Page 27

“What?” Betrayal is ripe within my tone, and likely my face. I feel it permeate every inch of my body and my fucking soul at this point. “What do you mean?”

“Trust me, as cool as this place appears, it’s not.” Speak for yourself, I’m in 2000s paradise with my adult responsibilities nowhere to be found. And I’m here…with you. “This isn’t where you belong.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that it’s dangerous here. And whoever gave you that key is just as dangerous. We need to find out who…”

I lift my hand to stop him. “Calm your jets, Inspector Gadget. It’s fine. Who cares who slipped the key in the envelope or how it got at your mom’s for your sister to give me. I’m here now and I finally feel like I can breathe.” So, let me. Please.

His brow lifts with such force his glasses slide down his nose in the process. “Lia…”

“No, don’t you Lia me. You have no idea what it’s like out there. The endless to-do lists, the expenses, the bills, the corruption. It’s hell on earth. And then you add work into the mix, it’s a nightmare. Whoever is the reason I’m here did me a favor.”

“You’re in the gaming industry, though, right?”

“Yes.” As if that has any bearing on what I just said.

“So how is that a nightmare? It’s your passion.”

“It is.” I say it as a statement, but it sounds more like a question.

“Then it sounds to me like you’re living the dream.”

Gag. The time he’s spent here has made him naive. Passion can only get you so far when it feels like everything is working against you—yourself included.

“The position in quality assurance was supposed to be temporary. But I guess believing that was my first of many mistakes. That’s what I get for mixing business with pleasure.” I let out a long-winded sigh. “Or whatever that was. Is it even pleasure if you have to fake an orgasm?”

If blinking were capable of producing sound, Rennix’s blinking would be ear-piercing. “That’s beside the point. I was hoping, and was even promised a position in design, and it was given to someone else, so I quit. Today, actually.”

Rennix clears his throat. “Your boss sounds like a jerk.”

I can’t help but burst out laughing. A little too loudly, startling him. He tries to play it off as if he didn’t jump out of his skin, but it’s too late. We lock eyes, and the laughter becomes mutual.

“Why are we laughing?” Rennix manages while trying to catch his breath.

“Jerk is too tame to describe what he is. I not only worked for him. I settled for his useless dick for so long that I said yes to his marriage proposal.” I pause, watching Rennix’s face as he absorbs all this information. I settled all right. Not just for the mid-dick, but for the person too. It’s easy to settle when what or who you want isn’t available…in the same universe. “Marrying Kent would’ve been a huge mistake.”

The air stills for a beat.

“Kent Duran?” Rennix asks, surprised.

I didn’t mean to let Kent’s name slip. He was always such an asshole to Rennix. But for some reason, when Rennix disappeared, Kent swept in comforting me, and I held on to it like a fool. “Yeah.” Guilt settles over me, causing my voice to become hoarse. “Anyway, he did me a favor when I found him fucking my stepsister in the bathroom at our engagement party.”

“Fuck, Lia, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. He did me a favor, remember? Besides, Tania is the total package—minus the backstabber part. She’s a VP at her marketing firm, she still models on the side, she runs marathons, folds and puts away her laundry on the same day, oh, and she doesn’t need to bring Lactaid with her everywhere she goes. Who wouldn’t want to fuck her?”

Rennix takes a long, deep breath in. “What does that have to do with how he treated you? Nothing excuses him disrespecting you like that. What happened to you, Lia?” The way he says my name spreads goosebumps all over my skin. He doesn’t sound angry. He sounds disappointed, which is way worse.

I don’t know how to answer that. I have not the slightest clue as to why I’ve allowed my potential to go untapped, or why I’ve allowed people to walk all over me despite being more than capable to stand up for myself. I don’t know how to explain how my life became the disaster that it is. At least, not without sounding like I’m placing blame on him, unfair as that may be. Him disappearing, to never hear from the only person who not only saw me for who I am but valued and heard it, definitely was some sort of catalyst to the shit show now synonymous with my life.

“I should ask you the same. Oh wait, I have been and you’ve been conveniently avoiding it.”

“It’s not that I’m avoiding it.”

“You’re not not avoiding it. I’m starting to think whatever led me here wanted to punish me. Whatever, I guess you wanted to stay living in perpetual millennial prime and there was, what, a one-way, one-person ticket only? I got it. Thanks.”

“Please, it’s not like that. You have to believe me…” He practically whimpers.