Page 3 of Remy

“Bye.” Ivy looks at me in confusion.

“Have a great night.” Allison’s gaze finds mine as soon as he’s gone. “Aren’t you and Carlo?—”

“No.” I slump against his office doorframe, crossing my arms over my chest. “Apparently this year he has a better offer.”

Allison grins. “Does old man Pelosi have a date?”

“He’s not old,” Ivy scoffs as she glides behind the reception desk to close the door to the admin storage room. “That man is in his prime. If I were ten years older…”

“Ew.” I shudder. “If you were ten years older you still wouldn’t have been born when he graduated college.”

She rolls her eyes. “Exaggerate much?”

“Grave rob much?” I shoot back.

“Wasn’t that in the job description?” She grins. “Besides, I like ’em mature.”

Allison snorts. “Babe, you need to like ’em when they still have full function of their anatomy.”

“Whoa.” I raise my voice. “Please remember that’s my father we’re talking about.”

“Your hot father,” Ivy mumbles under her breath.

I ignore her and retrieve my cell from my pants pocket, navigating to an app that’s sat dormant on the device for years.

My dad made me download a tracker when I got my license, stating it was a great safety tool—not that I ever went anywhere other than school or home. But it gave me the same access to his location, too. And from the look of the moving icon on the local street map before me, it still does.

“What’s got you so invested in your cell all of a sudden?” Ivy approaches and peers down at my screen. “Are you spying?”

“Maybe a little.” I keep an eye on the tiny dot indicating his whereabouts as it moves, taking a left out of our parking lot, then slowly inching down to the end of the road.

“I don’t know what’s more depressing.” Allison stands and plucks a wilted rose from the large arrangement of office flowers beside her computer. “Ivy having a boner for your dad or you stalking his first date in ninety-five years.”

“Please never mention my dad and boner in the same sentence again,” I mutter. “Can you believe he ditched me?”

“I know, right? Does he not realize his birthday dinner is the only time you dare to leave your isolation bubble?” She launches the rose into the trash bin under her desk.

“Very funny.” I roll my eyes. “Also very accurate. But this is out of character.”

Ivy shrugs. “He has been acting a little off lately.”

“Off how?” I ask.

“I dunno. Distracted. Tired.”

“Maybe Mr. P has been dishing out the monster D to a lucky lady.” Allison hauls her handbag onto her shoulder and scrounges inside until she pulls out a jangling set of keys. “I’m sure sex has to be quite the ordeal for someone his age.”

Ivy scoffs. “You’d be surprised. I once slept with a?—”

“Please don’t finish that sentence.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “And my dad isn’t that old. He isn’t even fifty yet.” Although, now that I think about it, he seemed a hell of a lot younger last year.

Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis.

“He’s probably just catching up with friends.” Allison continues her end of day routine, perfectly aligning the four mauve waiting room chairs that match the feature wall behind, before tidying the grief pamphlets on the glass coffee table in the middle of the room.

“Yeah.” Ivy nods and saunters to the hall to switch off the lights. “Friends with vaginas.”

I hang my head. “I give the universe permission to swallow me whole.”

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