Chapter 10

Veronica

Ugh—of course they were here. Hated this place. I trudged up the steps to the front door, my boots tracking snow, and I banged on the door until it felt like my knuckles would break like icicles and fall off. It was Anna who opened the door, and her face fell at the sight of me, but I didn’t give a damn what she or anyone else thought of me right now.

“Veronica, what—”

“Why the hell did you fire Kelcey?”

She stopped, blinking fast. The house behind her—Lucy’s house, or Lucy’s grandmother Charlotte’s house technically, a crabby old woman who thrived on insulting everyone in her orbit and who I’d never really seen the appeal of—was all dressed up for Christmas with garland and lights and cozy plaid throws, a big Christmas tree twinkling in the living room behind Anna, and the air was heavy with the scent of gingerbread. I could hear Lucy and Charlotte talking from the next room, but none of that existed, not while I had a point to make or die trying.

“What?” she said after the pause. “What are you—I didn’t fire her.”

“Well, who the hell did?”

She put her hands up. “Veronica, for Christ’s sake, nobody fired Kelcey. Where did you even hear about this?”

“From Kelcey. What aren’t you telling me?”

She went wide-eyed, making a noise in her throat, before she sighed, defeated, stepping back to let me in out of the cold. Thank god. I hated the cold. I shivered and took in the warmth of the fireplace crackling next to the Christmas tree, shutting the door behind me, and I glowered at Anna until she spoke.

“She’s not fired. We just took her off the project and gave her some time out of the office. Mostly at the president’s request. Lucy and I are trying to make sure she gets back in by the new year. We also think it’s excessive and unfair, but… the president’s ego got involved so there’s only so much we can do for right now.”

So… so she wasn’t fired, at least. Thank god. I felt the fire in my chest die down a bit, and I sagged back against the wall. Still, I protested, “She was ahead of schedule on everything. If your goal was to try shaping her into your model employee, what the hell kind of lesson is it, that doing the work in half the time gets you removed from the project for a real professional to do it?”

Anna drew her lips in a tight line, expression darkening at the edges. “Since when were you talking to Kelcey?”

“I’m the outreach coordinator with ECR. So, since a minute ago now. She just didn’t realize it was me on the other side.”

Her jaw dropped, probably the most stunned I’d ever managed to get Anna, staring at me, blinking slowly, before she said, “You’re fucking joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

The floorboards creaked, and Lucy’s grandmother Charlotte rolled into the room in her wheelchair, a wispy kind of woman with thin gray hair and a look kind of like she had a lemon in her mouth. “If you’re going to bitch and moan, you might as well do it in the yard where I don’t have to hear it.”

I shot a look at Charlotte. “Ma’am, the forces of heaven and hell could move united against me, and not for one moment in a thousand years could I be made to not bitch and moan. Keep your nose out of things you couldn’t possibly comprehend.”

Charlotte scowled. “Pah, this is why I can’t stand you, Veronica, you’re too much like me.”

Lucy stepped into the room behind her, leaning against the corner and looking at Anna like she was the only person in the room. Typical Luce. “What’s going on?” she said, and Anna shot her an exasperated look.

“Kelcey’s Nic. Turns out it’s my fucking sister.”

That meant Kelcey had gone talking about me to them… which could have been nice if I hadn’t fucked everything up. I shoved my hands in my pockets, hunching my shoulders as Lucy shot me a look equal parts mortified and disbelieving with just a touch of impressed in there too.

“You’re kidding.”

“Again with this! Do I look like I’m joking?”

Charlotte scowled. “You look like you’re making a scene in my house.”

“I told you to stay out of this,” I said. “Go back to reading a book so you can complain at an inanimate object.”

“Ah, you make your sister look good in comparison,” Charlotte muttered, wheeling her chair back out of the room. “Lucy, you couldn’t have found a different family to get involved with?”

Lucy didn’t even look at her, staring pointedly at me before she laughed, a short and dry sound. “How’d you even pull that one off? There’s stalking, and then there’s next-level creeping.”

“I wasn’t trying to pull anything off. I’ve been working for ECR for six months now. I mean, I guess in the end… I got in there because I knew Danielson, and I only knew Danielson from creeping around Anna’s work… so it’s not a complete coincidence, but I didn’t try to get in touch with Kelcey. I just panicked when Danielson put me on the case to talk to her. And he told me in no uncertain terms we couldn’t afford to lose that contract, so… I wasn’t going to go and lose the contract immediately by…” I put my hands up. “Okay, I’m a shitty person! I’m stuck on Kelcey and couldn’t help wanting to talk to her again! That’s not the point now, the point is that I’m looking for whose neck I have to break to get Kelcey back to her position. You said it was the president?”

