Chapter 2

"W hat?" I stared in shock and then repeated myself. "What?" Those workout shorts hadn't worked out? But I'd seen him almost have a stroke when she'd bent over! "Seriously?"

"Are you fucking deaf?" Gigi howled. I wasn't, and her voice had risen a lot when she asked that. Only a person with a profound hearing loss would have missed those words. I was sure that anyone could have clearly read her lips, though, and they also would have seen her tragic pose: hands clutching her hair, head thrown back, eyes closed in agony. Her message was clear.

She'd been wronged!

"I can hear you perfectly well," I answered. "I just don't understand—"

"He fired me! That fucking dick! That asshole!"

"Hey, Juliet, could you go back to your desk? It's company policy," the human resources rep told me. He was standing against the wall next to a security guard and both of them were keeping a watchful eye on Gigi as she dumped out her drawers and threw her personal items into a cardboard box.

"Ok," I said, but I moved very slowly toward her office door. "I thought you two had figured things out," I mentioned to my (former) coworker.

She looked up at me, her eyes teary but her mouth snarling in anger. She had alternated between crying and screaming since she'd come out of the meeting with Beckett Forsman and two people from the HR department. "What do you mean, ‘Figured things out?'" she barked. "Are you trying to ask if I screwed him?" I watched her expression become calculating. "Yeah, I did! That's why he fired me, because he took advantage of me and he's afraid that I'll tell and ruin him. I could ruin him!"

"Right," I said, nodding. It was obviously baloney and the security guard rolled his eyes, but the HR guy got nervous.

"I think he's gay!" she told me next, which was definitely possible. But I considered that if Beckett Forsman had turned her down, it might not have been due to his preference for other men. There was also the problem that Gigi was just so…obvious. She put everything right out there, and my mom had always told me that guys preferred a little mystery. After all, wasn't that why my dad had fallen so hard for her that he'd proposed on the second date, at the top of a beautiful waterfall, as butterflies fluttered past?

"So you didn't sleep with Beckett Forsman," I stated, which I considered important to clear up in front of witnesses.

"Didn't I just say so? He must be gay," she said, faltering a little and then going back to tears. "What am I going to do? My mother depends on my paycheck and I work so hard to provide for her!"

Except I knew, since I'd heard her mention it, that her mother lived in Daytona Beach and they hadn't spoken in three or more years. They'd gotten into an argument, I'd gathered, when Gigi had started dating one of her mom's former boyfriends—and it wasn't exactly clear, but he might not have been "former" at the time. Gigi had shown me posts of her mom frolicking on a beach with dog and a six pack in her hand, and she'd called her a drunk, fat witch who never should have put on a bikini. She'd told me that they had nothing to do with each other, so the pathetic story about her mother needing her hard-earned salary?

Nope.

"Miss," the guard reminded me. He checked his nails and seemed bored.

"Sorry," I told him. "Bye, Gigi."

She gave me the finger. "You're next," she announced, and I went back to my desk.

It was entirely possible that I was going to be the next to go. This week had been horrendous; Gigi was the third person to get fired and it was only Thursday! The man whom I'd sent in for his intake interview, Ivan (or maybe JC? Michael?), had been the first to get canned. Another guy had followed in quick succession and they'd both cleaned out their desks.

I watched from afar as Gigi packed like she was a character in a reality TV show. She really was just as hammy and dramatic as one of those women, stomping around and gesturing weirdly as if she'd had trouble learning the stage directions. She ended up throwing what looked like a fistful of hair gel against the wall, which was totally unexpected. Even the security guard had been shocked and after that, they'd quickly hustled her out. She'd yelled all the way to the elevator bank, though, and a lot of what she said (particularly the cursing) was audible through our glass walls.

