Page 79 of All the Right Words
This was something else, though. Who the hellwasOlivia?
‘This is utter madness,’ she muttered.
‘Yep,’ Gina agreed. She grinned in a way that seemed like maybe she’d lost a few marbles this afternoon. ‘It’s a real shit show.’
‘Lucky you’re here to fix it,’ Harper told her.
Gina wasn’t accepting compliments. ‘I can’t fix shit. All I can do is put out the fire. Or call the fire service. I haven’t thought this metaphor through all the way.’ She rang a number and asked to be put through to a Delia Carter, a name Harper vaguely knew as a board member for Parker. While Gina was on hold, she turned to Harper, and it was the first chance they’d really had to look at each other since the elevator. ‘How did she do this?’ Gina asked.
‘Whichthisdo you mean?’ Harper had to ask.
Gina paused, and Harper thought she might cry. But then she seemed to get her strength to speak. ‘How did shefoolme like this? I thought she was just this uptight dork with a decent heart.’
‘You’re asking the wrong person.’
Gina looked away. ‘Yeah.’ The phone was still on hold. ‘I’ll never be able to make what I did right. I want you to know that I get that.’
Harper reached out and gently turned Gina’s face back to her. ‘Does that mean you’re not going to try?’
Gina looked at her timidly. ‘Would I have the chance?’
‘Do youwantthe chance?’ Harper asked.
Gina smiled nervously. ‘We have to stop talking in questions.’
‘One more question. Did you know that I’ve always liked you?’ Harper asked.
Gina was shocked. ‘You have?’
Harper nodded. ‘I thought it was obvious.’
‘But… You don’t know me.’
Harper raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t?’ She thought it over, and she understood what Gina meant. ‘Well, how about this? I liked the cool assistant who knew my coffee order. I liked the person I watched rescue authors out of their own personal hells. I liked the person in that text conversation who didn’t judge me. The person who came to my flat to take care of me when I needed it. The person whorocked my worldon Olivia’s desk. The anxious mess sitting in front of me now. Even the itchy maniac. All those pieces of you. I liked them all.’ She shook her head at herself, thinking about how she’d never really known how to start to put those pieces together until today. That anger that she’d felt at Gina, she was astonished to realise that it was dying already. ‘You never had to hide,’ she told Gina.
Gina looked as though she’d been waiting her entire life to hear precisely that. She was trembling and afraid. And it was easy for Harper to see how you could fall in love with a person in a second, the right second. This second.
Gina put the phone down.
‘Weren’t you on hold?’ Harper asked.
‘I’ll call them back.’ She took Harper’s hand. ‘I got all this so wrong. I couldn’t have made more mistakes with you if I’d beentryingto fuck this up.’
‘We can let that go. If you get it rightnow,’ Harper told her firmly.
‘Then I’ll get it right,’ Gina vowed.
‘You seem sure.’
‘I don’t have a choice. I’m starting in the red with you,’ Gina told her.
‘You’re not in theredwith me,’ Harper said, rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t see it like that. All I want you to do is just be yourself and look me in the eye while you do it.’
Gina gave a surprised laugh. ‘You’re incredible,’ Gina told her, awestruck.
Harper giggled anxiously. ‘I don’t know aboutthat.’
‘I do. You think you could ever forgive all this?’
