Page 19 of A Little Red
She went into the bathroom and cleaned the snot off her face, but gave up after that. What was the point? She was going to end up working at some psychic hotline to pay the bills and all of her dreams were dead. She went back to the couch and picked up her bottle of wine. She was going to have order more wine. Not that she could afford to do that.
She was contemplating whether or not she could blow her tiny cushion of savings on Uber eats and alcohol when there was a knock on the door.
Hesitantly, she opened the door, wishing again that she had a peephole. Liam was standing on the other side, glaring at her. He grabbed her hand and slammed a wadded up ball of paper into it.
“No,” he said, pushing his way into the apartment.
Scarlet unfolded the paper and saw that it was her letter of resignation.
Episode 11
Scarlet’s Apartment
Liam
“You weren’t supposed to see it until tomorrow.”
Scarlet’s voice was husky, probably from crying. Her eyes were red and puffy. Liam hated that his immediate instinct was to hug her.
“Well, Grant called and I had to go back into the office so I saw it tonight. And tomorrow or tonight, the answer is still no.”
He angrily yanked off his jacket and threw it over the back of one of her two chairs. It was the first time he’d actually been inside her apartment. It was even smaller than his. Although, he liked that she’d somehow covered one entire wall in plants. It made the apartment smell green.
“You can’t veto my resignation,” she said.
“Just did.”
They stared at each other. Liam had spent the entire dinner with Anna and Paxton being furious at himself that all he wanted to do was come back and yell at Scarlet. Anna was hot. She was single. And most importantly, she was a shifter. She had also made it clear on more than one occasion that she was interested. Why couldn’t he want her the way he wanted Scarlet? And then he’d returned to the office and found Scarlet’s stupid letter. He’d read the damn thing eight times and each time it made both more and less sense. It became more logical to Scarlet and less logical for anyone normal, but all of it, even the parts he didn’t want to believe smacked of the truth.
But was it the truth? She was lying to him about something. Was it work? Was it more? Did he believe her letter because he wanted to? The anger he’d been clinging to was slipping away from him the longer he looked at her.
“Shut the door,” he growled, trying to stay in command. Scarlet blinked and looked at the door as if she’d just realized she was still holding it open. She swung it shut.
“You’re not working for anyone else?” he demanded when the door thunked closed.
She made an agonized wail of anger, stomped her foot and flailed her arms all at once. It was an entire body refutation and he loved all of it. Humans could lie with their mouths all they wanted, but their bodies betrayed them at every turn. He felt the knot in his stomach loosen. They weren’t through the woods yet, but he could see the break in the trees.
“Fine. All right. Where’s the other half?”
“What other half?” She really did look as if she’d been crying since leaving work.
“The other half of the bullshit letter. You explained the SWOT, which fine, that’s weird that you give yourself homework, but sure. I can see that you’re that kind of person.”
“What kind of person?” Her eyebrows made sharp angles of worry.
“A nerd. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re hot as hell, and I will spank you with the textbook of your choice, but let’s face facts, you’re a nerd.”
“I don’t get to practice the things I did in school and what if I get another job and I can’t do all the things I say I can do? I need to practice and I like to excel at my work,” said Scarlet. She tried to stand up straight, but that only displayed that one of the buttons on her blouse was undone in the middle. “I don’t think that makes me… OK, maybe it does make me a nerd. But I don’t own any textbooks.”
“We’ll buy one. Where’s the rest of the story?”
“Maybe I kept one or two for reference.”
She wasn’t keeping up and somehow that made it worse. She looked exhausted and confused and terribly sad and all of that was like getting hit the gut. All he wanted to do was scoop her up and hug her and promise her that everything would be better. But he had to know.
“What happened last weekend? You said you were going home.”
“No, I said I was going to see my family. And I did.” Her voice squeaked and her eyes got big.
