Page 124 of Wishing for La Luna
Because she haunts me. “I’m not perfect, Dr. Jacinda.”
“No one is.” It sounds more like deadpanning than reassurance. “What are you going to do, Rio?”
I shrug. “I’m headed to Europe for a few concerts. Maybe give her time to cool off and then come home and try to talk to her.”
She nods. “I think that is a good plan.”
“Or maybe I should try to move on like she is trying to do.”
Her lips purse, and she moves them around like she often does when I give her something to think about. “Rio, I’m weighing how I say this carefully, but I find that full honesty is always best. Neither you nor Luna should be trying to be in relationships with others. You both need to figure out what this is, because you will fall into patterns that are not fair to other people or healthy for you.”
* * *
Luna
Is this hell?
Because I keep thinking things can’t get worse for me, and then they do. Hank sneezes again into his hands. The gurgling sound of something liquid being expelled hits the tissue. My stomach turns, saliva floods my mouth, and I have to turn away. My coworker and I exchange gazes, and I pinch my lips to stop any words from getting out—or to stop from barfing because he follows up by blowing his nose, and the squish of snot has nausea clawing its way up my throat.
We’ve been sitting here for forty-five minutes in sensitivity training. Meanwhile, I am looking for ways to stop feeling murderous about the fact that fucking Hank knew he was sick and had the nerve to show up to work today, on the day we are stuck in a conference room.
“I’m sorry, guys. I thought I would be better by now.”
You should’ve kept your ass home.
“You should go home, Hank,” Vickie, the head of HR, says.
I’m about to agree when the door opens, and Victor pops his head in.
“Luna, we have a situation.”
And I see the heavens open. I grab my phone and spring out of my chair, following Victor to his office. He goes in and sits behind his desk. This is a lot like the time I almost got myself fired for Rio.
Fucking Rio. I avoid thinking of him like the plague since our night together.
“What’s up?”
He sighs. “Thierry’s been caught on camera going into a hotel room in Vegas with two full-service workers.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
He raises an eyebrow. Probably because I don’t swear at work, but it’s the norm at Elevate. The F bombs drop on an hourly basis like breaking news.
“I’m sorry. I’m not in a good mood, and Hank is in there sick and spreading God knows what.”
He frowns. “He has the Norovirus. Why did he come to work sick?”
“Because it’s Hank. And this is ridiculous with Thierry. He and Adina just got back together again. The statements I sent toPeople MagazineandBig Apple Maghave barely left my inbox. I know he pays us well, but every week brings something new and worse than the last. It’s exhausting.”
He bobs his head. “Yeah, no kidding. I have Bethany Belmont up my ass, demanding that we fix this.”
I scoff. “Fix what? She needs to find her daughter a new man. He’s never going to stop being a fuckboy idiot.”
Victor smiles. “Youarein a bad mood. You know? The first couple of weeks you worked here, I wondered if you would be too nice for this job, but this past month, you’ve been vicious.”
Because I’m still seething at my own stupidity with Rio and that’s bleeding into every aspect of my life.
“Let me go call Thierry and get the full story so I can find the right angle to spin it.”
