Page 15 of Falling for My Boss

“Do you want another one?” I asked. “I have a bunch in the cooler.”

“No, thank you,” she said. I noticed she was still taking deep breaths, but they were calmer now, much more focused. She was regulating.

“Okay, well, if you change your mind, you know where to find them.”

She nodded again and pulled her head back, letting her hair fall backward so she could tie it up into a tight knot on the back of her head. Within seconds of brushing off running makeup with a paper towel I handed her, she was composed, put together even.

“My brother is here,” she said.

I waited for more, and nothing came. I cocked my head to one side and narrowed my eyes.

“Your brother?”

She nodded, and I could see that it scared her even to admit it.

What the hell could make her so scared of her brother? Every time I learned something about this enigma of a girl, some other mystery took its place. I had grown up with my brothers being the very bedrock of my sanity, my knowledge that the world wouldn’t just be able to run me over. I would always have them; even when our parents passed and our grandparents had taken us on, I’d always had my brothers to look out for me.

The idea that she had a brother but that he wasn’t someone she could depend on to help her both saddened me and made me a bit angry for her. How terribly alone it must feel to not have anyone, including your brother, to look out for you. It must have been torturous.

“Why are you so scared of your brother?” I asked gently.

There was a brief moment where it looked like she would tell me, like she would open up and let me know what it was that had spawned this apparently high-stakes evasion of her family. But as soon as it appeared, it disappeared. She shook her head, looking down at her shoes for a moment and then back to me.

“I can’t,” she said. “Not now.”

“That’s fine. Like I said, I don’t want to push. I just need to know enough to help.”

“I understand,” she said. “I just can’t right this second. I need to do something else. Can I work?”

“Work?” I asked. “You want to go clock in?”

“Yes. It will help me focus and block out everything else. Besides, I don’t know that he would even come close to thinking to look here. I’m safe.”

I nodded. “Yes, you are. Sure, you can go work,” I said. “You can roll silverware back here with me until Charlotte gets here if you want.

“Thank you,” she said, her head still down and sounding sheepish. I stood up, unblocking the door, and held my hand out to offer her space to walk by me. She did, and in spite of everything, I caught a whiff of her perfume, and my knees weakened a little.

Jodi made her way across the kitchen to the rack of silverware and stack of fresh, clean linen. One by one, she rolled them up perfectly and stuck them in a bucket to go out to the floor. I watched her for a while and then went back to what I was doing. I flipped on the TV to give some sound to the room, and it made Jodi’s shoulders unclench a little. She was calming, bit by bit.

I went back to work and gave her space to feel safe.

10

JODI

Ihated how panicky I felt. How easily thrown into hyperventilating and paranoia I was. How I had the urge to just run, run into nothingness, anywhere, as far as I could before collapsing in exhaustion. How I had to rely on tricks to avoid or ride through a panic attack and how ingrained those steps were in me that I could do them for myself, even if I didn’t have someone to coach me. How I had become my own coach, my own first aid attendant, my own voice of reason.

I hated how Derek was so kind about it all. How he had been such a jerk and now he was bending over backward to be nice, to be kind and helpful. How he’d blocked the entrance to the room but kept the door open so I didn’t feel completely enclosed but still safe. How he kept an eye on the door even though he had no idea what my brother looked like or what kind of danger he could be. How he offered to bring me water and talk through what was going on rather than just telling me to fend for myself.

Most of all, I hated that somehow my brother had found me. Jack was relentless, but I didn’t think he was this dogged. I didn’t think he would do it himself. Hire someone to find me? Sure. I could see that. And while it made it terrifying that someone could be watching me and I didn’t know them, it was so much worse to see Jack, apparently on the case, looking for me so close to where I was.

Derek was staring at me, standing in the doorway of the kitchen. I had told him I wanted to go back to work so I could feel normal, so I could concentrate on something else. All that was true, but there was always the lingering thought that I needed as much money as possible in case I needed to just go. If Jack was in town, that meant I wasn’t safe. If I needed to, I could pocket my tips for today and just bolt.

Derek was holding my bags. He had gone to get them from the back door and was holding them with the air of someone who was starting to wrap their head around what they felt needed to happen. He was forming a plan to help me, and part of me resented it. I wanted to fight back. I wanted to cry, falling apart and curling up in a ball on the ground. My emotions, my thoughts were so torn and scattered, though, that it left me just sitting there, staring back at him.

“I grabbed your bags,” he said. “The staff will be here any minute, and I didn’t want anyone tripping over them, or worse, tossing them somewhere. You can leave them in here if you need to, but they will be safer in my office over there. No one will get into them there since only my brothers and I have the keys.”

I nodded as I rolled another set of silverware. The numbness was what I needed, and if I started right then, forcing myself not to feel anything, I could get through the night. I needed to lean into the numb feeling and just let Derek try to help. If I could somehow get through the night without Jack finding me, I could spend the next day trying to figure out how he had known to come here looking. So it wouldn’t happen again.

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