Page 71 of Phishing for Love
After the meal is finished, we sit at the half-cleared table, the sun warm on our skins, our bellies full. A mellow, relaxed mood hangs over the table.
Aaron fights a smile as he stares at my grandmother dozing in her chair. “Hmm, she reminds me of someone.”
I narrow my eyes at him. No one in my family knows I fell asleep in his training session.
“It’s on the tip of my tongue,” he muses.
“Honeycomb for dessert?” I ask him with wide, innocent eyes.
He’s silent, staring at me. Just when I’m beginning to wonder if I pushed him too far, dangling his dot phobia before him, he throws his head back and laughs.
Pleasure blooms inside my chest. I like making him laugh. I like it way more than I should.
“What are you talking about, Tess?” Mom says, frowning. “Dessert is a cheese board, not honeycomb.”
“I forgot,” I say easily.
Stretching in my chair, I suck in a long, lazy breath. Unfortunately, I also happen to suck in something else. The bloated, black fly that’s been buzzing around our table. To my horror, I feel that sucker frantically fly to the back of my mouth and attempt to make his way down my throat.
I do what any normal person would do in these circumstances. I leap to my feet and double over, heaving and coughing and choking in a desperate attempt to eject that disgusting thing from my mouth.
“Gross,” someone—it sounds like Nathan—mutters.
“I must apologize, Aaron,” I hear my mom blurt out. “This is not how we raised her.”
Right now, I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. I have only one objective, and that’s not to swallow a giant fly. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kate pick up a knife, and I give a frantic head shake. No way is she going allRosemary’s Babyon me, slitting my throat to help me breathe.
Finally, I get that sucker out, along with copious amounts of saliva.
In between bouts of laughter, Kate wheezes, “That is possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
“I don’t care,” I say hoarsely. At least my throat is blessedly clear.
I glance over at my parents, but they’re not looking at me, they’re both staring in wonder at Kate, their eyes misty.
That’s when it hits me.
Kate, who hasn’t laughed in years, has tears of laughter streaming down her face.
Happiness bursts inside me. It’s worth all the embarrassment in the world to see my sister laugh like this.
Somehow, even Aaron has grasped the importance of this moment. He doesn’t know Kate’s history, but it’s as though he recognizes a kindred spirit, connecting in some way to whatever is broken and damaged inside Kate.
And the way he’s staring at my sister, with such quiet hope on his face, makes my heart pinch.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The email lands in my inbox the following Tuesday, about an hour after lunch.
The subject message reads: PLEASE CONSIDER CONTRIBUTING TO THE BULLDOG SOCIETY CHARITY RUN.
I glance at the sender. It’s from Calvin, but I remember the sophisticated phishing test Aaron sent out a couple of weeks ago. The one that so many of us, including me, had failed. What had he called it? CEO fraud. He’d even copied Calvin’s writing style and addressed the email to each of us personally. Exactly like this email.
“The sneaky son of a...” My words drift off as I shake my head in resentment and grudging admiration.
How clever to cast out another CEO fraud phishing test so soon after the first one to see who takes the bait.
Not me. Not anymore.
