Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
“How’s the new job going?” she asks.
“I don’t start it until tomorrow.”
Ruby laughs quietly. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’ve got this little one to care for. I know that your brain is always filled with historical facts. I can’t expect you to care about boring everyday life.”
“Still… are you excited? You know, if you need money…”
I shake my head fiercely.
“Being independent is important to you,” she murmurs. “I get that.”
“It’s a job, kid,” I say. “It’s not my dream to help rich people rent cars to make them seem richer. The pay’s good, and you’re right. When I move out, I don’t want to rely on anybody. Just myself. Forever.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” she mutters.
Colt, again, flashes across my mind. The subtle lines around his eyes highlight his experience and maturity, the silver streaks in his hair, and the confidence in his movements like he could kiss me or fight for me at a moment’s notice.
“It’s nothing new,” I reply. “You know I’ve always been determined to be alone.”
“Well, it’s a horrible thing to be determined about.”
Maybe she’s right, but it doesn’t mean the rest of us will find happiness just because she’s found happiness in the most unlikely place. There’s something else that even Ruby doesn’t know about. Mom and Dad have no idea. Nobody does. It happened, and then I closed it off. I locked it away. I pretended—and still pretend—it didn’t happen.
Yet, I can’t wipe away its effect. Some nights, I can’t even stop the nightmares.
Sitting outside my new office for the Chrome Carriage Club, the car rental place I’ll be working at for the foreseeable future, I remove the folded-up paper from my pocket. It has Colt’s cell phone number on it.
“If there’s an emergency…”
That’s why Colt gave me his number. He was talking about the stuff with Ruby and the photo, the drama that seems like a distant memory when her life is filled with so much happiness now. He wasn’t talking about this aching, this longing, this silliness in my stomach.
Stuffing the note in my pocket, I step from the car and brush myself down. The building is a gleaming, glittering beacon of a place, all tall windows, with a Rolls Royce Phantom sitting out front.
As I walk toward the entrance, a man appears. Then a hole opens beneath me and swallows me up. Knives stab me all over, and a bunch of other melodramatic stuff happens, but that’s all internal. On the outside, I keep my face carefully crafted.
He’s a short, skinny man, a couple of years older than me, wearing a slick silver suit that matches the cold glint in his narrow eyes. He looks up at me slightly and pauses. Does he recognize me? As if to prove to myself I haven’t made a mistake, I mutter in my mind, His name is Ralph.
“Are you the new hire?” he asks, his voice grave and suddenly serious, making me think he does recognize me.
“Uh, yes,” I murmur.
Should I just say it? Get it out in the open? This man is why I’ve always been so determined to be alone. This man is why, when I use the word forever, it’s never in a good way. This man is why I’ve never believed I could find true happiness.
He sticks his hand out. “I’m Ralph. Nice to meet you, and you are…”
I’d have thought he already knew my name from my resume. “Lexi,” I say, not taking his hand.
He drops his hand with an almost imperceptible scowl, then nods back the way he came. “Right then, Lexi. Let’s get started.”
I walk behind him, noting how his hands open and close into fists. His whole body seems weirdly tense, like he’s holding back a tsunami of emotions. There’s no way he doesn’t recognize me, is there? It’s messing with my head.
“Your job is simple,” he says as we walk through a showroom filled with deluxe cars. “You’ll be handling the backend, the booking, and the collection of our vehicles, as well as liaising with our cleaning crews. We have an action sheet printed out that presents the workflow in a hopefully easily understood manner.”
The hopefully has some emphasis on it, like he’s subtly digging about my intelligence, but maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t there. It’s possible he has no idea who I am. It was years ago. We were kids.
“You’ll be stationed here,” he says, pushing open a door to a small but light-filled and airy office. “Any questions?”
“No, Ralph,” I murmur. “Or should I call you Mr. Powell?”
He flinches, running a hand across his wet-looking dark brown hair. “Ralph is fine. I have to say, Lexi, I’m impressed that you went through the effort of checking the staff page on the website to learn my name. Yes, yes, very impressive.”
As if this didn’t seal it, he returns about thirty minutes after leaving me in my office. He knocks on the door loudly, then barges in and starts pacing up and down in front of my desk.