Page 46 of The Trouble with Love and Ink
“Can you imagine?” He plopped down on the seat next to mine. “I don’t know how Wesley plans to tackle it by himself. It would have taken us weeks to fix that mess.”
“Especially without Anna here.” My smile lessened at that. I'd squeezed in a little bit of time the day before to visit her and sweet Grace. It was amazing, holding that bundle of fresh life in my arms, but it didn't stop me from wishing Anna hadn't resigned.
“Are you okay?” Beck asked.
“Yeah, fine.” I pretended to focus on closing out my Excel sheet.
“Because you look like you could use a vacation.” He gave me an expectant look as though he’d dropped the perfect dad joke.
“Still on that, are we?”
“I don’t get it. You’ve been dreaming about taking a vacation. A free one drops into your lap, and you are going to pass?”
“It’s not a good time—”
“It’s the perfect time.”
“Work is busy—”
“It always will be. But we’re almost done with this project. We can finish our end of things for the convergence. Wesley agreed to make the changes Frank is asking for. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal. This is my job.”
“You give so much for this company. And what has it given back?”
“A salary,” I said flatly. “Benefits with dental and vision.”
“I’ve seen your work. You know the system better than I do. Plain and simple. They shouldn’t have hired out, and they did.”
That both stung and alleviated—the echo of my suspicions. He’d validated my thoughts. I worked so hard, but I didn’t matter to this company.
“I need this job, Beck. I can’t afford to fuck it up.”
Beck’s gaze skirted past me to the bottom of my screen, the time. “Shit. I have to go.”
He’d made it to the door when I found my voice. “Where do you go? On Thursdays?”
Beck’s hand fell from the door handle, but he didn’t turn to face me. “Does it matter?”
I thought of all the possibilities I’d constructed. If he spent his Thursdays with a female companion, then she could go with him to Costa Rica. “It might.”
Beck paused for a long time, weighing whether or not he could trust me, I realized. He caved with a sigh, facing me. “I volunteer. Teaching ISR.”
Volunteer? That wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. “What’s ISR?”
“Infant swimming resource.”
“So . . . wait.” I didn’t trust my ears. Something interfered with the message before it reached my brain. “You leave early on Thursdays so you can—” I felt silly even saying out loud what I thought he’d said. “—Teach babies to swim?” I finished.
He grabbed onto the back of a chair, not meeting my gaze. “Something like that.”
I gaped. “Oh my god, Beck!” I couldn’t keep the awe out of my voice as if he’d produced a chunky and wrinkly Shar-Pei puppy. “You teach babies how to swim?”
“Fix whatever cute image you have in your head. Because, first of all, it’s not always babies. It’s six months to six years old. Also, teaching a small person how to swim involves a lot of crying.”
I reined in my voice, lowering it back to its normal pitch, but I’m sure my eyes still danced with the idea of all of it. “How did you even get into that?”
“I was on the swim team in high school and college.” Beck suddenly became very interested in picking at the seam of the rolling chair. This topic made him uncomfortable, though I couldn’t fathom why. “I wanted to give back. It made sense.”