"Juliet, please come to my office," a message on my monitor suddenly ordered me. Sugar, it was my turn—I really was going to be next. I straightened my dress, which I remembered buying about six months before. It had been expensive but it was worth it, wasn't it? It looked great (despite the salsa stain that had made it unsellable) and it should have given me confidence. I also checked in my desk drawers before I stood, opening each one and examining their contents. It wouldn't take me half as long as it had taken Gigi to empty everything. Andrei (Brendan? No, I was pretty sure it was Michael) had also lingered in his office, but that was because he'd actually been crying. His tears and frequent pauses to blow his nose had really extended the clean-out process.

But I wasn't going to cry. It wasn't something that I did; I'd spent years grappling with my emotions and now I was the master, not them. As I walked slowly down the hallway in this great dress (the stain was nearly invisible), I imagined how I would look at Beckett Forsman: straight into his blue-grey eyes, unblinking, no fear at all. It was how I'd stared down the other girls in my heat when I'd gotten up on the blocks, and I'd silently told myself that I was going to crush them. They'd have to watch my feet disappear as I went past.

"Good morning, Juliet. Thanks for coming," Beckett Forsman stated. "Please sit down. Did you have a good weekend?" He was staring at one of his monitors as he spoke and there wasn't an ounce of interest in his words. It was like there was a list of polite phrases on that screen for him to read off…I wondered if I could see what he was actually looking at. He had a huge window behind him, after all, and with the sun slanting the way it was, it did create a reflection on the glass. But I saw only a white rectangle, with nothing legible.

I nodded at him and took a seat. "Did you need something?" I asked, and his eyes fixed on me. When the other people had been fired, the reps from the human resources department had been in attendance and the security guard had stood just outside. I glanced back over my shoulder to check if they were hurrying down the hall to join us after pushing Gigi into her car. She parked right next to me and I hoped she hadn't keyed my door on her way out.

I didn't see anyone from HR or any guard coming this way. Maybe it wasn't my turn right now, but I stayed ready.

"We're down three people in this department," he noted, without also noting that we were down those people because he had fired them. It wasn't like they'd disappeared by stepping through a wardrobe into another world, like in a book that my sister Sophie had read to us. She'd read aloud a lot of Greek myths, too, and I imagined one of the creatures from them coming in through the window and attacking my boss before he had a chance to make me pack up my desk. Like, maybe a giant whirlpool, or the lady who turned people to stone? I sure wouldn't have minded if she'd shown up right now.

"I'm looking to hire at least one more lawyer. It's ludicrous that I'm the only attorney on site."

I nodded. "You already told me that Annis outsourced a lot," I remembered, and he got a funny expression, just for a moment.

"She wasn't able to handle all the required legal work," he said, and I shrugged. Whatever had been required, I was ninety-nine percent sure that no, Annis hadn't handled it—unless she'd been taking a lot of stuff home with her when she'd left at four, which I also doubted because she never carried anything except one of her gorgeous purses. I'd seen the couriers and some of the emails going back and forth between her and another lawyer, a guy who'd shared her last name. She'd explained that she liked to help out her cousin but it had been clear to me that the guy was helping her out, too.

"This situation had gone on for much too long," Beckett Forsman continued. He was back to staring at his monitor and it seemed like he was talking to himself. "There should be a team of attorneys and experienced paralegals. I can't understand how this current group of employees was assembled."

My hand went to my chest. That had been where my nice necklace had rested, the one that I'd worn on the day of my interview with Annis that had led to me getting hired. "Maybe she thought we were all really great people," I defended us.

"She may have thought that, but there's practically zero experience among you. And there might be some ‘great people,' but the lapses in personal judgement that I've witnessed…"

"Gigi's outfit at the gym was a lot," I agreed, and he looked up from the monitor, as if he realized that I was still sitting there and we were, in fact, having a conversation.

He frowned and then his features smoothed into the expression that I was a little familiar with after the short time I'd worked for him: nothing. He showed nothing.

"Was there a reason you wanted me to come in? Did you just need to bounce ideas off me? It's a sports metaphor," I explained, because he might not have gotten it. As I may have mentioned, I didn't come from an athletic family and several of my sisters would not have understood that reference. Maybe Beckett Forsman's luscious body was entirely gym-created and he'd never thrown a ball, either.

