Page 92 of Going Deep
Ginger scowled. “Did I not just say joyful things?”
Anna looked up from her phone. “What do you mean, her responsibility?”
“She lied too,” Lola pointed out reasonably.
Ginger was in no mood for reasonable. “He tried to buy me a job, Lola.”
“We still don’t know that.”
“I asked him,” Ginger reminded them.
“And he didn’t say yes.”
“He didn’t say no, either,” Ginger pointed out, unwilling to cede the high ground.
“Actually, I thought that part was kind of sweet,” Anna said, and shrugged when Ginger whirled on her. “What? It was.”
“Trying to buy me a job was sweet?”
“Well, yeah. Misguided, obviously,” Anna hurried to add. “And, you know, ill-advised.”
Ginger snorted.
“But he knew you needed a job, and he was trying to make that happen for you.” Anna picked up her wine. “Sorry, but I gotta go with sweet.”
Ginger turned to Lola. “Do you believe this?”
Lola shrugged. “I’m actually with Anna on this one.”
Ginger just stared. “Are you kidding me?”
“I agree it was misguided and ill-advised, and if he was going to force the director to hire you without the proper qualifications, then we can change ill-advised to…” Lola paused. “I’m not actually sure what to call that.”
“I do,” Ginger said darkly.
“But we don’t know that’s what he was going to do,” Lola continued patiently, “so I’m going to assume not until told otherwise.”
“Well, you’re awfully trusting.”
Lola only raised an eyebrow at the snap in Ginger’s voice. “Which brings me back to your responsibility in all this. Why did you just tell him what you knew?”
Ginger started to drink her wine, then realized she didn’t want it. “Because.”
“Because, why?”
“Because I was waiting for him to tell me,” Ginger said, and sniffed. “Obviously.”
“Why were you waiting for him to tell you?” Lola asked patiently.
“Is she always like this?” Ginger asked Anna.
Anna nodded. “It’s a lawyer thing. You might as well answer, she’ll just keep at you until you do.”
“Because he knows everything about me, and I know nothing about him,” Ginger said. “Because it’s all ‘share with me, I’m your Dom, I need to know’, but I get nothing from him. Because the only things I know about him came from a goddamn background check that I didn’t even run!”
There was silence for a moment, the only sounds the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the ticking of the old manual clock on the fireplace mantel.
“Those aren’t the only things you know,” Lola finally said.
