I checked my watch for the dozenth time that morning. If we didn’t get moving soon, we were going to be late. Yet again.
“Winnie, come on!” I called to the girl who I was acting as a father to. “We have to get out of here, or else we’re going to be late!”
“I need a minute!” she called back, and I practically hopped from foot to foot on the spot with my impatience. I didn’t have time to wait a minute. I needed her out here now. Then maybe I would have time to grab something for breakfast before I—
Breakfast. Shit! That reminded me.
I hurried to the kitchen to grab the bagged lunch the housekeeper had left for Winnie on the kitchen counter, and I thanked God that I had thought to hire her way back when all of this had started.
“Okay, I’m going to leave without you!” I shouted up the stairs, and sure enough, a couple of seconds later, I heard little footsteps thundering down the stairs toward me as Winnie finally decided that she was ready for school.
I handed her the paper bag, she took it from me, and the two of us hurried out to the car as I patted down my sides for keys to make sure I had everything I needed.
“You never forget anything,” she reminded me, smiling in my direction as she saw me panicking. “Remember?”
“Well, I obviously forget that I never forget, or else I wouldn’t need you to remind me,” I told her, and I opened the car door for her and helped her hop in.
“Did you remember your lunch?” she asked as we pulled away.
“No meetings on a Monday,” I said. “I’m going to go out for something to eat instead.”
“Can I come with you?”
“I’m not sure I would be able to get all the way across town and back in time,” I replied apologetically. “But when you get into high school and start having free periods, we can do that.”
“I want to,” she said happily, leaning up on the window and smiling as she looked outside. There were times when she looked so much like my sister, her mother, that I found myself caught off guard. It was like there was a reflection of her right in front of me, even though I knew she had been gone for a long time now.
“You doing anything fun today at school?” I asked, trying to draw my mind from my late sister. The last thing I wanted was to kick this morning off with another wave of the grief that had ruled me for so long. I was just getting to the stage now where I didn’t suffer every time she passed through my mind, but thinking about her was still a shock to the system.
“We’re making birthday cards for our teacher,” she said. “I’m going to do one with a frog on the front. She likes frogs. She always wears a necklace with a silver frog on it.”
I listened to her as she chattered away, and I couldn’t help but smile. She had such a passion for life, and it made me so happy to see my sister’s spirit living on in her sweet little daughter.
I dropped her off outside the school gates and leaned through the window to give her a kiss goodbye.
“I’ll be here to pick you up after school, all right?” I told her.
“Not Yara?”
“Not Yara,” I replied. “You cool with that?”
“As long as we get ice cream,” she said hopefully.
I laughed. She always seemed to know just how to press my buttons to get me to do whatever it was she wanted, even though I knew I should have been harsher on her. I didn’t have it in me. Not after what had happened.
“We’ll see,” I replied, though I already knew that she had me just where she wanted me. She gave me a quick hug and darted off inside the school to escape the impending Portland rain.
I drove up to the office in record time. I was going so fast, I was actually a little surprised that nobody tried to pull me over. I guessed they could see how serious I was about this. I wanted to get there, settle in, and actually get some work done. I had been so distracted last week, struggling to keep my shit together. The good days and the bad days sometimes piled up very suddenly, and I just had to accept that the hard days were going to control me when they came along.
“Morning,” Yara called to me as soon as I entered my office. We were on the third floor of a beautiful office building—well, the main part of the company was, anyway. This was where all the heads of department hung out, where we worked to make sure the pieces below us were running smoothly. There were dozens of our offices all over the country, but this was where it had all started.
Actually, that wasn’t true. It had started with my grandfather, the same man who had started this business all those years ago. He had gotten in on the tech bubble before it had even really swollen to the all-consuming state it was in now, and he had set our family up for life with some amazing investments and by working with some talented up-and-comers. I had taken over as CEO as soon as I was old enough, as soon as my father had stepped down from the role. And the first thing I had done as head of Neo was hire Yara as my publicist.
“Morning,” I said, greeting her right back. Hiring her had been one of the best decisions I’d ever made as part of my time here. I knew from the moment that I met her that I wanted her working alongside me as much as I possibly could. She was passionate, dedicated, and intelligent—everything that I wanted from the people I worked with. Her mind was sharp, and her tongue was sharper, and she knew just how to get what we needed from the people around us.
