Chapter 8
Millie
I ’ ve been haunted for the last twenty-four hours by my conversation with Finn yesterday. He told me something devastating
about losing his sister, and Avery and Eloise losing their mother, and I couldn’t wrap my head around the right thing to say
in response.
Then my anxiety went into overdrive, making my hands clammy and my heart pound in my chest, so I changed the subject to something
silly, as though I was trying to distract a kitten with a shiny object.
And while the sound of his deep, rumbly laugh has been replaying in my mind ever since, I have an overwhelming fear that I
said the wrong thing, and I want to fix it.
The camp kids are spending their day with prehistoric life and engineering, giving us a chance to reset before they come back
to entomology tomorrow. So I cross the museum to a department I rarely visit: astronomy.
Midway down a hallway of offices, I reach Finn’s open door. He sits at his desk, a dove gray dress shirt stretched across his back and shoulders as he hunches toward his computer screen. His lips move as he reads silently from the monitor. When he doesn’t turn my way, I let my eyes snoop around his office from the doorway, greedy for this tiny glimpse into his brain.
One wall of his office is floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with what looks like mostly textbooks. On his desk sits a framed
picture of him beaming as he holds a swaddled baby in each arm. There are two drawings on the wall near his bookshelf. One
is a stick-figure woman in a dress, holding two little girls’ hands, and the other looks like a row of planets with faces
floating in a starry sky.
Finn’s chair creaks, startling me from my prying. “Good afternoon, Millie.” He turns and meets my eyes.
Something yanks on my heart when he says my name, like an invisible thread pulling between us, tugging me slowly toward him.
“Dr. Ashford.” My pulse hammers a little faster at the full force of his attention, but he’s not scowling today. His eyes
are brighter than usual, and his mouth is set in a neutral line. He looks... normal . “Are you busy?”
“Not at all. Come in,” he says, waving me toward a chair in front of his desk. The plush cushion dips beneath my weight as
I settle into it. Finn leans back, clasping the arms of his chair and making his shirt stretch tight across his chest. His
tie looks like the surface of the moon, splotched with different shades of gray.
I drag my eyes back up and attempt a confident smile. “I wanted to apologize. I’m worried I made a mistake, and I haven’t
been able to stop thinking about it.”
He raises a brow. “Are you apologizing for spilling coffee all over my tie?”
I narrow my eyes. “I’ve already apologized, even though it wasn’t just my fault. And I wouldn’t say coffee was ‘all over’
you. There was a barely visible speck on the edge of Neptune.”
“Well, Neptune is very sensitive.” He sighs, and a fluttery feeling creeps into my belly. “You must be here to apologize for smashing my nose in the middle of a meeting, then.” He steeples his hands under his chin.
That memory has me straightening in my seat. “That was justice after you mocked me for feeling nervous.”
He drops his hands and leans forward, brows pinched in concern. “I wasn’t mocking at all. It was a failed attempt to check
on you. I’m genuinely sorry if I sounded heartless.”
My throat feels like the Sahara Desert as I try to swallow what he’s telling me. I chew the inside of my lip. “I guess the
monologue you were forced to give about Pluto was punishment enough.”
He chuckles, and the deep sound rolls over my skin, leaving tingles behind. “I do feel passionately about Pluto. He spent
years in the planet club and then was suddenly exiled. I worry about him.”
He grins. Grins.
Am I in the right office? Does Finn have an identical twin, with the same gorgeous face, but without the grumbly personality,
and I’ve actually found him this morning?
“If you’re not here about the coffee and the nose incident, you must be here to apologize for the bumper.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks, and my molars grind together. Seems he’s just going to bring up every single embarrassing thing
I’ve done in his presence. “You’ll feel my apology when that insurance claim goes through,” I sass.
Silent laughter plays in his eyes as they graze over my warm cheeks.
Sitting up straighter, I try to get back to the real business of why I’m here. “I came by because I wanted to apologize for
my response when you told me about your sister. I feel like I didn’t say the right thing.”
His brows furrow. “You didn’t do anything wrong, and it’s not quite as fresh now, so it hurts a little less to explain to a new person.” He lifts a shoulder in a small shrug. “It’s our reality, and I’m getting used to being up-front. Your response didn’t bother me at all.”
A little of my swirling anxiety loosens in my chest knowing that I didn’t completely ruin our professional relationship with
my fumbled words.
Finn leans back in his chair to continue. “It has been six months since she passed, and the girls have been with me full-time
since a few months before that.” His chest heaves as he sighs. “I should’ve warned you ahead of time about Avery and Eloise
in case something comes up while they’re at camp this week. This is actually their first time away from me or Gabriella, their
nanny, since Clara passed.”
