He counted them back to her. “Breakfast, get dressed, playground. Socks and shoes.”
“Yes, you’ll need socks and shoes.”
“Let’s go!”
He pulled away from her, sprinting away as soon as his feet touched the ground.
“Come on, Penny!” Logan yelled from his bedroom, sliding one drawer of his dresser open, then another. “Socks and shoes!”
“Your socks are in the top drawer,” she said with a laugh as she followed him inside. Logan had already created a cyclone of clothing over the room. No doubt he was looking for his favorite red shirt. He found it in the third drawer down.
“Let’s go, let’s go!”
Yes. The end of this day was going to be the worst.
She was still dwelling on that last day—the last hour, the last minute, the last time she waved goodbye to him at the door to the preschool—while she waited in another anonymous meeting room.
This time, Penny would be getting a tour.
The initial interview hadn’t been as meandering as the one with Howard. Twenty questions, rapid fire, all of her answers recorded in a shorthand scribble.
“Ms. Fox?”
She scrambled to her feet. Penny wasn’t even to the door when the lanky young man turned and led the way down the hall. She jogged to catch up.
“I’m Penelope Fox,” she said, holding her purse tight to her shoulder. They were apparently going to walk at a high rate of speed.
“Jonathan. This is the kitchenette, our second suite of meeting rooms. There’s the stairwell entrance. Everybody here is encouraged to get in several flights throughout the day. Keeps us healthy.”
“That’s cool. So what—”
“There’s a gym on the first floor, if you can squeeze in the time to use it. Copier room. Senior offices.” Jonathan pointed to one room after another. They were walking in a giant square, around the fifth floor of a building forty minutes from Tessa’s apartment, where she was living for the time being. “Collaborative space.” Jonathan huffed a laugh. “Don’t worry. You won’t use that.”
She stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, but he kept going. “What do you mean?” she asked when she finally caught up. “Do people not use that space?”
“People here aren’t huge on collaboration,” he said, keeping his eyes off hers. It was an easy task, with how fast he was walking. “In fact, friendly competition is highly encouraged.” Was his expression verging on bloodthirsty? What was this place? “But seriously, Ms. Fox, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“What do you mean?” This time, when she stopped, he followed suit. “Before you go another step, tell me what you mean.”
“I mean, I can tell you’d be a threat.”
“A threat?”
“People aren’t going to…take kindly to your presence here. Even if you do get hired, you’ll probably face a healthy amount of resistance.”
Penny couldn’t fathom why anyone would say this to her…unless they were trying to do her a favor. “This is not a good fit,” she said flatly.
Jonathan pressed his lips together. “Did you have any other questions about our company or culture? If you do, I’m happy to answer.”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“Thanks for coming to see us. We’ll be in touch.”
Penny would not be in touch. She would not be answering any calls from this company. As soon as the sun outside hit her face, a weight lifted off her shoulders.
If she had to leave the area, so what? Now that she didn’t work for Drew anymore, there was nothing keeping her here. Tessa, maybe. But one friendship wasn’t enough to pin her down in the new source of her heartbreak.
It was so pathetic.
Penny settled into the driver’s seat of her car and let her forehead rest against the steering wheel. This had been her fourth interview. There had to be a limit—a stopping point. One more. That would be it. If she had one more bad interview, she’d pack up the few things she had at Tessa’s, put them in the back of her car, and drive until…
She didn’t know. She’d drive until someplace appealed to her.
But a truth harder than steel had lodged itself in her belly: no place would appeal to her as much as this one did.
And it was all because of Drew and Logan.
It had killed her, watching him run into preschool for that last time. Logan had turned at the door and given her an enormous wave. “Bye, Penny!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, and then he’d gone inside.
She hadn’t given him anything to remember her by.
Penny dug in her purse for her phone. There was still time for a scrapbook, maybe. Did she have any pictures of them together?
There were a few—selfies of her and Logan that she’d taken when he asked—but beyond that, there was only a photo of the three of them at the barbecue. Archer had taken it.
Penny let the phone fall into her lap. A scrapbook was a dumb idea. By the time Logan was old enough to appreciate it, he’d have forgotten all about her.
One hot tear slipped down her cheek, then another. Penny sat up as straight as she could and tried to breathe through the tears. Why did she have to miss them both so much? Why was it killing her to be away from them, even though Drew didn’t want her that way?
She put a hand to her chest, trying to quiet the pain in her heart. Leaving Logan behind had added an awful new dimension to the situation. And working for Drew had just been…
It had been natural.
Once they’d spent some time together, she had known how to anticipate his needs. She had known which things annoyed him and which things he liked to do with Logan. She had known when to push back and when to back down.
Until she hadn’t known, and it had all crashed and burned.
There was never going to be another job like that one.
That was the cold, hard truth, and she had to accept it. No office building on the planet would ever offer the kind of chemistry she’d shared with Drew, and no job that she could think of would be as fulfilling as spending her mornings and afternoons with Logan.
Penny took a deep breath.
Drew was never going to change. He was who he was, just like she was who she was, and anyway, she didn’t want him to change. What she wanted, in the end, was for Logan and Drew to be happy. If that meant never seeing them again, then so be it.
She swallowed an enormous sob at the same instant her phone rang.
Penny picked it up, swiping at the screen. She didn’t recognize the number, but this wasn’t the time to be picky about the distractions she was offered. “Hello?”
“Good afternoon. I’m looking for Penelope Fox.”
“This is she.” The voice sounded so familiar.
“Ms. Fox, this is Jack Holloway. Do you have a few minutes to meet with me?”
15
Jack Holloway sat across from Drew, the wide expanse of Jack’s desk between them. Jack reached out and tapped its surface with his knuckles. “I kept this desk through my entire career, believe it or not. Just moved it home from my office last week.”
Drew took in its chipped surface, which had obviously been polished and repaired many times over the years. “I believe it.”