Page 51 of Ghost of Ex-mas Past
“There’s been a bit of a situation,” I say.
Yvette flops down onto the bed next to me, jostling my laptop and accidentally touching the screen of my tablet and closing a browser tab. “See? Workaholic.”
I shake my head. “Something happened to Charlie.”
“Well, I don’t want to be callous, but yeah, obviously. We were all there,” Kayla adds.
“No,” I say, and click around on my laptop until I find theWSJarticle.
My sisters crowd around me to read it. Despite the highly technical matter, the article is written for consumers, and I don’t have to explain much to them. Eyebrows raise, even as they bicker over scrolling down to read more.
“Oh damn,” Kayla says when Rivrse’s name first comes up.
“Shit,” Yvette says when they get to the part about breaching terms of service.
They get to the end of the article and Naomi blows out a breath. “So what does this”— she gestures at the article—“have to do with this?” Now her hand encompasses my notes and devices.
“This,” I say, swallowing hard.This is me burying myself in my work. “Is me helping my boss with an idea.”
“Are you going to explain it to us?” Yvette asks.
“Nope,” I say. It’s a half-baked idea that Nash and I have been texting about until he went to bed with one last message that saidMerry Christmas—don’t work on this tomorrow. We’ll talk more when we get back.
Kayla backs up, sitting against the wall and crossing her ankles. Now that I know she’s pregnant, I can kind of tell that she’s showing.
“Hey.” Her fingers snap to get my attention. “My eyes are up here.” She makes the universal gesture.
Yvette and Naomi shift on my other side to sit against the wall too. We move my work stuff around so I can sit back too. We’re all still in our reindeer pajamas, feet hanging off the edge of the mattress.
Naomi rests her head on my shoulder. “Charlie wouldn’t do that, right? The customer data stuff?”
Nash asked me the same thing—did I think Charlie was involved? It took me longer to answer Nash, but now I’m pretty sure.
“No, I don’t think he would.” Now that I understand what happened, I look back on this morning differently. Charlie wasn’t leaving because he wanted to. He was leaving because he wascrushed. Everything he’d worked for was gone in an instant.
I’m still mad at him. Why wouldn’t he just tell me? Did he think I wouldn’t understand? Or that I’d beg him not to go?
I pinch the bridge of my nose as tears finally,finally,try to break their way out. Of course, I would have begged him not to go. That’s exactly the dynamic we had eight years ago. I was literally begging Charlie not to forget about me, not to leave me behind.
Or would I have? The girl I was back then doesn’t exist anymore. I have a job I’m proud of, and having that self-worth makes a world of difference. I’m not desperately saving money or working a shitty job.
My sisters lean against me. Nash called me his friend, and when I told him I didn’t think Charlie was involved, he trusted me, no questions asked.
The me from eight years ago wouldn’t have had the courage to speak up about it.
There’s another knock on the door. Mom, probably.
“Come in,” I call.
The door swings open and Charlie steps in.
26
Charlie
Bea’s sistersslip out of the room but not before Yvette smiles sneakily at me and Naomi gives me the stink eye.
I sit down on the bed opposite Bea, careful not to bump my head on the top bunk. Now that her sisters are gone, I can see that there’s a laptop, a tablet, handwritten notes, and two smartphones on the bed.
