Page 68 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
I nod, lips pressing together.
“It’s anything, Ro.” He looks at me, and his voice is steady in the quiet of his car. “It’s always been anything. That’s still true—it’s going to be true no matter what happens.”
I don’t want to cry again; I’ve cried so much in the last weekI’m scared I’ll never dry out. But it happens anyway—my eyes fill with tears, and Miller smiles as he goes blurry.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
He laughs, pulling me toward him over the console. He kisses my cheekbone, then my lips. “I’m sure.” When he backs away, I reach a hand up to trap his where it rests on the side of my neck.
“Then I need your help,” I tell him.
He nods, his eyes never leaving mine. “Always.”
“If they won’t do it, we have to find a way to end it ourselves.” I draw a breath, make myself say the words before I can back out of them. “Damage MASH’s reputation so badly no one will use it anymore.”
Slowly, Miller nods. There’s something resolute about his face, the set of his lips. When he speaks, his voice is firm and sure.
“All right,” he tells me. “Let’s burn it down.”
I drive straight from Miller’s house to Beans, where Dad is standing behind the espresso machine with a towel over one shoulder.
“She’s here,” I tell him, before he’s even had the chance to say hello. “She’s been behind this all along.”
“Who?” he says, pouring steamed milk into a to-go cup.
I clear my throat, look straight at him. “My mom.”
His whole body goes rigid. Over the stereo, Bing Crosby croons softly about Santa Claus.
“She’s—” His eyes dart behind me to the front windows. “She’s here?”
“Nothere, here.” I walk up to the counter, and he passes thelatte to a waiting customer without even looking at her. “In Denver. She owns XLR8.”
“What?” His whole face screws up in disbelief. And if I hadn’t seen her with my own eyes, I’d feel the same—this is impossible. There’s no way, except that there is. “Are you—you saw her?”
I nod, and it’s only when I reach up to hold the divider between us that I realize my hands are shaking. Dad realizes it, too.
“Henrietta,” he says, glancing at the employee behind the cash register. “You can head home, I’ll close up here.”
“Really?” She eyes him, then glances across the café. It’s decked out for Christmas—plaid blankets thrown over the backs of the armchairs by the fireplace, a fairy-light garland over the front door. “It’s only four.”
“That’s okay,” he says, managing a smile. “Enjoy your holiday.”
She looks between us one more time before untying her apron and hanging it on the hook at the back of the tiny kitchen. When she leaves, door bells tinkling behind her, we’re alone. Dad locks the front door and flips the sign from Opento Closed, then motions me over to the chairs by the fire.
“You’re okay?” he asks, his eyes moving over my face. When I nod he leans forward, suspending his elbows on his knees. “Tell me what happened.”
“She bought XLR8 last spring.” The longer I talk, the quicker my words are, going fast and frantic. “Under an LLC, so her name wasn’t anywhere. And when MASH went viral it was her idea for XLR8 to step in, and I thought I’d earned this success but I didn’t,shemade it happen—and now with thisNew York TimesarticleI have to stop the app, it’s too much, it’s hurting people I don’t even know and she won’t let me shut it down, she owns half of the whole thing and it’s like I don’t even get a vote even though I made this but I guess she made it, too, and—”
Dad stops me, his big hand landing on my knee. “Honey,” he says gently. “Slow down.”
I stare at his fingers, draw a shaky breath.
“She tricked me,” I say, finally. When I look up at him, his eyes are creased at their corners. “I don’t want her here and she found a way to reach me anyway.”
Dad hesitates, like he has a lot to say and he’s trying to decide where to begin. Christmas music is still wafting from the speakers.
“This success belongs to you,” he says. He lifts his hand from my knee as he leans back, rubbing at the space between his eyebrows. “Whether it was her or anyone else seeing something in you—they saw it because it was there. Okay?”