Anna pressed her fingers against her temples. “Veronica… do not break Berg’s neck. Please.” She shot me a withering look. “You know getting Kelcey’s project back isn’t going to fix things between you two.”

“Shut up, ” I said, and I convinced myself that the heat prickling wet in my eyes was tears of frustration, anger, nothing else. “I know I can’t fix that. But I know how much this project has meant to Kelcey and I at least… want her to have that… just please, I beg of you, don’t tell her I’m doing this. She’d probably beat herself up more saying something about only getting anywhere because of other people standing up for her and…”

Lucy and Anna exchanged a look. They had that annoying couple thing where they could have a full conversation just by glancing at each other, and it made me irrationally angry for no reasons remotely relating to how Kelcey and I had been like that too. Lucy smiled drily at me. “You really have got it bad.”

“Can we focus? I’m here to talk about Kelcey’s job, not… not me being an idiot and screwing everything up beyond repair. I know that. I’d like to have a minute without being reminded of it.” I tried to sound huffy and annoyed, and the tearful wobble in my voice screwed with it. Whatever. As if I cared.

Lucy and Anna exchanged another one of their stupid looks. “I’ll grab something,” Lucy said, with the resolution from having decided in her invisible conversation with Anna, turning to the kitchen, and Anna gave me a gentle smile that made me want to knock her teeth out, just a little bit.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said, and I folded my arms.

“I’m not letting you baby me. I’m not here to cry on you. I’m here to make things better for Kelcey.”

“Okay, we can stay here,” she said, walking past me and sitting on the couch by the fireplace. “Look, Veronica… sometimes you can’t make things better. And I know it’s hard.”

“Or maybe sometimes you don’t just want to give up like that,” I said, perching on the sofa arm, not wanting to sit down but—admittedly, being close to the fire was nice. “Maybe… there is nothing I can do. But at the end of the day, I’d rather look back realizing I’d done all I could but it was for nothing, than to look back and realize… maybe I could have made things a little better if I’d done just a little bit more.”

“There’s such a thing as doing too much.”

“And there’s also such a thing as doing too little. So it sounds like we’re at an impasse.”

She sighed, hanging her head. “You really are stubborn…”

“Oh, you don’t say. Also water’s wet, and you’re useless whenever Luce is around.” I sighed, hard. “Forget it. Tell Lucy I’m sorry for barging into the house and making a scene. Tell Charlotte I’m… not. I’m going.”

“Veronica—” She stood, turning to me, but I stormed out the door before she could stop me, out into the bitter freezing cold. I rode the frustration, the anger, like a vibrating core in my gut that left me sick around the edges, all the way to the car, where I drove to the office, which I never did unless Danielson was forcing me at gunpoint.

It was just Danielson inside—after work hours now, which meant it was just the guy who had no life outside of the job, and I stormed into the drafty, cluttered space and flung my hat off as I got in, marching over to his desk and planting my hands down.

“Who’s on our case?” I said, and he blinked fast, looking up at me.

“Uh… you seem to be on my case, at least.”

“Who took over for Kelcey?”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Er… it’s been moved over to Christopher Beckham. How come?”

He was so damn casual. It had probably been phrased like everything was fine, we’ve been loving the work so far, we’re moving Kelcey to a new project and Christopher is taking over this project in her stead, so please address any further communications to him… I didn’t even know who Christopher Beckham was. But I did now. “Christopher fucking Beckham,” I said, and he flinched. “That’s what I thought. I am not doing one thing with that foul, slimy cheat of a man. We’re making it clear we need Kelcey Huntington back on the damn project.”

He looked around frantically. Poor guy looked like I was threatening to shank him. I’d have considered it if he said no. “What’s wrong with Christopher? He’s seemed perfectly lovely so far.”

“Of course he seems lovely at first. The second the project wraps up, you’ll see why they put Cost-Cutting Christopher on the case. We’ll get screwed six ways from Sunday and have every technical contingency pulled out to find ways to stiff us, up to and including just not paying us and saying fuck you, make me. I’ve seen his handiwork before. We’re not doing a damn thing with Christopher.” Poor Christopher. I’d ask Anna to apologize to him on my behalf later.

