Chapter 10 – Anna
TEN
ANNA
She didn’t want his pity. Even more than she didn’t want to be saved.
“I appreciate your time Mr. Allen.”
“You’re welcome,” E.G. said.
The man sitting across from E.G.’s desk stood and offered his hand across the desk, but E.G. remained seated.
I stood, also offering my hand, more to remind the young man there was another person actually in the room. I don’t think he noticed.
Rory started the interview flustered about meeting his hero E.G. He was ending it with a lot of stuttering and bowing as he made his way out of the office.
“I’ll show you out,” I said, following him through our small lobby to the door that opened out into the building. “Nice pitch.”
“You think?” he asked, wringing his hands together. “I couldn’t get a read one way or the other.”
No one ever could with E.G. It was his special talent. He held all his cards close until he was ready to make a decision.
“He’ll be in touch. Or, he won’t,” I said enigmatically. “But trust me. I’ve been listening to these for months now. It was solid.”
He beamed. “You made my day.”
“Have a good one,” I said, then left him to head back to E.G.’s office.
“Well?” he asked me.
“He’s lying about the prototype. It’s not fully developed yet.”
“Really? I didn’t get that sense.”
“He was a little too desperate when he was talking about it. Like he was overcompensating about how fully cooked it was. Still, it was a solid pitch. I told him so.”
E.G. frowned. “You didn’t give him any encouragement, did you?”
“Nope. But I like to call balls and strikes and I’m calling this one a strike. Am I right?”
Another frown. “You’re getting smug.”
“I’m getting good,” I returned, with a fully cocky smile. “It’s not that hard. Business is just people. And I’ve always been able to read people.”
“How can you always tell when they’re lying?” he said, as if he were annoyed. “You’re like a human lie detector.”
I shrugged. “Instinct. When you live on the streets, you work it like a muscle and it gets stronger every hour.”
Shit.
Our eyes met.
It was a slip of the tongue. Nothing I ever wanted to, or would purposely, share.
I willed him not to ask me about it.
His will was stronger.
“When, and for how long?” he demanded, but I shook my head.
“Flowers,” he barked. “When, and for how long?”
“Do we have to do this?” I begged him. “It’s history. You can’t change it.”
“I’ll decide that.”
“No,” I said. I needed to keep something for myself. Things were getting blurred too often between us. Where he ended and I began.
This job was becoming my life, when I’d only just discovered what it really meant to have one.
He was becoming my life.
“You don’t have any authority in this area of my life, E.G. Let it go. Asking me about something personal I don’t want to talk about…it’s not professional.”
“Professional,” he scoffed. “Since when…Fine.”
“Good. Now, do you need me to prep you for the next meeting, because I’ve got some background-”
“I’m not going to let it go,” he cut me off. Then shrugged as if he had nothing to apologize for. “I’m just not.”
“You want to cross that line? You want to step into something you have no business knowing?”
“I do.”
“Then I get to know something about you, too.”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. His pressed, navy button-down shirt tightened around his biceps, which had become more pronounced over the past few months.
I hadn’t found it, in my travels, but I assumed he had a home gym because he mentioned working out.
E.G. wasn’t the type to have a gym membership at the local Planet Fitness.
Was he working out more? Or was I just noticing?
“Fine.”
“What?” I’d been focusing way too much on his biceps, apparently.
“You can ask me a question. I won’t guarantee that I’ll answer it, but I won’t fire you for asking.”
I considered the single picture on his desk. The face of the woman I’d come to know well these past few months, spending so much time sitting behind the desk.
My gaze often tracking to her image against my will. Like she was compelling in some way, which was entirely crazy. I’d never met her.
Allison.
Even thinking her name, felt like I was conjuring her ghost.
“When did you meet her?”
I looked at the picture and didn’t have to be any more specific than that.
A beat of silence. Then, he finally said, “college.”
“I read that you dropped out of college like all the real tech bros.”
“I am not a tech bro,” he said, disdainfully. “But yes, I did leave when it was no longer useful for me. That was my junior year. I met Allison sophomore year.”
“Did she drop out with you?”
He smiled then. A fond memory smile. It was strange how it changed his face to something less severe. More traditionally handsome.
“Hell, no. She was furious with me when I quit. We fought about it a lot. She stayed and got her degree. She wanted to be a teacher. She was a teacher.”
“The teacher and the billionaire. That’s a nice story. Plus, she liked you before you had money. Which meant she liked you for who you really are.”
“Please try and contain your astonishment,” he drawled.
I could see it. Sometimes there were glimpses of the man he was, through the sadness. Sarcastic, a little too smug, but funny. At ease in his own skin. Enough that I knew he was more than what he showed the world.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“That’s it,” I said.
It was a lot, really. He’d been a sophomore in college when Allison saw him and fell in love with him.
For who he was and not for what he’d become, because she had no idea.
Or maybe she did. She’d given him shit about quitting college.
Enough that it made him smile all these years later thinking about it.
“Most people want to know about the accident,” he said, softly.
“Most people aren’t me,” I reminded him. “Why would anyone want to take you back there?”
“Thank you.”
I leaned over and plucked my laptop off his desk. “Okay, I’ll just go and write up my notes from the meeting.”
“Hardly. When, and for how long?”
I sighed. It’s not as if I actually thought the distraction would work. “Didn’t we just have a conversation about not revisiting painful life events?”
“It was your game. Tit for tat, Flowers.”
“When?” I thought about it. “I guess over a year ago now. When I first got to Houston. Not too long. And I wasn’t stupid about it.
I found a decent shelter run by a local church.
Basically, I just stood around all day waiting to be let inside.
They had limits on how many they could take in, so I always made sure I was front of the line.
I could shower and wash my clothes there.
I did that until I found a waitressing job.
Once I was working, I had enough money for the motel room. ”
I made it sound simple. Easy. Which was my intent.
The raw fear that I’d experienced? I never wanted to go back there.
His brow furrowed while he did the mental math. “What did you do after you graduated high school?”
“I was able to be part of a work program that was associated with the state home where I spent my teenager years. They let you stay for a few years, but after you hit twenty-one, they need you to move on to make room for the next crop of graduates. I told you during my interview, I couldn’t afford housing where I was, which was why I made the decision to move to Houston.
I knew it was going to be a…challenge. When I first got here. ”
“Weren’t there any programs for fosters aging out of the system? Grants or something that could help you with rent?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. If there was some government program, no one told me about it. I just figured out how to survive. And look at me now.”
I twirled because I was wearing a fancy new dress that swooshed around my knees.
“Nordstrom, baby,” I bragged.
He raised an eyebrow. I hated that blasted all-knowing eyebrow.
“Fine, Nordstrom Rack, but it’s still brand new. Tags on it and everything. Have I satisfied your curiosity?”
“Yes.”
“If you feel sorry for me, I’ll make you suffer,” I told him.
I didn’t want him to pity me. I wanted his respect.
“Do you feel sorry for me?”
For losing his wife, he meant. I suppose I did, and I imagined he would hate that as much as I would.
I couldn’t answer him. “I’ll go write up the meeting notes before I forget the details.”
He nodded and then turned his attention back to his ever-engaging monitors. Only this time, I didn’t think he was actually seeing what was in front of his face.
I think he was stuck in the past.
Some place and time with Allison.
If I was honest, this feeling in my chest suddenly, it was jealousy.