Page 33 of Knocked Up by my Best Friend's Brothers

She nods at my coffee. “Why not enjoy that instead? It’s some fancy Swedish blend I got from the neighbors for Christmas. I save it for special occasions.”

“I’m a special occasion?”

“Of course,” Aunt Mary says and sighs deeply.

“Thank you. I guess.”

She leans back in her seat, holding her mug close to her chest. “What happened in Los Angeles?”

“Nothing special. It just wasn’t a good fit for me.”

“Bullshit.”

I guess I know where I get my evasive skills from. I was too young to pick that up from my parents before they passed away, but Aunt Mary is an expert at zigzagging from one topic to the next until I forget what I was mad about. Every conversation we ever had was like this. A mind-numbing roller coaster.

“You were there for seven years,” Aunt Mary says. “How do you leave a place that employed you for seven years?”

“I was in Pasadena for four years. CalTech, remember? Los Angeles only had me for three.”

“What the hell happened? Teagan told me you were doing alright. You had a job at a fancy company—what was the name again?”

“I never told anyone where I worked,” I reply. “The work I did was rather sensitive, so they had me sign an NDA as soon as they hired me.”

“She said the job was high-paying.”

“It was. But it just didn’t work out.” I look at her. “What do you want to hear from me? I don’t get it. People have a right to change their minds, to change cities, to do whatever they want.”

She gives me a suspicious scowl. “Were you fired? Did you do something?”

Technically speaking, she’s only half wrong. I wasn’t fired, but I definitely did something. Something big enough that burned the whole company to the ground. I let a heavy sigh leave my chest and take a long sip of my tepid coffee.

“No, I wasn’t fired. I left.”

“Why?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m trying to figure out what would possess you to come back to Portland and work for the Hawthornes when you could’ve made something of yourself in California.”

I raise both eyebrows at her in genuine surprise. “Youworked for the Hawthornes for more than thirty-five years, if I remember correctly.”

“And never got anywhere.”

“Don’t you dare blame that on Zed or any of the Hawthornes, for that matter,” I shoot back. “You had plenty of room to grow. You were just really fucking comfortable in your little corner office. At least be honest.”

She crosses her arms and gives me a sour grin. It’s times like this that I simply cannot believe we’re actually related. I may have been a child when I lost my parents—but I still remember Mom and Dad. They were good and kind, soft-hearted and gentle-natured. Nothing like Mary. It just doesn’t make sense. All I ever wanted was for her to love me, to treat me like I belonged.

Yet I always felt like a guest in this house.

“And you’re looking to do what, exactly?” she scoffs. “Pick up where I left off and rot away in a corner office?”

“I lead their financial technologies department,” I promptly reply.

“Yeah, Teagan mentioned something like that.”

“You spoke to Teagan a lot, then.”

“Well, I could never reach you. She was the only one close enough to you who could tell me the truth about how you were and what you were doing,” Aunt Mary concedes. “Listen, Christa, I think we’ve got off on the wrong foot here.”

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