Page 130 of Heart & Hope

So, she’s firing me.

Fucking perfect.

I stand and straighten my tan pencil skirt. The red heels that I wear like a second skin dig into her plush carpet. “You know what, Olive? I quit.”

“You won’t receive severance pay, Robbins.”

She rarely calls me by my last name. I can remember the one occasion she did. She was irate with me, but back then I was a junior. So much has changed since then.

I have changed.

“Not bothered, darlin’.” I give her my best Harry voice and stride for the door.

“Ruby!?”

I turn back with one hand resting on the silver door handle. “Hand in your access cards before you leave, please.”

I flash her a smile that would freeze lava. She jerks in her chair. The girl at the assistant’s desk sinks into hers as I walk toward it.

“She reamed you out, too?” she asks quietly, glancing at the door that just closed behind me.

“I quit, actually.”

“Lucky you. She has been horrid ever since her husband was caught cheating on her. I know I should feel bad for her, but she is so mean.”

Oh, that explains some things.

For a moment, my heart bleeds for Olive. But with bridges burned, I know better than to try and backpedal over ashes.

“Give her some space; she’ll come around.” I smile, sweetly this time, and salute her with two fingers. By the time I reach the elevator, my brain has caught up with my actions, and I slam my eyes shut, slumping against the wall.

Captain.

Mack had told me what that salute meant between Reed and me.

And the way he reacted the first time I wore the faded red Captain’s Choice t-shirt with my PJ shorts . . .

But I have some things to work out before I can consider where Reed and I stand. If we stand together at all.

Back in the apartment, I pull out boxes from the spare room closet. Dust drifts down as I flip the lid off the last box. I can’t remember why I started hunting through the rubble of my childhood and the past ten years, but I’m on the last box, so... Why stop now?

Books and a journal sit in the box. I blow the remnants of a decade from the surface of the journal and open the cover.

Ruby Jane Robbins

Age: 10

I slip the pages across with a finger, reading the ramblings of a ten-year-old prone to daydreaming. The spine is cracked on the sparkling hardcover book, and when I place it on the floor, it spills open to the center spread.

My ultimate dream: To have a home where I feel I belong and people who love me, lots and lots and always, no matter what!

I stare at the page as the words I wrote eighteen years ago deliver a sucker punch with acute precision. I never felt loved in my childhood home. And I never really let myself think about it.

Until recently.

Until the Rawlinses.

Until Reed.

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