Chapter 20
TWENTY
I’m just about to fall asleep when my phone rings.
I answer with one eye half-open. “Someone better be dead.”
There’s a rustle on the other end, followed by Andrew’s voice. “Were you asleep?”
“As good as.” I pull the phone away from my ear and squint at the screen. 11:47 p.m. “Which you should also be, since it’s almost midnight.”
“I didn’t realize it was that late.”
That might be the most unsettling thing he has ever said to me.
“You didn’t realize it was the middle of the night?”
“I’m aware now, Miss Michaels.”
I sit up and rub a hand over my face. My room is dark except for a thin strip of streetlight slipping through the curtains and falling across the foot of my bed. On the other end of the line, I hear the soft, uneven tapping of fingers against a keyboard.
“Are you working?”
“Yes.”
“On what?”
“I’m going through the budget report for Marlowe House.”
I stare at the wall opposite my bed, trying to place the name. It sounds familiar, but after three years at BenCo, my brain is basically a graveyard of project names.
“Is that the old brick building they’re converting into apartments?”
“That’s the one.”
I frown. Marlowe House is a teeny-tiny project with a teeny-tiny budget. It’s not the kind of thing that should require the CEO’s attention this late at night.
“Is something wrong with the report?”
“The renovation is over budget. Development wants to convert six of the affordable units into market-rate apartments.”
“Can they do that?”
“They can try.”
I shift against the pillows, pulling the comforter higher around my waist. “Are six units really worth staying up this late over?”
The tapping stops.
“It’s six families,” Andrew says.
Right.
Good to know corporate America has finally managed to replace my soul with a spreadsheet.
“They’ve already been matched to the apartments,” he continues. “If Development converts those units now, they go back on the list.”
“The housing waiting list?”
“Yeah. With emphasis on waiting.” He lets out a humorless huff of laughter. “We used to call it purgatory.”
The word catches my attention.
“We?”
A heavy exhale comes through the phone. For a moment, I think he’s going to ignore the question. Then he says, “I haven’t always had my name on a building, Carly.”
My fingers tighten around the phone.
I hate when he does that—says something that makes him seem less like Mr. Bennett, CEO, and more like Andrew. A person who has existed in rooms I can’t imagine, living through things he will probably never explain to me.
The silence stretches until I become aware of how late it is again.
“So, did you need my help with that?”
“With what?”
“The budget report.” I hesitate. “Isn’t that why you called me?”
“Oh,” he says. There’s a pause. “Yeah.”
I scratch my neck. “So what do you need?”
Another pause.
“I need the—the, uh—”
Alarm bells ring in my head. Andrew Bennett does not say “uh.” I’m not entirely sure Andrew Bennett has ever forgotten a word in his life.
He exhales sharply.
“I can’t come up with anything. Fuck.” There’s another rustle, as if he’s pushed back from the desk. “I’m sorry. Go back to bed.”
I blink into the darkness.
“Wait.”
He doesn’t hang up, but he doesn’t answer either.
“Did you call me without actually needing anything?”
A few seconds pass.
“Apparently.”
The word hangs between us.
I stare down at the comforter gathered in my lap, trying to decide whether I misunderstood. But there really isn’t another way to interpret it.
“Do you do that a lot?”
“Sometimes.”
I scramble for something to say, but I don’t even know what to think right now, let alone how to form a coherent sentence.
Andrew is quicker.
“Good night.”
“No.” I shake my head. That infuriating bastard just threw a grenade into my bed and is now sprinting toward the nearest exit. Well, good fucking luck. I’m not letting him. “We’re going to talk about this.”
“We don’t—”
“How long?” I ask, cutting him off.
It takes a few seconds for him to answer. “A while.”
“Before RHV?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’ve been calling me day and night, just making shit up?” My voice rises despite my attempt to keep it under control. “For what? Shits and giggles?”
“It’s not like that.”
“No? Because it sure as fuck sounds like you’ve been burying me in work because you were bored or something.” I throw the comforter off my legs and stand, suddenly too restless to stay in bed. “I’ve had no real social life for three fucking years.”
The tapping on his end has stopped completely.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “I’m an asshole.”
Yup.
But he’s still my boss, so I’m not going to say that.
I pace to the window and back, the floor cold beneath my bare feet. My pulse is pounding now, fueled by anger and something else I don’t want to examine too closely.
“I haven’t been thinking properly,” he says. His voice sounds different. Less controlled. “I just—”
“What?”
A breath leaves him. “I just call.”
I stop pacing. “Why?”
He laughs once, but the sound is drained of any amusement. “You’re smart, Carly. You can probably figure that out yourself.”
There’s an answer sitting just beyond the reach of my thoughts, but I’m terrified that if I turn toward it, even slightly, it will change everything.
I sit back down on the edge of the bed.
“You should go back to sleep,” Andrew says. His voice is closed off again, the brief crack in it already sealed.
I should.
Instead, I listen as the faint tapping resumes.
“What else are they trying to cut from Marlowe House?”
There’s a beat before he replies.
“The childcare center,” he says. “They want to lease the space to a pharmacy. There aren’t enough children in the area to make the current plan financially viable.”
I think about the hospital. About the old maternity rooms that had sat empty long before RHV appeared, slowly being turned into storage, outpatient rooms, and whatever else the hospital needed more than beds for new mothers.
“They’re probably right.”
“Maybe.” His voice hardens. “But if we keep removing everything families need because there aren’t enough of them, we’re helping create the problem we claim to be responding to.”
I lie back against the pillows. Outside, headlights sweep briefly across the ceiling before disappearing again.
I picture Andrew alone at his desk, fighting to keep six apartments affordable and save a childcare center that may spend most of its time half-empty. It makes it annoyingly difficult to stay furious with him.
“I’ll look at the budget tomorrow,” I say. “Maybe there’s somewhere else they can cut.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
A moment passes.
“I won’t do it again,” he promises.
I sigh.
“Good night, Andrew.”
“Good night, Carly.”
The line goes dead.
I lower the phone onto the mattress and stare at the ceiling.