"I understood your meaning. No, I didn't need to bounce ideas."

Ok, but that was what he'd been doing. I tried to look questioning, rather than asking anything out loud again.

"I wanted to clarify what your responsibilities will be, beginning now," he explained.

"Does this mean I'm not getting fired?" I ventured.

"Not today."

That was far from the reassurance I'd been looking for. "When will you come to a decision about it?" I pressed.

"The changes among current personnel are complete for the time being," he stated, which seemed to be his final answer. Then he started to talk, and talk, and talk. It was all about expectations, duties, and requirements for the job that I currently had. And it was exhausting to even listen to. I knew how to work hard, because you didn't reach the level of athletic achievement that I'd attained without knowing how to push. But I was overwhelmed by all the—

"Juliet, your verbal memory must be impressive," he suddenly stated.

"Excuse me?"

"I find it difficult to believe that you'll be able to accurately recollect everything we've discussed without any notes to refer to," he told me, and then stared pointedly at my empty hands.

"Oh. I thought I was coming in here to get fired," I explained. Also, I'd never needed to take notes before at my job, because Annis had never given me very much to do.

"I've also emailed a document to you which outlines my major points," my new boss stated.

"If you already did that, then why did you say that thing about my verbal memory?"

"Because procedures and attitudes need to change in this department," he told me. "We're no longer the fun crew who meets for margaritas on Thursday afternoons at three."

How had he known that we'd had a standing margarita date? Who had told on us?

He continued, "From now on, everyone who works on this floor will be professional, prepared, and diligent."

Hadn't there been another P word to use in that sentence? How about poopy? That was what I thought about him.

"Did I say something amusing?" Beckett Forsman asked, and I realized that I was smiling.

"No," I said. "Can I go and grab some paper?"

"You may," he told me.

"From now on, everyone will be professional, prepared, and poopy," I muttered as I ransacked my desk for a notepad. I returned to his office and sat up straight in the chair and, unfortunately, he returned to the beginning. He talked, and talked, and talked.

"That's all," he said finally, well after my hand had cramped with fatigue. "You may return to your office."

Great. I stood and tried not to yawn.

"Oh, one more thing."

Great! "Yes?" I asked, and I tried to remain professional in my tone and expression. I was going to get fired anyway, since I wouldn't be able to get through all these new job requirements, but I thought I should keep things civil so that I could get a recommendation.

"I saw that you had scheduled time off in March," he said, studying one of his screens.

"Oh. Yes, I was going to go away, because my brother…" I stopped. "I'm not going. Not anymore."

"You don't have any vacation days accrued. I don't understand why the former leadership approved it." That was all he had to say, apparently, because he started typing. I felt like saluting but instead just made a quiet exit.

"I'll never get it all done," I told my sister Addie. I'd skipped lunch to work, but had taken a short break to meet her at the coffee shop near my building. Before, we'd met like this all the time, but now her life had shifted toward bigger and better things. Right around last Christmas, her boss had passed away—which was sad, sure, but he'd been a huge pill to her and to everyone else. He'd also been about three hundred years old, so it wasn't unexpected. What had been very unexpected was that he'd left a giant pile of money to her and to another of my sisters. Their inheritance was currently tied up in a legal battle with the old guy's relatives but everyone seemed to agree that a huge payout was coming eventually.

Addie wasn't happy that the boss was dead, no matter what a jerk he'd been, but the way everything had worked out was pretty amazing. She had all kinds of plans for the future, which promised to be filled with financial security and love. Because another recent development was that she had totally fallen (like head over heels fallen) for a guy who owned a restaurant pretty close to where we were currently sipping coffee.

Mine was decaf. I didn't need to add anything to my body that would increase my heart rate, since right now, my anxiety was so high that the organ was about to fling itself out of my chest and escape into the icy street. "I don't know what to do," I said as I rubbed my palm on my breastbone. I meant that remark about life in general. What was I going to do?

