“And he hasn’t?”
Josh keeps talking like he hasn’t even heard me.
“The thing that gets me is, when I switched to doing an MBA at night while working at Bexley, he was unimpressed. Like he’d had any kind of opinion. Like I wasn’t even noticed or acknowledged enough to disappoint. But I have. Over and over, my entire life. My career is a joke to him.”
I’m surprised by how angry I’m getting. I think of Anthony, his face permanently twisted into a sarcastic expression.
“He’s lost something special in you. Why is he like this?”
“I don’t know. If I knew, maybe I could change it. He’s just been that way with me, and most people.”
“But Josh, this is what I don’t get. You’re so overqualified for what you do at B and G.”
“We both are,” he tells me.
“Why do you stay?”
“Prior to the merger, I nearly quit every day. But I already had the family reputation as a quitter.”
“And post merger?”
He looks away, and I see the edge of his mouth beginning to curl in a smile.
“The job had a few good things about it.”
“You enjoyed fighting with me too much.”
“Yeah,” he admits.
“How did you end up working at Bexley, anyway?”
“I applied for twenty jobs in a fit of rage. It was the first offer I got. Richard Bexley’s lowly servant.”
“You didn’t even care? I wanted to work for a publisher so badly I cried when I heard I’d got the job.”
He has the grace to look guilty. “I suppose you’d think it was unfair if I got the promotion now.”
“No. The process is based on merit. But Josh, you’ve got to know. It’s my dream. B and G is my dream.”
He doesn’t say anything. What could he say?
“So you really didn’t bring me along to show Mindy you’d moved on with some hot little dweeb?”
I know his face better than my own, and I can’t see a trace of a lie. When he speaks, there is none.
“I couldn’t face him without you. I am an embarrassment. Dropped out of med school, administrative job, lost the girl to my brother. I’m nothing to him. Mindy and Patrick can have ten children and be married for a hundred years for all I care. Good luck to them.”
I let myself say it. “Okay. I believe you.”
We sit in silence for a moment before he speaks again. “The worst thing is, I keep wondering what I’d be now if I’d stuck with medicine.”
“I’ve got so much inside me I have no idea about. I’m like the mayor of a city I’ve never seen.”
He smiles at my phrasing. “If you knew the kind of little miracles happening every moment you breathe in, you wouldn’t be able to handle it. A valve could close and not open; an artery could split, you could die. At any moment. It’s nothing but miracles inside your tiny city.” He presses a kiss to my temple.
“Holy shit.” I clutch at him.
“You wouldn’t believe the stats on people who go to bed one night and never wake up. Normal, healthy people who aren’t even old.”
“Why would you tell me this? Is this what you think about?”
There’s the longest pause. “I used to. Not so much anymore.”
“I think I preferred it when I thought I was full of white bones and red goo. Why am I now thinking about dying tonight?”
“Now you see why I can’t do small talk. Sorry Dad scared you about the cake. He’s jealous he can’t let himself go enough to enjoy something. I don’t think I’ve eaten cake in a few years. Man, it was good.”
“Filthy little pigs, the pair of us. Want to go downstairs and see if there’s any left?”
He looks at me with guarded hope. “You’re not leaving?”
I remember my plans to get the bus home. “No, I’m not leaving.”
It’s helpful he’s still sitting on the dresser. It means when I step closer and take his face in my hands, I can reach him with only a little tiptoeing. It means I can feel the tingling sparks jumping in the air between our lips, his sigh of relief that tastes sweeter than sugar. His pulse jumps under my fingertips. It’s a pretty convoluted game we’ve played to make it to this moment.