Page 73 of All the Ugly Things

She was doing it. Warmth stretched my lungs and made them expand as I took her in, the tapping of her chewed-up fingernails on the counter as she bit her bottom lip. “And celebrate a new job, too?”

“I think we can definitely have dinner for that.”

“As friends,” she said.

“As friends,” I agreed.

For now. For a while. For as long as it took.

* * *

“Doyou know what she’s thinking?” Dad asked as we met outside the conference room. I wasn’t entirely sure why we didn’t use his office, but I wasn’t offering up mine for this meeting, either.

I doubted it was for the same reasons.

Mine was so I didn’t have the memory of Lilly in my office, giving us a hard-earned smile or maybe another low laugh, to distract me throughout the day.

This gave me separation, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t an issue for Dad.

Stephanie knocked on the opened doorframe like she always did before entering a room and brought us a tray of water bottles.

“I can grab some wine from the lounge on seven if you’d like some,” she offered.

“No, thank you.”

Dad turned to me, brows dipping down. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.” I waited until Stephanie left. Mostly because after she showed up last Friday, dripping in sweat and fury and screaming at us, she’d walked away muttering, “Well, there goes another potential assistant.”

Dad wanted Stephanie to have some help due to his busier schedule with the new projects we had rolling out, and Stephanie had been stubborn up until six months ago, refusing, saying she didn’t need it.

Truth was, she did. Between him and I, and as self-reliant as we were, Stephanie had her hands full.

After Stephanie left, I turned to Dad. “Lilly can’t have alcohol. It’s a parole condition.”

“Oh.” His brows rose slowly on his forehead. “I didn’t know that.”

“And last week when I ran into her, I didn’t tell you she was coming out of an AA meeting.”

“Yikes.” He cringed. “It’s a good thing you remembered then.”

“She said she didn’t have a problem. Actually, she said she’d never had wine before.”

Dad shook his head, understanding and compassion clouding his features. “Damn shame. So damn young to lose much of your life. The best years…”

He trailed off and I gave him a minute. Melissa was twenty-eight when she died. Being around Lilly reminded him of his own daughter, but in different ways.

As much as I liked Lilly, as much as I was attracted to her, I wasn’t lying on the campus that day.

Her entering our lives was going to create a mess I wasn’t sure I could clean up.

“You should tell her. Everything.”

He shook his head. “Time isn’t right yet.”

My fingers thrummed the conference table. “When will it be?”

“When it is,” he said, right as Stephanie reappeared. She wore her patient and professional smile as she stepped back and announced, “Miss Huntington is here to see you.”

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