My heart aches. Those two little girls have been through so much, and it doesn’t seem fair at all. “They had a great day yesterday.
They were talkative and laughing, and I wouldn’t have known they were going through something like this if you hadn’t told
me.”
“That’s good to hear.” He nods, a deep line creasing between his brows as he looks down at his hands. “I know it’s hard to
find the right things to say sometimes, but you did great.” A smirk flashes over his lips. “And you made me laugh, which is
the best medicine, right?”
I shake my head, remembering his unbridled humor. “I didn’t know those names were that funny.”
He laughs suddenly, just like yesterday, and it has the same startling effect on me, completely ripping the breath from my
lungs. His eyes shine brightly as he winces to confess, “It’s because it sounded like you were picking out a stripper name.”
Oh my god.
A giggle snorts out of me. And then another, until I’m dropping my forehead into my hand as laughter fills Finn’s office.
“They were good names, though,” he says. “Maybe not for your nieces and nephews, but in case the entomology thing doesn’t
work out.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” I mutter as I lift my head and try to calm my laughter.
His bright eyes snag mine, and my smile slowly fades. As we watch each other over his desk, the heat in my cheeks spreads
to my neck. The air settles heavy through the office.
He adjusts his glasses and sparks crackle in the space between our gazes. My heart thumps suddenly with a whisper that says
this could be more .
More than coworkers. More than I had planned.
The sensation is so foreign and unexpected that I shove it away like it’s about to sting me.
I’ve been fighting to be taken seriously as a scientist since day one, and I can’t hinder my chance at my dream job to become
more than coworkers with Finn. He could literally be the swing vote that I need for my promotion. And I can’t have everyone
thinking I got it because of a relationship with him.
My brain draws a nice, long coworkers-stop-here line in the sand.
I clear my throat and stand, smoothing my palms down my jeans. “I’ll definitely take those names off the aunt list and come
up with some better options.” I twist my hands, anxious for a way to escape this conversation without my heart tugging me
any closer to Finn.
But he completely ruins those plans when he says, “Thanks for the chuckle. I’ve lived a lonely life the last few months, and
laughing with a friend is nice.”
Finn brushes his hand through the line I just drew, leaving no trace of its existence.
A friend. We can be friends. I’m friends with Micah and still work alongside him every day.
I draw a new line in the sand and label it Friendship—Do Not Go Past This Line.
Seriously, Millie. That’s the boundary.
***
My phone dings with a picture from my dad while I’m reading in bed that night. I click to open the image, revealing the pumpkin
patch on the farm, which is currently a giant field of dirt with little sprouts sticking up.
Oaks Folks
Dad: Baby pumpkin plants. They’ll be ready for our family pumpkin-carving contest in a few months.
Fabes: You guys can try to beat my octopus carving from three years ago, but you will fail.
Tess: I’m still saying I slayed with my Zendaya carving last year.
Millie: That Zendaya one was pretty badass. Zendaya octopus this year?
Mom: picture of Dad on a tractor Doesn’t my farmer look sexy on his tractor?
Fabes: Ew. Mom, I live with you guys.
Dad: Maybe we’re trying to motivate you to flee the nest, Little Bird.
Fabes: You sure didn’t want me gone when I was helping you plant that pumpkin field.
Millie: Come live with me and Lena. There are no tractors here.
Fabes: I’m going out, anyway. I have a date tonight.
A flurry of texts pours in after that, asking for more information, but Fable never responds to any of it, so I give up and
put my phone back on my nightstand.
I get through a few pages of my book before my phone chimes again, and I snatch it up.
But my smile falters when I see the name. My hands shake as I swipe to open the message.
Kyle: Just thinking about you. Staying out of trouble?
I hold my breath, trying to stop my heart from panicking. Kyle hasn’t contacted me in months—since a few weeks after I finally
found the strength to leave him.
But seeing his name on my screen is what I imagine an arrow to the gut would feel like. It’s sharp and sudden and it burns
through my whole body.
I haven’t been in any trouble. He was the trouble I got away from.
Slowly, I force a deep breath through my lungs. I pull oxygen in and count to five before letting it out again. Then I turn
off my phone.
***
Peeking around the person in front of me at Maggie’s, I count the almond croissants left. I’ll get one unless this fancy businessman
is about to order five. The sound of the espresso grinder fills the coffee shop, and the nutty, earthy aroma surrounds me.
I inhale a deep breath through my nose, hoping the caffeine will transfer right into my respiratory system this morning.
Sleep was slow to come last night after the message from my ex. It would’ve been great to fall asleep smiling about my goofy
family, but instead, my brain went down a Kyle spiral that had me picking at my cuticles and tossing in bed.