He put his hands up helplessly. “Okay, I can ask for someone else, but this is kind of a big client. They’re about a million times our size. We can’t really push them too much. And they sounded pretty definitive in Kelcey being needed somewhere else.”

“If we don’t have Kelcey on this project, I am out the door.”

He blinked. “You’re threatening to quit over Kelcey Huntington?”

“I’m not threatening anything. I’m helpfully letting you know that I’ll leave if we don’t have Kelcey back on.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty of other people in the department better than Christopher—”

“If you put up a fuss just about not wanting to work with Christopher, then we’ll get Miranda on the case, and she’ll be bitterly miserable with our work and always have more criticisms until we run out of money and die.” That one at least was true. Christopher was just catching strays.

“How do you even know all of this?” He frowned. “Wait… you said your sister is in this department. Why don’t you go to her?”

“Already did. She also wants Kelcey back on, but the jackass CEO wanted to wave his dick around and make a point to Kelcey and made her leave the project. So we’re going to make it difficult until Kelcey comes back on. And I’m going to make it difficult for you until you do that. Including that I’m about to leave and go home and get back to those initial drafts, which are only on my laptop, and continue to work on them, and if you want them, you know what to do.”

He shook his head helplessly. “What… has gotten into you? Didn’t realize you and Kelcey Huntington had gotten on this well.”

This situation was already three hundred conflicts of interest in a trench coat. We didn’t need Danielson finding out about another one. “Are you kidding? Huntington is as valuable a link as Lakeshore itself. Do you want Silverfield General Hospital, or do you not?”

“Ah…” He looked back at his computer. “Hm.”

“I’ll let you know once I have these drafts completed in full. If hopefully you come to your senses before then, you know where to find me.”

Danielson didn’t say anything else to me on my way out—probably too dazzled by my charisma, or maybe by my breaking the door down and looking at him like I was about to use his intestines for Christmas garland, hard to say which one—and I marched straight on to the car again, where I was still rattling around in my seat with even more anger building up explosively, and I blared Disturbed and screamed along to Down with the Sickness, pounding on the steering wheel to the backbeat, and by the time I got back to my apartment, I’d let all the anger out, but I regretted letting it out, because once it was out, there was nothing left in but feeling sad, and I hated sad.

I slumped back in the seat, staring up at the spot where the ceiling upholstery sagged above my head, and I sank lower, pulling up my phone, scrolling through my images. I’d deleted all my pictures of Kelcey at her request, but I still went scrolling through, looking for any I missed… just wanting to look at her face again.

Something in my chest jumped when I found one that had missed the bitter stupid heartache of my earlier sweep—a picture from an event in the spring, not focused on Kelcey, since I’d deleted the dozen or so that did focus on her, but she was there in the picture, a little small on the other side of a table, talking to a friend of ours. I zoomed in on her, just… looking. A little pixelated, caught from the side while she was mid-speaking, she was still perfect. Like the rest of the room fell away around her, like a picture where everything was desaturated except for one point. The only person in every room.

Ugh… I needed to delete this one too. But I’d… do it… later. I wanted to keep it forever, but… that was disrespectful to her wishes. But I couldn’t bring myself to right now, not when I was this bitterly sad and just wanted to look at even this little smudge of her face.

“Sorry, Kelce,” I whispered, staring at the phone. “Even after it’s done, I’m still being a dick and putting my own wants over yours…”

I sighed, hard, putting the phone away, picking up my things and climbing out of the car, heading into the apartment. It was so damn cold. And snowy. I hated Christmas. I needed a cave in the mountains from which to sneer at the town and curse Christmas, the whole Christmas season.

And I was shocked and horrified in equal measures when I got into the complex door and went upstairs to find my mother there, waiting outside my door.

She turned and gave me an incredulous look, like I was supposed to come here earlier to meet her for some pre-planned event we did not plan. “Anna!” she said. “What took you so long?”

“I’m Veronica.”

She waved me off. “Veronica—what took you so long? I sent you a million texts.” She showed me her phone, complete with messages sent to Anna.

“I’m Veronica.”

She waved me off. “That’s what I said. Anyway, are you letting me inside or what? I heard you and Kelcey had a fight. What’s going on?”

I folded my arms. “Ugh, who told you that?”

She beamed. “Why, Miss Charlotte, of course. She’s wonderful.”

