Chapter 11

ELEVEN

SOPHIE

The headphones blared an old school Melissa Etheridge song, but Sophie couldn’t focus on the lesbian power anthem. She hung the device from her neck and pushed the elevator button. Even after sharing a brunch with Maya and Harper on Saturday morning and falling asleep early after finishing Casey McQuiston’s newest release, she couldn’t shake the regret she felt about Friday.

She hated the way she acted towards Ella. Hated. It . The conversation with Malcolm had knocked her on her ass. Not only did she fail to show solid leadership qualities, but she had also been straight-up childish, allowing pre-conceived notions to cloud her judgement. And purely for the sake of self-preservation, if she ever wanted to have a trainee again, she needed to put aside her irritation at the situation.

Because really, her issue was the situation. And she took it out on the human.

The office was quiet as usual at this time of morning. Ella was at her desk, the soft light from the lamp creating an angelic effect around her as her fingers tapped the keyboard. For years, Sophie was always one of the first to arrive, desperate to get a leg up on her colleagues. She knew the signs of a chase well, and Ella was definitely chasing.

“Morning.” Sophie dropped her bag on the floor under her desk. Why did Ella always have to smell so good? It was distracting. And it was always different, like she wanted to keep people guessing. Sophie leaned in, subtly, of course, as sniffing your co-workers was probably not approved in the HR handbook. A warm, deep cedar and rose tone filled her nose.

She stayed a moment longer.

“Morning.” Ella’s normally straight shoulders shifted like she was bracing herself, and Sophie’s stomach knotted. Was that what Sophie had become? The person who caused someone to flinch? It made her think of Mr. Docks, her dickhead eighth-grade science teacher who read the worst test scores out loud, lamenting on “how embarrassing” the student was and how they were “not meeting the barest of minimum state standards.” She remembered walking into his classroom and shrinking, keeping her fingers crossed she wouldn’t be seen.

And that was what she did to Ella—Sophie had become the dickhead.

Ella reached for the large paper coffee cup to her right and handed it to Sophie.

Sophie wrapped her fingers around the cup and lowered herself to the chair. “What’s this?” Probably poison . And honestly, Sophie wouldn’t blame her.

“I got you a burnt orange mocha.” Ella tugged at her sleeves, her eyes focused on the cuffs. “They claim it has the most sugar of all the drinks at the shop.”

Whoa. Sophie absolutely didn’t deserve the thoughtful gesture after how terrible she’d been. Maybe Ella laced it with ghost peppers or laxatives as a payback. She took a tentative sample and moaned into the sip. “Dear God, it’s delicious. Was this from Red Lava?”

“Yep.” Ella twirled off the top to her water. “They started serving crepes, too, with honey butter and nuts. I got you one, well, I got each of us one.”

“Yeah?” Sophie took a hefty sip this time and the orange sugar trailed her throat. She peeked behind Ella. “Where is it?”

“I ate it.” Ella shrugged with a small giggle.

A giggle. She’d never heard Ella giggle before. She wasn’t even sure she’d seen Ella smile, except for a couple of polite grins during co-worker introduction time. Sophie never thought about what Ella’s giggle would sound like, but if she had, it probably would have been high-pitched and squeaky. Instead, it was deep and husky, and Sophie wanted to say something to hear the sound again. She looked at the water bottle next to Ella. “You didn’t get yourself anything?”

Ella shook her head. Her frames slipped, and she pushed them back up her nose. “I have a confession to make.”

Sophie’s ears perked. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“I hate coffee.” The corner of her lip twitched. “Like I really hate it. It feels like I’m drinking hot, muddy water that eats away at my stomach lining.”

“No. Way.” Why was this little factoid so amusing? Besides knowing Ella’s dad was George, she went to UW, and that she was an only child, Sophie realized she knew absolutely nothing about her co-worker. “Well, here’s my confession. I hate pancakes. And crepes are pretty close, so I’m not sure I would’ve eaten them except to be polite.”

Ella cocked her head. “Pancakes? You mean the sugary fried dough that you top with butter and syrup? No one hates pancakes.”

“I do.”

Ella pushed back from the desk and crossed her legs and holy shit . She tugged her skirt lower beneath the knee, but not before Sophie caught a peek of a smooth thigh. Sophie snapped her gaze to anywhere but there, ignoring the warmth spreading inside her. It was just surprising, that was all. Ella had worn nothing but suit pants or jeans since starting. A bare thigh was simply… unexpected.

“I’m so curious about the hatred of pancakes. Is there a backstory here?”

So much backstory. A childhood filled with a tired mom smelling of day-old fryer grease and Biofreeze. Of late nights eating the diner leftovers on the couch with her parents, as her dad rubbed her mom’s feet and Sophie begged to go to McDonald’s. Of upset stomachs from eating peanut butter sandwiches every day because her parents made a touch over the limit to get free lunches at school but couldn’t afford to pay for actual school lunches every day. “My mom works at a diner, and she used to bring home leftovers all the time.”

“Oh really?” Ella asked. “Which one?”

