Page 64 of Careless Whisper

“Tough,” he snapped. “Kirk Agar, that weasel withdrew his complaint.Officially. And Dr. Loring is under review. Mrs. D and Dr. Cabrera are on everyone’s ass. We’ve all talked to Mrs. D, and an HR dude no one knows. We think he’s an investigator.”

I barely processed what he was blabbing about. I didn’t give a shit what was happening at work. I did not care!

“Okay.”

“You sound majorly excited about this,” he muttered sardonically.

I suppressed a whimper, putting the phone next to me as I slumped onto the couch, my trusted cashmere throw around me.

“Yeah. Elias”—he paused, and I felt my stomach tighten at the mention of his name—“he got it all started.”

“I don’t want to talk about…him.”

Liar!

“Too bad,” he replied flatly. “He’s fighting for you. We all are, Reggie.”

Why are you all fighting for me when I barely have the energy to open my eyes?

“I miss you, Reggie,” Luther added quietly.

I felt an arm on my shoulder, and a tear rolled down my cheek. Grandpa wiped it and kissed my forehead. He picked up the phone, took it off speaker, and put it to his ear.

“Luther, hi. This is Stephen Lancaster. I’m Reggie’s grandfather,” he said as he disappeared into the bowels of the house.

I was surrounded by family—which was nice because that took the pressure off me to do anything for myself.

Even Uncle Jason had started coming home every night, and considering his busy social life, that told me how much he worried about me.

“Don’t you have women waiting todo stuff with you?” I whined when he insisted we watchThe Scorpion Kingbecause it was so bad that it was good.

At forty-two, Uncle Jason was fifteen years younger than my mother and a sought-after bachelor in New York.

G’Mum had Mama when she was just nineteen. It had been the first time she and Grandpa had sex, which, according to my grandfather, meant he had superior sperm, though G’Mum said it was more that his condom-wearing skills had been bad. She didn’t have Jason until she was nearly thirty-four years old because she wanted to finish her master’s degree in English before having children again.

“My niece is more important than a piece of ass,” Uncle Jason mocked.

“Ugh! Piece of ass, Uncle Jason? That’s so misogynistic.”

“Damn, I hope Mum didn’t hear that. She’ll kick myarse,” he said, looking around the media room to make sure G’Mum had indeed not heard him.

For two months, I languished, ignoring everyone’s advice on how to pull myself out of my depression before G’Mum decided my time was up.

The truth was that the time off was healing. Iwasfeeling better and had already started to feel fidgety about sitting on a couch all day, deciding what wasbetter, reading a romance novel or watching a romance on television.

I was eating breakfast—warm oatmeal with blueberries, my favorite—when G’Mum gave me theeyewhile she was arranging flowers with a kind of theatrical focus that meant she was holding in commentary. When I didn’t offer encouragement, she delivered it anyway.

“You’ve got that look,” she mused. “The brooding one. VeryWuthering Heights. Quite romantic. Also,veryannoying.”

“I’m not the one with the look,” I muttered. “You’re the one with the look.”

“Darling, I love you dearly.” G’Mum snipped the stem of a rose and popped it into the large Waterford vase. “But I don’t think sulking in cashmere is the way for you to process losing your job.”

“I quit my job; they didn’t fire me,” I corrected her. “And I need the cashmere because you keep the brownstone at freezing temperature.”

She waved me off with a manicured hand. “I have decided”—she went on like I hadn’t spoken—“you’re coming with us to Boston. We’ve got a gala to attend this weekend. Charity, tuxedos, schmoozing with insufferable rich people—your favorite.”

I groaned. “Hard pass.”

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