"Maybe this new boss will be a good thing," my sister told me. "You never know, JuJu. This change could be the start of something great!"

I stared at her.

"Or not," she acknowledged. "If you're really that upset about the job, you should start looking for another one."

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I can do that, sure." The thought of it, of jeopardizing the money that I had coming in, even temporarily…I wished that I'd gotten an iced coffee, because my face suddenly felt burning hot and I needed to hold something cold to my cheeks.

"Have you talked to Patrick lately?" she asked.

That was our brother, and my twin. No, I hadn't talked to him because he hadn't been responding to me in the various ways I tried to force communication between us. "Not lately," I said. "Last I heard, he was great."

Addie got a funny look. "Are you sure? Because his baby will be born soon, and I don't think he has a job, and isn't San Francisco such an expensive place to live?"

All of those things were true. My brother had been fired, he'd gotten a woman pregnant, and I had no idea how he was getting by. I'd given him money in the past but one of the reasons that he wasn't currently speaking to me was that the last time he'd asked, I hadn't had any to give. "I'm going to run and get another drink. Want anything?" I asked my sister, but she still had a lot of latte left. Mindful of the emptiness of my wallet, I only asked for a cup of ice.

Despite the interruption, my sister still hadn't given up on the previous topic when I returned to the table. "Before, you said that you were planning to go out to San Francisco after the baby is born," she mentioned.

Yeah, that had been my plan. "I can't," I admitted. "I don't have any vacation days. And my new boss…"

"He's so mean," she concurred, because Addie was always on my side. I nodded. "I guess it's good that you were able to cancel your trip to Spain, too," she said, and I nodded again, as if that had been a choice and not a necessity. "You can go another time," she consoled me.

No, I couldn't. I'd be working until the day I died and I would never enjoy anything ever again. I pressed the cup of ice to my face as I felt my cheeks re-heat.

"Um, JuJu, so…" My sister also started to look flushed. It was the result of all of us being so fair, which was due to our red-headedness. This trait led to strict hat usage in the summer, concerns about goggle sunburn, and a whole lot of blushing. My sister Sophie's hair was deep auburn, a really rich mahogany. Our littlest sister Grace had beautiful, strawberry-blonde curls. Mine was pin-straight and the color was somewhere in the middle of those two, like a dark copper. Addie's was…she wouldn't ever say it, but it was more orangish. I thought it was beautiful, but she didn't like that in the least.

She had stopped, but she was still blushing and was also biting her lip. "Go ahead," I told her, and internally braced myself.

"Well…I was worried," she confessed. "I've been very worried about you. We've all been upset about Patrick and his baby but you've seemed really different. Upset and anxious," she filled in, "and I don't think it's about our brother. It's not only that."

She didn't know the half of it. I'd dreamed the night before about running through the halls of Whitaker Enterprises and trying to escape but there were no doors in the glass walls. I was able to see people on the other side, but they couldn't hear me or didn't want to help me, no matter how much I'd banged and screamed. "I'm fine," I told her. "I can handle myself."

"I know, but you're my little sister," she said, and reached across the table to hold my hand. "You really came through for me when I was struggling last year."

Had I? I didn't remember that.

"You listened to me go on and on about all my problems. And if you want to open up to me, I'm here," she continued, and paused.

I shrugged and shook my head. No problems! Move along, please.

She started to talk faster, rushing the words. "I was worried enough that I asked Granger to look into things," she said.

"You what ?" I asked. My own voice had gone shrill. "You asked your boyfriend to dig up dirt on me?"

"No, not dirt! I just wanted to understand what's going on," she explained. "You wouldn't tell me and he said if it were something bad, we should know so that we could help."

I picked up my purse, new as of last fall. "I don't want your help."

"JuJu, come on!" she said. "Sit down and let's talk."

"No, I'm fine," I said. "I don't want Granger in my business or you either, Addie. Both of you need to stay in your lanes."