“J & J, over by Green Lake. You’ve probably never heard of it.” For once, Sophie didn’t mean it to sound the way it came out. The place was small, and even though it’d been around since the ’60s, she couldn’t imagine anyone who lived on Lake Washington had visited. It wasn’t like the other Seattle local joints who boasted the famous twelve-egg omelette, or the ones that made the crab-cake benedict. J & J had nothing special except for large malts and homemade jam.

Even though Sophie didn’t mean the words to sound rude or condescending, Ella’s smile disappeared, and she dropped her gaze to her hands.

“God. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean it the way it came out.” Sophie dug at the polish on her cuticle to pry up a fleck. After the tension-filled last few weeks, this exchange gave Sophie the bit of spark needed to think they could work together—at least until she boarded her cruise, or Ella was reassigned to a different project. But the words she spewed last week—they had to be addressed.

Sophie dropped her nail polish hunt. “Look.” She cleared her throat. “I really owe you an apology for Friday.”

Ella straightened. “Yes. You do.”

Damnnnn. Sophie rubbed the back of her head, the buzzed hair prickling against her hand. Now was not the time to dive into her feelings on socioeconomics, unfair privilege, how it felt to be food insecure in America, and how the 1 percent—which Ella’s family belonged to—was responsible for poor folks staying poor. Ultimately, Ella had as much choice in the family she was born into as Sophie. “Truth is, I hold really stupid grudges. Like really stupid. And, well, what happened when we first met… I just need to let it go. It clouded my judgement and I’m sorry, again, for the way I’ve been treating you.”

The words tasted like sand. How did she let this resentment build and grow for years? Her chest grew hot, the shame sticky and unforgiving.

Ella squinted. She paused for several long moments, lightly tapping the desk. “You held a grudge? Like, against me?”

Obviously. “Yeah. From the first time we met.” This moment had been nice. Sweet, even. Sophie really didn’t want to ruin it by rehashing the event six years ago.

Ella’s eyes filled with confusion.

Did Ella really not remember? Sure, she’d alluded to that on Friday, when things were heated. But they’d been having a nice morning, so far. She was really sticking with that story, huh?

“What happened that day?” Ella finally asked.

Sophie’s chest pinched. “You really don’t remember?”

Ella’s gaze cast down and she fiddled with the water bottle. “I really don’t. The details are… fuzzy.”

For weeks, Sophie had thought about that moment. The first year of working, she used Ella’s words and looks as justification for her self-doubt talk, knowing she didn’t belong here. Then she used it for motivation. But the feeling she got when someone acted as though they were above her, that she was not good enough, never faded.

Sophie needed to prevent herself from spiraling anymore. “You know what? Fresh slate? What’s done is done, and we both probably said some things that day that we regret.”

Ella nodded and scooted her chair back under the desk. Her breathing picked up so much that Sophie wasn’t sure if she was fighting off a sneeze or suppressing a yawn.

“I, ah.” Ella’s voice was hesitant. “I have epilepsy.”

Epilepsy? That was the very last thing Sophie thought Ella would say in this moment. How was Sophie supposed to react to that statement? Say sorry? That didn’t seem like the right word. Especially since Ella didn’t look like she’d revealed something negative, just something private.

“Wow,” Sophie said, because what else could she offer? Her chatterbox mouth rendered shut. But… she had so many questions. What was it like? What should she do if Ella had a seizure? How long had she been epileptic? What did it feel like? “I had no idea. That must be… hard.”

So dumb . She sounded unsympathetic at best, an idiot at worst. But she wasn’t sure if Ella wanted to explain any further. It wasn’t like they were friends. They weren’t even friendly until this morning.

“I’d really appreciate if you didn’t tell anyone.” Ella stiffened.

Sophie appreciated that Ella had to say this, but the one thing Sophie didn’t do was spill secrets. But shouldn’t people know in case they needed to help her? She certainly didn’t know what to do if Ella had a seizure.

“Do you have any experience with epilepsy?” Ella asked.

Sophie remembered hearing never to shove anything in their mouth, and make sure the person’s surroundings were safe. She vaguely recalled hearing about different types of seizures, and what they showed in the movies was not always accurate. Beyond that, she had nothing. “No, not at all.”

Ella dropped her hand into her lap. Her cheek sucked into her mouth, and she paused. “Listen, it’s not an excuse. Like, at all. But after a seizure, even up to a few weeks after, they make me super irritable. And, well, they mess with short-term memory.”

I am the most supreme asshole in the world. Maybe even universe .

“For a few years, especially during my teens, they just couldn’t get my meds under control. I had more seizures than the doctors wanted. If I did, or said, something terrible to you, and I don’t remember, it’s not because I don’t care. It’s because… I don’t remember.”

It felt like one of those archaic computers from the 1980s had just fallen onto Sophie’s chest. All these years holding a grudge, knowing so clearly what someone thought of you, knowing to your core they went home and laughed about you, and to find out it wasn’t true, shook Sophie. She felt both heavier and lighter, and her brain shorted with the crossed signals.

“Well, I remember what I said to you,” Sophie offered. “And it was really not cool. I’m sorry, too.”

Ella’s lips twitched into a grin. “Clean slate?”

“Definitely.”