But I don’t think we’re ready—either one of us—to try to make something out of a few amazing tumbles between the sheets. “No. I’ll be home.”
I go back upstairs to shower and get dressed in a hurry. Then, with a kiss on the cheek for him and my mom, who’s now up and making coffee, I go out the front door and get into my car.
The way he asked if I was going to see Tomas lingers in my head as I drive down the road. Dad always loved Tomas. But would he love him if he knew the truth about the kind of man Tommy had become?
At least now I understand his loyalty to Tomas. My education… He paid for it. All this time, I thought he walked away without looking back, but he did. He took care of me. Even when I thought he was nothing more than a memory to me.
I don’t know how to process so much of this. Dad lying. Do I owe Tomas for school? I also don’t know how much Mom knows, how much I can bring up without causing a problem between my parents. But I want answers.
I’m not going to ask why they didn’t tell me. I would’ve said to call him and tell him to shove that money right up his ass. I would’ve never made it college. Not so shocking they didn’t share who put up the money.
Last night, I gave the cash Tomas took from the hotel room to Mom and Dad. I want it to make a difference for them. I want Dad not to work so hard and Mom to take a break. She’s been going hard at life since she was a teenager and she’s missed so many things because she’s too busy spinning past them to notice. And it’s because she has to just to keep up. The money is enough that she can slow down.
I smile. I know they won’t take it any easier, money or not. But I like knowing they have the option, and that I gave it to them—in a manner of speaking. They might buy better groceries now. At least real Oreos rather than the chocolate wheel cookies that don’t taste at all like the real thing.
I’m at work now. Somehow, I’ve battled bumper-to-bumper traffic, taken the correct left and right turns, and pulled in front of the building where Sentinel Security is housed. It’s glass and steel. Not skyscraper tall but tall enough I’m not taking the stairs more than once a week.
This is the place where I feel most at home. The place where I can take numbers and letters and make a computer respond exactly the way I want it to. The one place where things go according to plan.
The street isn’t busy this morning because most people are just now getting up for work, so my parking is primo. Since there are so few cars on the street, the black Lincoln across the street with its tinted windows and gun-clad Russians inside sticks out in a world of Priuses and hybrids.
My “protection.”
I wave because I don’t know what else to do. The protocols for a situation like this one are so outside of my realm of expertise. I turn and walk inside the double-glass doors with my hand still cocked in wave pose.
I have my own Russian posse now. It’s just another thing I’ll have to figure out how to deal with.
But right now, I’m in my element. Confident. Head high. Whatever program is waiting for me today, I can handle. Will handle. Because my work is my passion. And since there’s a supreme lack of anything else to be sure about in my life, I’ll take it where I can.
Before I have my foot off the elevator, Leila moves in front of me. “Oh God, Corinne. I’ve been worried sick about you ever since I saw Alvin made that statement on Facebook.” Her eyes are saucers, and her fingers dig into my biceps.
But I’m more interested in what she’s saying. “Alvin made a statement?”
She nods and whips out her phone as if she’s had it on standby to show me. “You didn’t see it?” She’s swiping and tapping and finally holds the screen out so I can see the engagement picture he posted that now has a big circle with a line through it over my face. That’s a little melodramatic, but I save that thought for later.
My stomach is quivering. Apparently, whatever Tomas said to him before we left meant nothing because the post, while short, is definitely there.
I regret to inform you that Corinne O’Shea and I are taking a break from the life I hoped we would be building together. Please respect my privacy on this matter, and if you have any questions, please direct them to Corinne or her parents.
“Wow.”
At least he didn’t say anything about Tomas or the Italians in our honeymoon suite, and I knew he wouldn’t say anything about the suitcase full of toys and sexual weapons. I also knew he wouldn’t be able to pull back from making me look like the villain. But all in all, it isn’t nearly as bad as I thought.
“Well, because I feel it’s important for people to understand, just know, we aren’t on a break. We’re finished. Done.”
“What happened? I saw you guys leave the wedding together. You looked so happy.”
I can’t talk about it. It’s too complicated and convoluted for any story to come out coherently. Instead, I shake my head and look away. Hopefully, she’ll read it as shame or embarrassment and leave the subject alone.
“I just want to get back to work and back to normal.”
She pulls me in for another hug. “You’re right. When you’re ready to talk, just know I’m here for you.” There’s such kindness in her eyes, and I so need to talk to someone, I almost blurt out all the details. Instead, I admire her scarf and hold it out in front of me.
She grins. “It’s Hermès.”
Hermès scarf. Prada jeans. Louboutin heels. Not a day goes by that Leila isn’t dressed to impress even when she looks casual. And she loves talking about her clothes. If I can get her chatting about her style, she won’t be so interested in talking about me.
While I want to tell her everything, I don’t know how much I can before one or both of us ends up on Tomas’s kill list.
“Well, it’s perfect.” I lay a hand over my chest. “And the shoes. You have such great style.”
She grins wider. If she knows I’m deflecting, she doesn’t mention it. Instead, she goes on for a few minutes about the shoes.
I don’t have any pressing business on my desk because I cleared what I could before I left for my wedding and passed everything else off to other coders. But now I’m back and itching to jump back into work. Since we’re standing at my desk in the cluster we call the bullpen, I nod and pull out my chair.
We’ve discussed shoes and bags and scarves, my wedding, and a little bit of what happened, but I’m finger-tapping-on-the-desk anxious. This is the only normal thing I’ve done since I walked down the aisle towards Alvin. I need a little bit of normal to even things out.
When she finally runs out of things to say, I make my excuses and settle down to something that I’m confident contains no unwelcome surprises. Work has never been such a welcome presence.
And for a little while, it’s exactly the escape I needed.
I grind away at my terminal for a couple hours—way past the normal time everyone arrives—and still the bullpen is empty. Even Leila has disappeared. I look up at her office door. It’s closed.
Odd. If I was paranoid, I would be thinking of scary movie villains and running for my life.
It would be completely ridiculous if I wasn’t conscious of the black Lincoln town car downstairs with the Russian security sitting inside.