"My lane is my family," she told me quietly. "Granger and I want to do something for you, if you'd accept it. I mean, if you need money…"

"Nope, I don't," I answered promptly. "I better get back to my office, because I have so much work now." Did I sound like Gigi, complaining about having to actually do a job? Too bad.

I turned to go but then paused and addressed my sister. "By the way, Mom said something to me about a baby shower."

"Someone is throwing one for Patrick? Or the baby's mother?"

"Not exactly. Mom has an idea about having a party herself. For herself." I saw my sister start to frown. "Come on, Addie. When Patrick comes home to live with her and Dad, the baby will need a lot of supplies. It isn't a terrible plan."

"That's true about the supplies, but it's not polite to throw your own shower," she answered. "It just isn't a good idea." She sighed. "I don't think it's a very good idea for Patrick and his baby to live with Mom and Dad, either, and that doesn't have anything to do with needing baby gear."

I shook my head, because we'd already been through this a lot. "It's happening," I informed her. My sisters all thought that Patrick and Mom would flake and not take care of his kid, but they would. Anyway, I would be there…just not in San Francisco for the birth, as I'd planned to be. Addie stood and made me hug her before I ran back to the office. Literally, I ran, and I went a lot faster than I did at the end of that long, difficult day, when I went to the gym and got on a treadmill.

By the time that I could finally leave my desk, it was pitch black and I was exhausted. It was clear that there was just no way I would be able to complete all the new duties and responsibilities that Beckett Forsman had explained in our meeting (and in the detailed email he'd also sent, so I wasn't sure what the point of that meeting had been, anyway). My feet plodded along on the belt and I yawned, too, and rubbed my eyes.

When I opened them again, my boss was on the machine next to me. He wore almost exactly the same outfit as when I'd seen him in here before (on that memorable evening when Gigi had tried to entice him with her ringed butt and crotch) except now, everything he had on was grey. He was still all lean muscle, and he still looked like he'd have been more comfortable in a suit and pocket square. I'd looked up its proper name.

"Hello," he told me.

I glanced to my left. There were other treadmills open, ones that were not directly next to mine, so we didn't have be side by—oh, he probably wanted to discuss work. I tried not to yawn again. "Hello," I answered, and continued plodding.

The last time I'd been next to him, he'd run, but today he also kept his pace slower. Yeah, he was going to talk to me. "This isn't a bad gym," he mentioned suddenly, and that hadn't been what I'd expected. I'd thought he'd say something along the lines of, "You didn't accomplish enough today," "I'm disappointed in your productivity," or "It turns out that I haven't quite finished with firing people."

That last thought made me feel a little ill, and I held onto the rail as I processed his actual words. "Not bad?" I repeated. No it wasn't "bad" at all, because this gym was gorgeous. I looked around, seeing all the new machines, the neat racks of weights, the décor that would have looked good in a house. It was a lot better than what I had in my apartment since so much of my furniture had gotten ruined by smells, spills, and burns over the last few months. I hadn't had the funds to replace anything, which would have been a waste since the parties that had caused the damage were ongoing.

"I think it's a really nice gym," I said. It was even nicer that our memberships here got picked up by the company, a fact which he mentioned next.

"It's quite a perk for the employees. It's an expensive one."

"It's really generous," I said. "A lot of people couldn't afford to join a place like this."

He turned his head to look at me. "Everyone in our department is remunerated more than sufficiently."

"I didn't mean myself," I answered, although I had. I wiped my face with one of the fluffy towels that they regularly replaced, because this place was great. He would probably think that I was blushing because I was tired from my workout, not any other reason like shame or humiliation because I'd hinted that I couldn't take care of my expenses. Which I couldn't.

"How did your new responsibilities go today?"

Here it came.

"I saw you at your desk, well past six," he noted.

That was true. I'd never been at the office so late before, but I'd sketched out how I was going to complete all his stupid chores. I'd discovered that either I would have to stay past my former quitting time, or I would have to start arriving very early in the mornings. For years, I'd gotten up before sunrise to swim or lift. Now I preferred to sleep in, so late nights at the office were in my future.

