There was a long pause where I could practically feel her embarrassment through the phone.
"Um," she hummed. "I'm just going to hang up now."
"No, no, no. Please don't. We've just barely gotten started, baby." That sentence could cover our whole situationship. "You know I think about that night all the time."
Silence.
I realized suddenly how that came across. "Not because of the sex, you perv. Well, notjustbecause of the sex. Because of the connection. I've never hit it off like that with another soul in my life."
Nothing from her. Or so I thought. Because then the sweetest words I'd ever heard came over the line.
"I feel the same."
I wanted to shout. I wanted to scream it from the rooftops that this girl had just admitted something monumental. She'd actually said, "I feel the same."She feels the fucking same?
But then, like that was too much for her, she swiftly changed the subject. "So how was your day? How's work going?"
Okay, okay. I understood. One step forward and two steps back. But it was still fucking progress, and I'd take it. I did wonder, however, why everyone was so obsessed with my work lately. First Archie and now her.
"Work's fine." To be honest, I couldn't really get too excited about anything there right now. Everything was getting complicated all of a sudden, my latest project hitting obstacles at every turn, like an invisible enemy was conspiring against me.
"Fine? That doesn't sound very fine."
"Nah, it's good. All good." I laughed, trying to play it off, because I didn't really want to talk about it. I had the most beautiful woman in the world on the phone with me, and I couldn't think of anything more boring to talk about than my job. "What about you? How's your work?"
And here we were at another crossroads, the strangeness of our half-anonymous situation keeping us from a normal topic of conversation.
Her tinkle of laughter met my ear, a tinge of nerves in there, I could have sworn.
"It's good. All good," she said, repeating my words back to me.
Clearly, she was done with the topic. So what the hellcouldwe talk about?
"You mentioned before about your dad..." she said.
Of all the things in the world, she was circling back to my dad? "Yeah? What about him?" I asked.
"Are you two close?"
I nearly choked. She wondered if I was close to that man? Thinking back, I tried to remember exactly what I'd said about him to her before, and all I could come up with was mentioning his bullshit second marriage and neglecting Archie.
And of course, she knew I worked for him, knew my last name was on his company letterhead, and most likely had read all about his contentious first marriage with my mom too.
"No. We're not close. Actually, I'm not close with either of my parents." The words came out harsher than I intended. "My mom lives in Paris with her third husband, and I hardly ever hear from her. And my dad? Well, I've hated him for as long as I can remember."
Her gasp of astonishment came through the phone. "You hate your father?"
"I do."
"Why?"
Because he's a nasty old prick. Because he's never had a single nice word for me. Or anyone for that matter. Because every single thing out of his mouth since I could remember was critical. "He's just an asshole, plain and simple. Always has been and probably always will be. I have no hope that he'll ever change."
She thought about that for a beat. "Then why do you work for him?"
That was a good fucking question. A complicated one that I wasn't sure I could explain. "Because when I graduated and tried to step out on my own, every other door mysteriously closedwhen I tried to walk through it. Rent, car, life... those things don't pay for themselves. And he made sure I had nowhere else to go."
As the words left my mouth, a sudden wave of regret hit me. Sure, I hadn't had much of a choice when I'd started there. But now?