Dammit. Of course it was. I hung my head. “Mom, go away. Don’t you have stuff to do at home?”

“Hah. Are you telling me to go be a nice homemaker? And to not interfere in things I don’t understand? That’s not very feminist of you, Veronica.”

“No, I’m telling you you’re annoying. Kelcey and I didn’t have a fight, we broke up ages ago and I just keep doing stupid things that make it worse and I never have a chance with her again so please stop bringing it up,” I said, my voice wobbling, and my attempts at defiant crumbled to ash as I felt hot streaks on my cheeks. “Mom. Go away,” I protested again, and she gave me a hug, which I neither needed nor wanted.

“Oh, honey,” she said. “My precious baby. I’m so sorry.”

“Me too,” I choked. “I feel very sorry that you’re here. I wish you weren’t.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I am.”

“That’s why I’m worrying…”

She didn’t leave me alone, and I gave up, opening my front door and letting her in with me, where I sat on the couch with my head in my hands and she set about making me food. Mom remained unchanged through the years… seeing someone sad and making them food. It was sweet on the face of it, but I just wanted to be alone to cry.

“Lucy, sweetheart,” Mom said, sitting next to me once the food was simmering, and I sighed.

“You can’t even wait until she’s legally your daughter to start mixing her up with your other daughters?”

“What happened with you and Kelcey?”

“Oh my god, I don’t want to talk about it,” I groaned. “Boundaries! Mom! Do you know what they are?” I shot her a look. “You’re worse than I am! Showing up at the events and trying to get Kelcey together with me… take a damn hint!”

She gave me puppy-dog eyes. “Are you mad at me, Veronica?”

“Oh, now you can get my name right. Yes, I am! I’m mad at everything right now. I’m not mad about the food, though, it smells nice. Thanks. But I’m still mad at you. Give me some space, dammit. I just want to… cry.”

She put a hand on my back. “But you’ll get her back, right? You two are so wonderful together.”

“Oh my god, you won’t listen. I’m not trying to get her back. That… she’s made it clear she doesn’t want me back and she won’t hear anything else. I need you to hear that too. It hurts when you keep telling me to go patch things up with her because I can’t and I just…” I looked down, hunching my shoulders. “I want to make things… better for her. At least a little bit.”

She didn’t say anything, just watching me, taking it in. I folded my arms.

“I’ve got a job to do. I’m going to make sure it’s completed under Kelcey’s name. It’s going to keep me busy every minute of the week, but… it’s kinda the least I can do. She deserves that much.”

“Is there anything I can do for you, sweetie?”

I shook my head. “Just… just give me the space to do it.”

She squeezed my shoulder. “Well, I love you, and I’m here for you however I can be. There’s food on the stove so you can help yourself while you work. If you need someone to help out with food or cleaning or anything while you work, I’m here. Or you can come back to the family house… not tonight, though. Matthew and Chelsea are there tonight too, a little hosting.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Gould? Again? They’ve been around like every day lately.”

She smiled warmly. “They’re both wonderful. They complement me and your father beautifully.”

“Mom, is this a swinger’s arrangement?”

Mom looked horrified at me, dropping her hands by her sides. “Veronica! Where did you learn that word?”

I stared at her. “I’m almost thirty years old, Mom. I’ve been the unicorn for married couples before. I know these things.”

“You’ve been what? When?”

“Do you want me to list every time?”

Her jaw dropped further. “Oh, god, Veronica. Multiple times?”

“Nah, just once each.”

“Oh my god.”

“The point is, you don’t have to be squeamish about these things.”

She put her chin up. “It’s not a swinger’s arrangement, Veronica. It’s just… a very special bond.”

Yeah, that was code for a swinger’s arrangement. Either that or foursomes, but I absolutely could not see Mom doing that. I could see Matthew Gould doing it, though. Another conflict of interest for the pile. Anna was going to have an aneurysm once she found out. “Well, thanks for the food, Mom. Might come by the family house another time when you’re not all busy with some filthy special bonds in it.”

She made a desperate face at me. “Veronica! Don’t say it like that!”

But I managed to escort her from the premises before too much longer, and I sat in front of my laptop, a million feelings crystallized into something I’d never had in my life before: a resolution to get to work.

Guess Kelcey brought out all kinds of things in me. Gayness, feelings, and work ethic. Hell of a trio.

But if this was the only thing I could do, then I was going to do it.