He was waiting for my answer, and looking over at me again. "I thought today was fine," I said cautiously. "A lot of people stayed longer than usual."

"Yes," he said, and nodded like he was satisfied. What kind of jerk was happy about people coming home late for dinner? I was pretty sure that Naomi had kids…I wasn't exactly sure if her name was Naomi, actually, but I knew that she'd never attended Margarita Thursdays with us because she didn't want to have alcohol on her breath when she went to after-care. That meant she was a mom, unless she was worried about upsetting a dog sitter.

"I anticipate a period of adjustment as our department finds its footing," my boss went on.

I realized what he sounded like: a university website. Like, there were words that sounded important, but I didn't care enough to determine if there was actual meaning behind them. I'd never bothered with that fancy, fluffy stuff. My entire focus, when I'd been in the college recruiting process, was the quality of the aquatic facilities, the ranking of the team, and how quickly I would be in the medley relay. Was the top butterflyer a senior? Perfect. I'd win the spot in no time at all…

My boss was still talking about an adjustment period, as if we were all going to kindergarten or overnight camp for the first time. "I think that the adjustment is that we we're suddenly working at jobs that we didn't sign up for," I put in when he paused. "When Annis hired me, it was for something different from what you described today. So yeah, I'll have to adjust, and so will everyone else."

"The alternative is finding a new position elsewhere, of course."

"Then you'd have to hire a whole new crew," I pointed out, and a small smirk briefly curved his lips before he straightened them.

"As I said, you are very well remunerated, and the perks aren't too bad." He looked at the gym and he still sounded a bit disdainful.

"It would really suck for us all to get escorted out," I agreed. It would because I'd looked at job listings under the cover of a folder propped open on my desk, but there was nothing that "remunerated" as well as my current position. I couldn't take a salary cut, no way.

"I hope that means I won't see a defeatist mentality among the members of our department," he said.

"I mean, you should hope not. You should hope that people don't feel so defeated that they up and quit," I answered. "If everyone leaves or you fire them all, you'll have to hire a bunch of new employees who don't have working ID badges, computer logins, or office phones."

"I'm sure I could learn how to contact the IT department myself."

I hit the stop button on the treadmill. "I'm sure you could. Have a nice night." Definitely don't have a major car crash or get locked in a bathroom that you can't escape from, I thought. We wouldn't have wanted anything to delay his arrival at the office the next morning.

I went to the locker room and showered, because the water here was free and so were a lot of different products. I used a minty shampoo I liked a lot, although Gigi had always complained about its poor quality. Too bad she hadn't stuck around longer; she and our new boss could have bonded over their shared snottiness. This place wasn't "too bad?" As I rinsed, I wondered where Beckett Forsman lived. If his suits were any indication, it was somewhere pricey and classy—and judging by his attitude about the gym, it was snobby, too.

I didn't bother much with any beautification of my face in the bathroom but it was interesting to be there with all the other women, so I stuck around for a while. Maybe "interesting" wasn't the right word; it actually provided a way for me to live vicariously. I hadn't had anything like a normal social life in a while and I was very interested as I listened to them talk about their plans for tonight, how they'd be meeting their boyfriends, going to dinner with family, hanging out with the girls and binge watching the latest really good show—it was really good, she swore it.

I could have made plans, too. I considered that idea and who I would see. Nicola, my oldest sister, was now married, and she was a lot more like…I wouldn't say that she'd been like my mom, since we had a mom. She was more maternal-acting, and we didn't go out together like friends. The next oldest was Sophie, and the two of us had never gotten along. For one thing, Soph was so smart that I generally felt like an idiot around her. Also, she'd shown little to no interest in me or any of the things I'd accomplished, not really. When I was little, I'd been in awe of her and I'd saved all the newspaper articles she'd written in the school newspaper, and once? She had even written a piece that had been published in the real Detroit paper, not for kids but…anyway, Sophie was out.

