Page 17 of Go Find Less

“Oh, you read some?” Her voice has a snide tone to it I haven’t heard before. “Let me guess, you Googled me?” I blink at her. “And what did you find, Fitz? Please, enlighten me.” I shift in my seat, feeling like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. But it’s the first time I’ve ever heard her say my name, and it stirs something in me.

“Well,” I start, fidgeting. “Not much. I saw the obituary, and a few articles. An event.” Her eyebrows raise, and she crosses her arms, her fingers flexing involuntarily.

“The baseball tournament?” I give a small nod. “Did you read all about how the funds go to some poor soul fighting cancer in shithole, Kansas?” She laughs, and it’s almost villainous as she continues without waiting to respond. “What they don’t mention is that the first year, they tried to say the money went to pay for his family’s expenses.” She tips her head down, giving me a pointed look. “They hadzeroexpenses. They didn’t pay for jack shit. My family paid for living expenses, upfront medical costs, hell, it took me a year to pay my aunt back for his funeral, while his family sat and jeered at me with their cozy little community of supporters three states away.” I try to keep my face neutral. "My mom, my sister, my aunt, my friends, they spent more time with Mickey than his own family did in the end.

“I can’t believe they didn’t help you.” It comes out as a statement, and my tone is more accusatory than the disbelief I feel.

“They did nothing. They and their friends spent months making my life hell from Kansas while I was Mickey’s full time caregiver. And, when he died, they sued me for the life insurance to add insult to injury.”

I’m floored. What kind of people would do something like that? Abandon their child and then reap the benefits of his death?

“So no, Fitz, I’m not fragile.” She stands quickly, and my response is immediate, standing with her as she leans over to pick up her purse, clearly over the conversation. “And I don’t need pity from you of all people, because what happened to me is just another prime fucking example of people sitting by while a living, breathing human being gets treated like absolute shit.”

Her comment hits me in the chest like I’ve been punched. Me. She was talking about me. And the times I’d sat by while Andy and Olivia teased and taunted her, about the times growing up when she was made to feel inadequate. And it had happened all over again just years later.

“People like Andy,” she says, pulling her bag onto the desk and stuffing her tablet inside, “People like my former in-laws - fuck, people like my late husband - they made me small.”

“People like me,” I breathe. She stops, looking back up at me. “Can I ask you something?” I keep my voice even, trying not to display my interest, but my curiosity at this situation is clearly visible to her, because she nods, resigned. “What about his daughter?” She sucks in a quick breath. “It’s OK if you don’t want to tell me, I just-"

“No,” she says, and her hands, which had been perched on the table tightly, relax slightly. “I didn’t know Kayla existed until months before Mickey died.”

“How long were you together?” The question is personal, but at this point, I’ve laid my cards out on the table.

“Four years total,” she answers, her mouth twisting slightly at the corner. “But no one even mentioned her, or her mother, until I found out about them. And then even a DNA test couldn’t convince his family that she wasn’t his.” At what I'm sure was a shocked look on my usually passive face, she adds “It’s a long story.”

“You don’t have to get into it.” I look down at my desk. “I’m sure it’s a lot.”

“It is a lot.” She smiles sadly, and then, without warning, reaches her hand up to hold the side of my face, the cold metal of her rings against my cheek. The touch nearly makes me flinch - it’s soft, but the look on her face isn’t affectionate. It’s determined. “You can actually be a pretty good conversationalist when you’re not putting up a front. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you without chronic RBF.”

I can’t help the huff of laughter that bubbles up, still trying to recover from her touch. Her smile widens slightly.

“But I stopped making myself small for people a long time ago. I’m not about to do it again.” She takes her hand back, and my cheek feels cold. She hikes her bag on her shoulder and turns, crossing to the door before turning back to where I stand, still slightly stunned. “I’ll have to come back another day to take measurements, I need to go.” Piper gives me one last smile, this time brighter, before heading out the door, her mess of curls bouncing behind her as I watch her go.

As soon as the door clicks closed behind her, I fall into my seat, groaning.

I had completely and totally misjudged the situation she was in, and it was my own damn fault. Making assumptions about things I didn’t truly understand. Trying to riddle them out before I really knew what was going on. Deep diving into things that weren’t my business in the first place, making an ass of myself in the process.

Piper had come in here ready and willing to help us do something for the people we’d graduated with, even those who had treated her like shit - like me - and I’d basically told her that I’d believed every word I’d read on the internet about her like some conspiracy theory nutbag.

I lean forward in my chair, cradling my head in my hands. Her tape measure sits on the desk next to my elbow.

There was something about her I never noticed all those years ago, even after her near-complete transformation later in school. She treated me like everyone else. Despite the shit Andy had thrown at her, despite what I’d let happen to her, despite what had happened to her in the time since we’d last seen each other; she talked to me like I hadn’t been a part of the cause of her pain. She smiled at me, though it was heartbreaking and even a little cold. But for all the shit she went through, when I probed, she answered. I accused, she explained. And she was kind, kinder than I deserved. That piece of her she’d held onto, through it all.

I fucked up. This woman, the one I’d just let leave my office without so much as an apology, was something else. I couldn’t deny anymore what I’d been thinking since returning to my office weeks ago, hours after seeing her for the first time in a decade. I overlooked her, not due to any fault of her own, but because I was so wrapped up in my shit that I couldn’t see through the walls I’d built to keep my emotions in check. I was too busy pretending I didn’t care about anyone else to actually care about anyone else.

I groan to myself again. There was no denying she was attractive. She was, even in high school, if not a little more quirky. But she had morphed into this curvy, confident woman that designed lingerie, for Christ’s sake.

And the way my fucking heart lept into my throat seeing that vibrator.

I can’t help the mental image that seeps into my brain. Watching her slip off that blue negligee from her drawing, crawling on top of my duvet and leaning herself up against my headboard, that purple bullet in hand. Spreading her legs, lowering the vibrator down…

I shake my head. Stop it. I need to apologize. Anything else would require showing that I cared. And after years of refusing to share that side of myself with anyone but one person, and that one person betraying that trust, I’m not sure I can do that again.

A part of my brain, feral and hormone riddled, says that I don’t need to show I care in an emotional sense to put my head between her legs and make her moan until she forgets who she is, much less what she’s been through - what I helped put her through.

Logic tells me, though, that I don’t deserve for her to even give me the time of day.

Chapter 6

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