened her mouth, then closed it, then repeated the sequence for good measure, and I contemplated just blurting out, “So it’s true?” but I didn’t want to somehow jinx myself into being fired if she was calling me in here to discuss some new problem with the security guard, Ryan, who she’d secretly crushed on for the better part of a year.
“I asked you here because we’ve suffered some decline in attendance at the museum, which has caused the board to issue a layoff of what they feel are unnecessary positions.” Her eyes widened, concern written across her face. “Not that your position is unnecessary or that you haven’t been vital to me or the Met or that you aren’t amazing at your job or a great person or—” Her head dropped again, and though I was the one getting fired, I reached out and patted her hand.
“It’s okay, Margo.”
Only it wasn’t okay. I thought of the upcoming Manning-Brent wedding, all the details in the air, decisions still to be made. Now someone else would be the one to make them. My chest ached, and for the second time that morning, I felt the pang of rejection.
Margo shook her head, tears in her eyes. “Nothing about this is okay, and I’m so sorry.”
I released a breath that rattled its way out despite my best effort to maintain composure. “I know it’s not your fault.”
With a long, drawn out sigh, she twisted in her chair, and I thought maybe this was her way of telling me it was time for me to go, but then she faced me again and held up a business card. “I wish I could keep you, but if not me, then I at least want you to work with someone who will appreciate all you have to offer. I talked to a friend of mine, and she may have a job for you if you’re interested.”