Harry“You get Winnie off to school okay?” Yara asked me.I nodded. “Just about. It was kind of a rush.”Yara had been so helpful with me since I had taken in my niece. We’d become fast friends in the time that we had worked together, and she would never know how grateful I was that she had stepped up to help me parent when I had least expected to become one.“You picking her up after school today?” she asked, tucking a strand of her cropped brown hair behind her ear. She was wearing the same pair of sensible silver studs in her ears that she always wore, and they caught the light.“Yeah, no meetings on a Monday, remember?” I said. I had put the rule in place when I realized that I was leaving other people to take care of Winnie for me most afternoons. I wanted there to be at least one day a week that I actually got to spend time with her properly, even if I knew she was going to twist my arm to get something everyone else wasn’t enough of a soft touch to hand over to her.“Of course,
Raina“Hey, Reed, over here!” I called to my brother, and it felt like half the coffee shop turned around to give me a hard look. I didn’t much care. I was just glad to see my twin brother, even if I knew it was only going to be for a half-hour before we both took off to work.“Hey!” he called back, carefully navigating around the seats with his cup of coffee in hand. He slipped into the seat opposite me and let out a long sigh.“How can this day be hard already?” he asked me, though I knew it was a rhetorical question.“What happened?” I asked, checking my watch. It was only eight in the morning, but I knew my brother could have already gotten himself wrapped up in something serious. A lot of the clients he was representing were overseas, which meant that serious shit could go down overnight and he wouldn’t know anything about it until he woke up and checked his messages in the morning.“It seems like Marco wants his hearing moved up a few weeks,” he explained. “Something about a fam
RainaI wouldn’t have gotten into this line of work if I had wanted to have time to myself. When Rita and I had invested in this clinic, getting it cleaned up and turned into the practice that it was today, I had managed to convince myself that this would be a chance for me to set my own hours and take a little more time away from work. But in truth, with so much more on the line, it just made it harder for me to take a break and relax.I was constantly running around, trying to make sure that everything was running smoothly and that we were going to make enough cash to get through the next few weeks, and that all our clients were receiving the best care that they possibly could as long as they were with us. It was hard, yes, but it was what I had always wanted. It was work on my own terms, and that work came along with a huge stack of responsibility, too.I spent most of my day covered in cat scratches and dog hair, not to mention the occasional angry peck-mark left by a bird who was
Harry I went to pull the car out of the driveway. For once, it looked like we were actually going to make it to school on time. “Are you sure you have everything?” I asked Winnie again, certain that I was about to be caught up in my tracks and realize that we had forgotten something fundamental. “Harry, look out!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs. My eyes darted to the side mirror, and I saw something just behind the back wheel of the car—a little bundle of brown fluff, practically quivering in my line of vision. “What is that?” I muttered as I climbed out of the car to go check it out. I had no idea what had managed to get so close to the car this early in the day. We lived in a gated property, so whatever it was must have slithered in between a gap in the fence. Winnie was quick to follow me. I considered telling her to stay where she was, but I knew that wasn’t going to fly. She was too curious, just the way her mother had been. “Oh my gosh, it’s a dog!” she exclaimed as s
RainaAs soon as he walked out, I picked up the phone and dialed up the kennels to let them know that I would be stopping by later on.“Just so you know, I have an older dog that I’m going to be bringing in,” I told the answering machine. “This is Raina, by the way. Raina Walters. I’ll see you later today if everything goes well.”I hung up and went over to tend to the old, tired little dog that that guy had brought in just a few minutes before.“Hey, boy,” I said softly, petting the rough fur on his head. “Don’t know how you managed to end up here, but you’re in good hands now, okay?”The dog snuffled, as though acknowledging what I was saying to him and thanking me for my effort.“You shouldn’t be thanking me,” I told him gently. “You should thank that guy who brought you in here. And if you could get him to call me, too, that would be great.”I shook my head at myself. I needed to get my shit together. I was asking a dog for help with dating? Yeah, it was hardly my proudest moment.
RainaI watched the dog for one more moment before I turned and headed out the door. I was a little sad, leaving him behind like that—well, I was always a little sad when I had to leave a dog behind, but even for me, I was sadder than usual. Maybe because I knew that that dog was the only connection I had to one of the only men in years who had actually turned my head, and now that I had handed him over, there was no reason for him to get in touch with me again.I decided to treat myself to some Greek takeout on the way home. There was a beautiful restaurant not far from me that made an amazing vegetarian gyro, and I was obsessed with them. I inhaled the deliciously savory scent as I tucked it into my bag and carried it down the last couple of blocks to my house. The fact that I had walked most of the way home meant that I had totally earned this, right?Right.I tried not to get too hung up on my body. I was tall, and I had the body to match my height. I wasn’t tiny and lean and litt
HarryI knew that I should have been replying to all my emails at that moment, but in truth, I was more caught up in making sure that I had everything covered for Winnie for the next few months.I had no idea how my sister had managed to take care of her by herself for so long. Sure, I had seen the struggle when she had first had her, but I’d had no idea just how much it was going to take out of me on a day-to-day basis.Jesus Christ, the stress of it all. The running around trying to make sure that everything fell into place, that all the bits and pieces came together at just the right moment and just the right time to be sure that everything worked out. She did band and played soccer after school, and that meant I had to make sure there was always someone there who could pick her up and take her home—whether it was Yara, me, or one of the sitters I practically had on twenty-four hour call right now.My sister had worked her ass off to get Winnie this far in life, and it was the leas
HarryI hesitated. I didn’t want to just come out and agree so quickly because that would be tantamount to agreeing that what she had done was a good idea. But she had a point. I had been off the market for such a long time, and it wasn’t doing me any good to be cooped up in the house alone all the time. I would have to get back out there eventually, one way or another. Maybe this was a blessing. I was never going to do it myself, so perhaps Yara putting in the effort was how I could get back into it.I had dated before what had happened, of course. Quite a bit actually. But I had never found anyone who had actually made me want to settle down. Most of the women I met had this edge to them, like there was something on their mind other than just spending time with me. I soon came to figure out that it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the family name that I was attached to.They took one look at that, and dollar signs started pulsing in their eyes. They couldn’t see a