After barely sleeping, I woke to another message from him, sent at 2:17 a.m.
Kyle: Haven’t heard back from you. Where are you?
My soul was a wasteland after I left him. Just dusty soil where he had ripped every flower out from the roots and left no
life. No color.
It has taken every day of the last six months to rejuvenate that soil and breathe life back into it. I’m finally discovering
who the real Millie is, and I hate that I’m faced with having to interact with him again.
The man in front of me finishes his order and moves to the side as Maggie struts out from the back with a tray of fresh almond
croissants. She winks when she sees my big eyes.
“How many are you having this morning?” She slides the tray into the display window, her signature overalls and apron dusted with flour.
I tilt my head, debating. “It might be a two-croissant morning.”
She smiles and puts two from the new batch into a bag for me and then leans her hands on the counter, her arms covered in
intricate, colorful tattoos.
“Maggie, you’re a miracle worker.” I open the brown bag and close my eyes as I sniff the freshly baked pastry.
A barista delivers my coffee order, and I pay for my breakfast. As I’m closing my wallet, a sweet voice shouts, “Hey, Ms.
Millie,” from behind me.
I turn around to find Eloise waving me over to their table, her untamed hair flying back and forth as she almost falls out
of her seat. Avery and Finn are sitting with her near the window, and he looks too big for the table, hunched over between
the girls like the Beast trying to eat dinner across from Belle.
As I approach, Finn stands and pulls an empty chair from the table next to theirs, pushing it into an open spot. “Join us.”
“That’s okay.” I shake my head. “You all enjoy your breakfast. I don’t want to intrude.”
“Please,” Eloise begs, pulling my wrist toward her.
Finn flashes me a secret smirk that I can’t quite interpret.
My body and brain war against each other, clashing over whether joining their breakfast is a breach of the line.
But Avery makes the decision for me when she stands from her seat and pulls me toward the empty one, and I drop into it.
I start unpacking my first croissant and smile at the girls. “Having a good morning?”
Eloise nods emphatically. “Uncle Finn said we can have breakfast here instead of at home.”
I lean over and whisper, “That’s because this place has the best breakfast treats.”
As we eat, Eloise tells me about how they had to go out for dinner last night after Finn burned their food so badly that the smoke alarms were going off. I give them a few sneak peeks into what we’re doing at camp today, then show them a video my mom sent this morning of two baby otters swimming with their mama.
But throughout my conversations with the girls, my eyes keep dragging back to Finn. He’s quiet most of the time, brushing
crumbs from Eloise’s cheek and comforting Avery when she spills her milk. Every movement seems natural. He’s so comfortable
with them, and they seem completely at ease with him, teasing him and making him chuckle at their versions of the stories.
And the sinking suspicion creeps into my bones that I don’t think I can keep filling in that asshole checklist.
Finn has pretty much burned it, leaving me with nothing but ashes.
***
Just as I’m about to leave the office on Thursday evening, I receive an email from Sharon and almost trip over my chair getting
to my desk to read it.
TO: Millie Oaks
FROM: Sharon Glass
SUBJECT: Second Interview Request
Good afternoon, Millie,
After careful consideration, we have narrowed down our pool for the entomology director position to two final applicants.
The board of directors and I feel that the best process moving forward will be a trial week for each applicant, followed by a second interview.
I have attached a separate document detailing the dates of your trial, as well as the responsibilities you will oversee during
that week. There will be a slight delay while I attend a convention, so you will have four weeks to prepare for your time
in charge of the entomology department.
During that week, you will be giving a tour of the butterfly vivarium to the interview committee. We expect to spend about
thirty minutes with each applicant there, and we hope to hear your unique insights and knowledge throughout that time.
We heard some great ideas from you in your interview, and I look forward to seeing what else you share with us.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me or stop by my office.
Thank you,
Sharon Glass
Wilhelmina Natural Science Museum Director
Nausea settles in the pit of my stomach as I reread the email. While I dreamed of being handed the position easily, I know
logically that isn’t how this works. I want to be the person for the job, but if I’m not, I’m reluctantly glad the committee
is taking the time to make the right decision.
A small stab of betrayal pierces my heart when I realize Finn probably knew about this. Maybe that’s what prompted the coffee
and the kind emails. He felt sorry for me.
I don’t want special treatment to get this job. I want to earn it fair and square because I am the right choice, and I am the badass scientist who deserves it.
Four weeks feels so far away right now, but maybe it will give me the opportunity to focus and nail down exactly how I want
to present myself for the next interview. Hopefully it will be enough time to snuff out the insecurity zinging through my
veins, and I will be able to prove to all of them how much I deserve that job.