Page 40 of Come in with the Rain
Mickey shrugs. Right. All of hissourcesthat have been keeping an eye on me.
“And I’m qualified for this job?”
Mickey’s expression might be a closed door, but the fact that he doesn’t say a word gives it all away. I hop off the stool, already shaking my head, but Mickey comes to stand in my way.
“It’s not a favor,” Mickey says. “Or rather, itisa favor.You’d be doingmea favor. Are you qualified? No. I can’t remember the last time we hired someone who didn’t have at least a Bachelor’s degree, but I need competent people. I’ve got a new office opening out in Rosedale, and the people applying for this job, they’re a joke, Stella. I need you. I need your brain.”
I throw my hands up. “What, you need someone to answer phones for you? Book appointments? Set up meetings?” It’s what I’m good at, I suppose. When Mickey met me, that’s exactly what I was doing for a little office downtown, the exact kind of job I’ve been trying to get back to ever since.
“I’m asking you to be a department manager. We’re pulling people in from all over the world to work on special projects and they need someone to report to, someone to keep them in line without actually getting involved in what they’re doing. And hey, it doesn’t have to be forever. Just long enough for you to get enough experience to stick on a resume so you can move on to bigger and better things, if that’s what you want.”
I stare down at his feet. More money than I’ve ever made and a chance to get back on a ladder that’s actually headed upwards. My breath is sawing in and out of me like I just ran a mile. This is exactly the kind of thing that Mickey would do, step right into the path of my life when it feels like it’s going in the right direction, only to tell me that there’s a better way. Mickey always knows best.
“Look, kid,” he says, his voice going soft as he steps up to me, and I get the most irrational urge to step right into his arms, to let him hold me like he has so many times before. “I’m not here to mess with your life. And I’m not here to get in the way of anything you’ve been working for. I just want to give you a chance. You don’t have to do it all by yourself. It doesn’t mean you worked any less than anyone else.”
“They’ll know,” I say quietly, the words not being able to find their way to the surface until he invited them to. I think about the way people used watch me when I walked down the street, the way they whispered behind their hands when I was ordering lunch somewhere. I don’t know if I can do that every day, not anymore. “They’ll know that I got the job because I slept with you.”
“You’re not getting this job because you slept with me. You’re getting this job because when I was out with the flu for a week, you handled all my calls. And because you re-organized my sock drawer, and now it makes so much more sense. And because you scheduled our dinner deliveries and grocery deliveries and anything else I could possibly need. You’re precise, you’re careful, and you’re smart as hell. And if someone wants to say any differently, it’ll be them needing a new job, not you.”
“Will I have to call you Mr. Kline?”
“God no. Nobody calls me Mr. Kline. Makes me feel like my dad.” And then he smiles at me, and a wave of comfort covers me. Because even though Mickey wasn’t always the best boyfriend, he was a good provider. I always had everything I needed. Everything but him.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll do it. I need a job. A good one.”
“It’s a stepping stone,” he says, pointing a stern finger in my direction. “Don’t get any ideas about working there forever. Your job is figure out what it is you want to do and do it, without having to worry about money.”
I choke back a sob, rubbing my fingers in my eyes, and when I pull my hands away, Mickey is gone. I spin around to find him over by the door, one hand on the knob.
“You’ll get a call later today. There’s going to be a lot of paperwork so I hope those meetups at the boxing gym didn’t permanently dent your brain.”
I laugh, but when he opens the door, letting in the sunshine, my smile falls. “Mickey!”
He turns back around to face me.
“Why did you do it? Why did you sleep with that woman?”
He has that mask on again, the one that makes it absolutely impossible for me to read his face. “I could tell you were miserable, but I knew you’d never leave. And I knew I’d never have the strength to let you go.”
“So you sabotaged us.”
Lines form around his mouth, a reminder of how many years separate us, enough for the rest of the world to take notice but not enough for either of us to care. “If I had thought you would be hurt beyond repair, I wouldn’t have done it. But look at you.” He gestures around the condo. “Better than ever. You’re amazing, kid. I never doubted it for a second.”
CHAPTER40
ADAM
“Mickey came to see me today.” Stella looks up at me, all that long scarlet hair hanging around her like a veil. She’s in the kitchen, cutting vegetables at the island, her hands much steadier than mine are now that those words have fallen from her lips.
“He was here?” I ask, and her knife immediately stops. I didn’t mean for the words to come out in an angry tumble, but the second Mickey’s name comes into play, I want to break something.
She sets the knife down and wipes her hands on a towel. “Yes.”
“Why?” I don’t want to sound like I’m accusing her of anything. It’s not like I think the two of them just got done reuniting in the same bed where we sleep and talk and have sex every night and every morning. Stella would never do to me what he did to her. But I also know that he didn’t come here to catch up.
Stella puts both of her hands flat on the island, and that’s when I know to brace myself. She looks uncertain, like she’s trying to figure out how to explain herself in a foreign language. “He offered me a job.”
That…isn’t what I was expecting. For a second, confusion knocks away the anger. “Like, ajobjob?”
