Page 60 of Heartache & Playdates
“Huh? What?”
“I asked if everything was okay. You seemed distracted.”
“Oh, sorry, yeah.” She lifted her phone up and turned it around. On the screen the program that I had been too distracted to fix was running and it appeared to be bug free. “I got this as soon as we sat down and I just…sorry, I had to fix it. I couldn’t eat or concentrate on anything else until I did.”
That’s exactly how I used to be. Up until a few years ago, I was obsessed with my work. Then I had Hannah and my priorities shifted.
I checked my watch and realized she’d just fixed that in less than ten minutes. And she’d done it on her phone.
“May I?” I asked as I held out my hand, palm side up.
“Sure.” She nodded as she handed me the device.
As I looked around in the program, I saw that she’d not only found and fixed the bug, she’d reprogrammed the code so that it was running at a significantly faster speed. I noted how she did it and, honestly, it was something I should have caught as well.
I handed her the phone back. “Good work.”
She smiled and I saw that the praise actually meant something to her. “Thanks.”
“I should have caught that duplicate series. It was slowing everything down.”
“Oh, you looked at this? I mean before.”
“Yeah, I’ve been working on it all morning. But, I’ve been distracted.”
Her head tilted to the side in disbelief. “All morning?”
The comment and expression on her face made me a little defensive. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt the need to explain to her why my head had not been in the game. I glanced around the table and saw that the George R.R. Martin fans were still in a heated debate. They weren’t paying any attention to me or Lina.
Still, I lowered my voice slightly. “There was an incident when I dropped my daughter off at school.”
“Hannah, right?” she asked as she pushed her glasses up on her nose.
I’d done my best to keep Hannah out of any publication that I was featured in. She wasn’t on any of my social media. I wanted her to have as normal a childhood as she possibly could.
“Yeah, how did you know…”
Her eyes widened, but only for a split second, then her face went back to neutral. “I think I heard someone mention her name in the break room.”
“Oh.” It struck me as odd that any staff would be talking about my daughter, but I didn’t know what sort of water cooler gossip went on. When I walked into a room, people acted differently. They usually stopped whatever conversation they were having and started talking about work or something industry related.
“What happened at school? Is she okay?” Concern filled her voice and stare.
“She’s fine. I just…” I had no clue why I was sharing any of this with Lina. Inevertalked about my personal life at work. Ever. But something about her had me dropping my guard. That, or I was actually losing it because Peyton had come back into my life. Either way, I found myself explaining the situation. “Hannah’s teacher is out on maternity leave and when I dropped her off this morning to meet her new teacher, I found out it is my ex.”
Her eyes widened. “Was it awkward?”
“No. It wasn’t, it’s just… We hadn’t kept in touch for years after school then I ran into her at our reunion last year. After that we didn’t talk again, and then last week we had dinner and she made it clear what we had is in the past and she wanted to leave it there.”
In the back of my head, I thought I must be having a nervous breakdown. That was the only explanation as to why I was spilling my guts to a twenty-year-old intern.
A wrinkle appeared between her brows as she furrowed them in confusion. “So, itwasawkward.”
“No, it was just…I don’t know how to explain it. But it’s just been on my mind all day.”
“Did you talk to her? This morning?”
“Briefly.”
