Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 50759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
And if he had found out later that Brody had been bad to me in school, it wouldn’t have affected how he treated him in adulthood. My father was a forgiving man, believed people could change.
I hated that Brody had known him, known him well enough to smile with familiarity and grief when speaking about him.
My father was mine. And this man did not deserve to know him, did not deserve any kind of fond memories.
Easy now, Tittlemouse, my father’s voice said in my ear as I felt anger crawl up my throat like lava.
I studied the contents of my wine glass, forcing myself to take a calming breath. I was stuck here with Brody, and I’d already gotten plenty mad about our past. There was no sense in also getting angry that he knew and liked my father.
We both had to survive being here without any blow ups. Although surviving didn’t mean I had to tell him about my past, most especially what landed me here, but what else was there to talk about? The weather?
“He had a forge in the backyard, it’s still there,” I offered.
“I know,” Brody nodded. “Been there.”
I clenched my fists. Again with the rage at his familiarity. The forge was Dad’s and my place.
Brody’s eyes flickered to my clenched fists. I watched him note the gesture like a cop might, but he didn’t say anything, just regained eye contact with me.
I took another deep breath. “He taught me about metal, about how it works, about how to shape it, turn something seemingly set in stone into something else entirely.”
It took a lot for me to say the words and not get lost in the memories.
“I had a jewelry brand,” I explained. “In L.A.” I swallowed my wine, resisting the urge to down the glass in one gulp. This story was so much more palatable if I was drunk. But if I got drunk, my inhibitions would be much too low, and I’d do something stupid like give in to my baser urges.
“It started slow,” I continued. “But it was doing well. Quite well, I guess.” I wasn’t sure why I was downplaying it. My jewelry brand had been the ‘it’ label for a time. Celebrities wore it. Maybe talking about just how far I’d fallen was too much.
“I had staff. And my, um, boyfriend … fiancé, I guess… Well, ex-fiancé gave up his job at a Fortune 500 company to take over as the CFO since the business grew so big so quickly, and I didn’t have experience on the business side. Or that’s what he said,” I scoffed. “That I should take care of the creative part, and he’d take care of the rest.” I shook my head, thinking about how stupid it sounded out loud. “I trusted him, why wouldn’t I?” I looked at the snow over Brody’s head. My heart hurt thinking of everything I’d built. “But I shouldn’t have trusted him. He, uh, he embezzled all the profits, made shitty deals with manufacturers, pretty much ruined my company and bankrupted me.” I didn’t mention that the reason I was bankrupt was because I chose to pay all of my staff redundancy packages rather than bailing out my company.
“It’s not an original story,” I threw up my hands. “I’m just another millennial coming home with her proverbial tail between her legs after life chewed her up and spit her out, leaving her failures for the world to see.”
It wasn’t until now that I looked at Brody. I’d been focusing on the snow over his head the entire time. I couldn’t look my high school bully in the eye while I recounted my fall from grace. It was just too much.
But I couldn’t keep my eyes off him for too long. He was magnetic; my body had been angling closer to him this entire time, constantly aware of his breathing, the subtle scent of him in the air. I caught every small movement he made out of the corner of my eye. And I’d noted he’d gotten tense during my story. I hadn’t noticed he looked furious, though.
“You didn’t fuckin’ fail, someone fucked you over,” Brody snarled.
Snarled.
Feral like.
I just blinked at the emotion. He looked pissed. Uber pissed. Not at me. At least I didn’t think so. He looked pissed for me.
It was … odd. And comforting. Though it shouldn’t have been. I’d never had someone feel murderous rage on my behalf. Although my mother had mentioned Geoff once since I’d been home, and it had been to wish ill on all his dreams.
“I gave someone the opportunity to fuck me over,” I corrected him. “I gave someone the power and control over my life because I thought that I could trust them. A hard lesson and one I shouldn’t have had to learn.” I sipped more wine. “It’s not original, Brody. Men fuck women over all the time. Women fuck over men. Humans are brutal to each other. As we well know.”