15. The Truth Tax #2
“I’ll go down with the ship if I have to, Junie.
But I’m really hoping for a save here, and you’re the only person I trust to make that happen.
So until you tell me we’re out of options, I’ll keep deflecting and holding off audits while sending up prayers to the Junieverse that I’m not truly and completely fucked here.
I can’t take the fall for Devin’s crimes.
I need the proof I can’t seem to find. That’s why I’ve been holding you off—why I haven’t gone after Devin on my own. I need proof of my innocence.”
“But…Cole.” I have the sudden, uncomfortable realization that I’m not the only one barely holding shit together. And he’s not the only one who messed up. “I found the forged signatures. I know they don’t match yours. Have you been—did you think—Cole, I know you’d never do this.”
The muscles in Cole’s arms coil tighter and tighter, until I can see every vein in his forearms.
His Adam’s apple bobs three times while his jaw works back and forth. “Y-you found proof?”
I nod.
“Is it enough? Does it prove my—”
His innocence.
Oh God, Cole. This entire time I’ve thought he’s been withholding information to protect Devin. It was never about Devin.
“I don’t know.” The pressure he’s obviously been under is crushing—I feel it now as if it’s my burden too.
“I need you to know, Junie.”
“Okay.” My mind creates its own spreadsheets with next steps already being calculated. “I’ll prove the signatures don’t match. I read about an expert in college. You can trust me.”
Relief has never looked so wrecked as it does across Cole’s face now. It makes me even more determined than ever to solve this problem for him.
And whatever else it’s tied to.
Nolan landed at Logan an hour ago, and I’ve been glaring at my phone ever since.
Somehow knowing my big brother is in the same time zone as me calms my mind but makes my heart shudder unpredictably.
My phone rings, flashing Nolan’s name on FaceTime—I knew it would. I debate sending him to voicemail for half a second but know it’ll cause more problems than it’s worth.
I just wish I wasn’t feeling so off-kilter about Cole when I answer.
“You look terrible,” Nolan says by way of greeting just as Fen presses his face in close so he can be seen on the screen.
I roll my eyes. “Flattery.”
His gaze softens. “How bad is it?”
I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to Fenway, but I answer anyway. “Thirty-eighth in the state for most humiliating viral moments. I’d been pushing for the top twenty, but the algorithm isn’t cooperating.”
He stares at me like a doctor used to diagnosing shit and not a concerned brother.
“Cole’s not here right now,” I say, wondering if that’s what he’s waiting for.
“We’ve texted.”
Zero surprises there.
“You really didn’t have to come here for me, Nolan. I’m a big girl. This will all die down eventually.”
“It would if Grace would stop making shit up,” Fen grumbles just out of the frame.
Isn’t that the way life works though? Everything would be so much easier if everyone just did exactly what you wanted them to.
“I didn’t only come home for you, Junie. Yes, you were the catalyst to make it happen now, but you’re not the only reason.”
I frown, not liking the ambiguity in that statement.
“It’s time, Junie. Hudson and I—well, mostly Hudson—have built the business up as much as we could with me away. Now it’s time for me to come home permanently so we can continue that growth. Dad is…angling for a piece of the company again too. It’s not fair to place that all on Hud.”
My father is such a piece of shit. Not only did he run a successful generational company into the ground, but now that Nolan and Hudson have pivoted it and managed to turn it around in just a few short years, he wants back in. But just like when my mom died, he’ll find he has no legs to stand on.
“But…what about Japan? Practicing medicine?” I hate that Nolan’s choosing duty over his heart. He’s always wanted to be a doctor.
“What I’ve learned has been…useful for new products,” he says cryptically. “It will all work out. I’ll be in South Carolina in a few days.”
“We all will be. Family reunion,” Fen says, pushing his face next to Nolan’s again so he can see me.
You can’t see Fenway Jones and not smile. It’s just not possible.
“See you soon,” Nolan says, pushing Fen out of his personal space with a palm pressed to his forehead.
“See you soon,” I mumble, then disconnect the call just as Katie enters my office.
Placing my phone face down on the table seems to give Katie permission to speak while also pulling a bottle of rosé out of her bag. “Heard you helped Bea at the clubhouse.”
“It’s a little early for rosé, isn’t it?”
“Early?” She scoffs. “It’s seven at night. I knew you were trying to get out of tonight’s S&S meeting, so I swung by to grab you. Cole’s at the clubhouse, setting up the screen, and said you were still working when he—”
She glances down at the chair she’s sitting in that’s directly in front of Cole’s work from today. Leaning back in the chair, she confirms it came from his office.
“Well, now. This is an interesting turn of events. No wonder Cole was more broody than normal.”
“It’s nothing,” I lie. “We had to run numbers together. This was easier than shouting across rooms.”
“Mm-hmm. Then how come I saw him ordering a second monitor?”
Surely he’s not planning to make this move permanent.
“I have no idea. Maybe his broke. Maybe he needs two screens. Maybe he just wanted one.”
“Or maybe,” she drawls, “he’s trying to get close to you.”
I hold up my hand to stop her.
It doesn’t work.
“I’ve got theories, you know.”
“I don’t want to hear them,” I grumble.
“We’ll come back to it. But first, you helped Bea.”
“It was nothing.” Why is she making this such a big deal?
“You didn’t have to.”
“It was no big deal. They were sending her appeals to the wrong office. They needed to go through the regional one, and I found a fax number. That’s it.
” I pause because I genuinely can’t believe that in this day and age, a fax machine was the solution.
“Faxing it bypassed the standard queue, so it will only take six weeks instead of six months. The health care system is so fucked up.”
I can feel her watching me—it’s a shift in pressure, something changing in the air.
“Bea thinks you’re good for this place,” she says.
“It was a simple Google search,” I mutter, pulling my shirt away from my sweaty skin.
“She also thinks that this place is good for you.”
“I thought you said we were late for the S&S meeting.”
Katie pulls two wineglasses from the tote at her feet and fills them, then hands me one.
“We’re going, but as your best friend—”
“Katie, no offense, but I barely know you. Plus, my track record with friendships is shit. Why the hell do you keep insisting that you’re my best friend?”