I couldn't talk to Addie after our conversation today. My twin brother was obviously a no-go, since he lived in California. It had been a while since we'd really hung out together very much, even when he'd lived in Michigan. Brenna and Grace, my two younger sisters? Well, Brenna was a brat, capital B, and Grace was…Grace. Weird. Airhead. Ungroomed, unchanged from when she was about ten years old.

I'd had high school friends, but we'd gradually lost touch. I considered other people as the elevator descended. I had college friends, mostly other swimmers on my team. I hadn't spoken to them in a while, either—since what had happened over the summer, I'd been keeping to myself. My roommates were already busy because they mostly worked at night and anyway, we were only roommates. Our relationship didn't extend beyond that.

It left one person.

"Hi, Mom," I said when she answered my call.

"Did you see my invitation?" she asked immediately. "I emailed them out just now. You should have gotten it."

"Oh, sugar. Are you really throwing yourself a baby shower?"

She really was, and she told me all the people whom she'd invited and some of the games she wanted them to play. There was one, something about smelling diapers, which had been a feature at her first shower when she'd been pregnant with Nicola.

"That was such a great party. No one minded at all when there was that gas leak and I was feeling ok, even with the food poisoning I was suffering from at the time. And that was my only baby shower, until now. I found it a little strange."

"I mean, after the first kid, do people really—"

But she was talking more about games and how excited she was. "Addie just texted asking what food I'm planning to serve," she mentioned. "I haven't thought about that yet. I'll get back to her later."

"I had kind of a hard day," I broke in. "It was a little stressful."

"What? Juliet? I couldn't hear you for a minute. It's too bad that it's winter, isn't it? I wish I could have the party outside in the back yard. That would be so much more in tune with the theme of birth. You know, plants leafing out, buds blooming."

"Too bad it's winter," I echoed, but reminded myself that I would have to make sure she really was going to make it an indoor celebration. Sometimes my mom had crazy ideas and I had to help her see that they wouldn't work. She didn't mean any harm, but she didn't think them through.

"Hello? Juliet? Hello?" she yelled back to me, and when she couldn't hear me answering, she ended the call. It was ok, since I was standing at the door that led to the parking garage. It was time for me to go home, back to the apartment that I shared with my roommates. I only hesitated a little before I pulled open the heavy door and started to walk toward where I parked. I had a really nice car, with all the features that I'd dreamed about having: heated seats, cameras all over, a top-of-the-line sound system, leather interior, and trim that looked like wood. I swallowed. Yeah, it was great, and I was still doing ok. I wished there was someone I could talk to and again, I ran through my sisters' names. Maybe Grace wouldn't have been—

"Juliet."

"Holy Mary!" I swung around and clutched my bag.

"It's just me. Beckett," my boss said.

Every day since he'd arrived, I'd wondered how I was supposed to address him. Annis had been Annis, but I hadn't known that I could call him by his first name until right now, when he'd almost made me pee in fright.

"Did I scare you?" he continued. He seemed slightly confused by that.

"Yeah, you did," I told him. "You shouldn't sneak up on a woman in a parking garage. You're lucky that I didn't have my pepper spray out."

"Where is it?"

"Uh…it's in my purse," I answered, "and my purse is in my gym bag."

"So, if you were attacked, you would need someone to wait for you to open two zippers and search?"

"This garage is very safe. Did you need to speak with me?" I asked. I didn't want to agree that I would have had to ask a mugger to be patient while he waited for me to neutralize him.

There was a short silence. "I hope you don't plan to encourage your coworkers to leave our department."

"What? No, I don't plan to do that." Why would I have done that?

"Good."

I shifted. "Is that all?"

"Yes," he told me, but then he asked, "Where is your car?"

And when I pointed toward it, he walked me there, and he stood until I'd backed up, carefully avoiding the concrete pillar on one side and the Mercedes on the other. I waved, and watched him still standing there as I drove away.

Beckett. My weird boss, Beckett.