Chapter 38
Finn
“Good afternoon, Mom,” I answer as I drop into my office chair. Her set ringtone echoed three times from my pocket before
I decided to answer.
“Well, you finally speak to me. That’s so kind of you,” she says, sarcasm dripping from her words like acid.
“What can I do for you?” I set my glasses on my desk and press my fingers to my forehead, hoping to release some of the tension.
“I was wondering if your father and I are ever going to get to see our granddaughters. It’s been nine weeks.”
I roll my eyes. Of course she would be counting. She probably has a fucking calendar to keep track.
“I’m sure we can work something out soon.”
“That’s great to hear. I’ve scheduled a dinner for next Wednesday. I expect you and the girls here.”
“Is it a dinner party or just the five of us?”
“The five of us,” she scoffs. “You’re insane if you think I can put together a dinner party for my friends in that amount
of time.”
There’s a brief pause where I consider moving to a new state and changing my phone number so I don’t have to go to this dinner. But I also feel a responsibility to the girls and my parents to help them retain some sort of relationship. They’ll never have that grandparent-and-grandchild bond that the girls see in movies, but deep down, I feel obligated to try. I want the girls to have nearby family in their lives besides me, and my parents feel like the only option.
“Okay.”
“Wonderful. What do the girls like to eat? I’ll have Beatrice make them something.”
“They love any kind of kid food. Macaroni and cheese, pizza, hot dogs. But honestly, they would also be happy with a roll
or a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich too.”
“I’ll see what we can do,” she says, and I practically hear her curled lip through the phone.
“If I need to pick something up for them, I can do that,” I say with a sigh.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Okay. We’ll see you next week.”
“Six o’clock, sharp. Be on time, Finneas. You know how your father likes to eat his dinner hot.”
Like I could ever forget the screaming match of 2017, when he sent our chef running away in tears because his dinner was lukewarm.
I can’t even come up with a kind response to her remark, so I end the call and drop my head to my desk.
Why the fuck does she make it so hard to talk to her? Every sentence holds some form of manipulation or control, and I leave
the conversation feeling more broken than when it started. And that’s just a phone call. Actually being in their toxic presence exhausts and drains me even more.
Sometimes I think they enjoy stomping into those grief-shattered pieces of my heart, grinding them into dust beneath their
heels.
A quiet knock hits the wall beside my open office door, and the sight of Millie’s beautiful face evaporates all thoughts of my parents. She’s wearing that dress with butterflies on the collar again, and it reminds me of when we collided at the reception desk.
The day that started all of this.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes. Come in. Are you feeling better?” I ask as she pads through the doorway. I turn my chair and
reach out my arms in anticipation of her coming over to me, but my brow tenses when she stops on the other side of my desk
and takes a seat.
My shoulders tighten as I notice her eyes are rimmed in red. I lean my elbows on the desk, scanning her for any sign of what’s
on her mind, but I can’t find any. “Are you okay?”
She presses her lips into a firm line. “Thank you so much for making me soup.” A hint of blush colors her cheeks. “That was...
It was really nice of you.” She swallows. “But I wasn’t physically sick. It was more like I needed a mental-health day.”
“What’s going on?” Realization tickles at the back of my mind. “Is it the other applicant?”
“Yes, actually.”
I offer her a sympathetic grin. “I really meant what I said the other day. He’s a good option.” She flinches slightly. “But
he’s not better than you. I wish you didn’t have to worry about it.”
Millie nods, biting the inside of her cheek. “But I do have to worry about it.” My brows press together, but she continues.
“Can I be honest with you?”
“Always.”
“You have to promise not to say anything to anyone on the interview panel.”
A knot twists in my stomach. “Okay. I promise.”
Her shoulders droop, hunching like the weight of the world sits atop them. “The other applicant is... He’s my ex-boyfriend.
The one I saw at Maggie’s that day.”
My lips part as confusion swoops through my head.
No. There must be a mistake.
The other applicant was a nice guy. He was professional and polite. He complimented Sharon’s necklace and told me he liked
my tie.
Millie looks like she wants to throw up. She’s a pale husk of my Millie.
She’s not okay.
My chest pinches tight, and the crease between my brows deepens to the point of a headache. I’m trying my best to reconcile
the person I met in that interview with the person I know Millie’s ex to be. But the two are not blending in my head. I can’t
picture it.
“What happened?” I ask.
In my gut, I know the answer before she says it, because the pain is etched so clearly in her eyes.
“Well, on Monday, he came in as the Kyle I knew. He was awful, and I basically had a panic attack on the floor after he left.”
She scoffs a laugh like she’s trying to make the whole situation seem less than it is.
“Fuck. Are you okay?” Red tints my vision as I round the desk and kneel beside her chair.
I was in the same building and had no idea, and I hate myself for it.
“I wasn’t at the time. So I left on Monday, then called in sick yesterday.” She sighs a deep breath. “And today he’s been
what I imagine he portrayed in the interview. The masked version he shows everyone else.”
The fucking bastard. The lying, manipulative asshole. I can’t believe I thought he was a good candidate. I can’t believe I
thought he seemed like a decent enough person to work here.
He’s absolutely worthless.
“We have to tell Sharon,” I say.
There’s no doubt in my mind. I’m on Millie’s side unquestioningly.
Her body tenses. “No.”
“How could we not? She doesn’t know what kind of person he is.”
She jumps from her seat and shakes her head. “I don’t want to interfere, and I don’t want you to either.”
I stand. “But Sharon would want to know. She doesn’t want someone like that working at the museum.”
Millie thrusts her hands into her hair and pulls at the roots. “I want to earn it, fair and square.”
“You will earn it. But don’t you think Sharon would want to factor this in?” I walk toward her, but she backs away.
“No. I won’t let you tell her.”
“I can’t let him trick and manipulate people into thinking he’s a good person.”
She waves this off, walking to the window overlooking the front of the museum. She touches her fingers to the glass and sighs.
“If he gets the job, I’ll just quit.”
I run my hand over my face. “You don’t deserve that. I could tell her anonymously. I could leave a note under her door or
something.”
She turns back to me and stands tall, face firm. “No. I want to be chosen because I’m the right person. I’m not going to run
to Sharon and tattle. I have to earn my job the right way. Not because I slept my way to the top, and not because I told on
someone else for demeaning me.”
God , I want to kiss her. I want to kiss this stubbornness right out of her, but I understand. I do. She needs to know that she
is the right person for the job, and the knowledge that maybe he would’ve gotten it would sour everything.
A sad smile stretches across my face. “You’re incredibly strong, you know that?”
I step toward her, and she lets me get close enough to wrap my hand around hers. When she looks up at me, her eyes are glassy,
and the pain in my chest is so tight I can’t breathe. “I want to prove I’m better than him.”
Stretching my hand across her jaw, I whisper, “You already are, even without the job.”
“I know you want to protect me, and I wish you could.” She leans into my palm, a tear slipping from her eye to hit my skin.
“But I can do this. I just need you to trust me that I can do it.”
I pull her toward me until she’s pressed against me, our arms around each other and my cheek resting on her head. “Of course
you can do this. There’s not a doubt in my mind.”
Her shoulders hitch up a few times and then finally settle. She breathes out a deep sigh, and we stay there, in my favorite
hug, until her tears have dried.
“I can’t believe you called my dad for his soup recipe,” she whispers against my chest.
“I can’t believe you think I wouldn’t.”