Brave (Contours of the Heart Book 4)

by Tammara Webber

  “I had no idea adults behaved like this.” Okay, so I’d seen my sorority’s alumnae, the height of professionalism and accomplishment, do some silly things at convention. Like when the Governing Council performed in a lip-synched video for Revelry night at the convention I got to attend. I’d also borne mortified witness to my parents getting their dance on at the country club after a few too many drinks. “I mean at work,” I added.

  Isaac smirked, lips pressed in a straight, tight line except the very edges, which twitched like involuntary half sneers. He put up a hell of a fight to maintain that smirk without allowing it to morph into a smile, but he finally gave up, leaned forward, and laughed out loud, eyes squeezed tight, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. Deep and potent, the reverberations pushed under my skin and soaked into my unsuspecting heart.

  I was grateful for his closed eyes. The man was laughing at me, and I wanted to twirl in a circle, jumping up and down as though I’d just won a race. This was not good.

  “Welcome to adulthood, Ms. McIntyre,” he said, taking two steps into the hallway before stepping back to say, “Last year, Finance and Accounting were Minions. It thwarted my ability to fully enjoy Joshua the Cowardly Lion. I’m counting on your veto for any of that nonsense.”

  • • • • • • • • • •

  Department meetings about Halloween were carried out like top secret military operations. Closed doors and low voices and shredding—actual shredding, in a shredder—of notes that could fall into “the wrong hands” according to the office receptionist, Kelsey, who urged vigilance around other department members, whom she called spies, with no hint at levity.

  Isaac and I exchanged a look, and I had to stare at the memo listing the “rules” of the contest to keep from giggling.

  Hank’s team was composed of Kelsey, Isaac, Connie in HR, Trey and Laurel in accounting, and Rhett—our IT guy who had the world’s longest comb-over, spoke in such a near-whisper he frequently had to repeat himself, and looked less like a Rhett than anyone I’d ever met—and me.

  The first suggestion, a bowling ball and pins, was right out.

  “There are only eight of us,” I said. “We won’t be able to be a strike.” I did not look toward Isaac. I would have lost it.

  Trey, who was somewhere between thirty and forty, suggested green army men, but Laurel and I vetoed painting our faces green.

  “Snow White and the seven dwarves?” Connie said.

  “No,” everyone answered.

  Half an hour later, I was beginning to understand how Minions had come about. I no longer cared what costume I was going to have to wear, and I wanted to go to my tiny office and scream into the cute fuzzy throw pillow I’d bought for my chair. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  And that’s how, the morning of Halloween, I ended up in a metallic gold cheer outfit with shimmery gold tights, holding sparkly gold pom-poms, sporting strings of gold sequins wound through my hair, which was pulled into a high ponytail. Even my makeup was metallic. Why? Because someone suggested, “Let’s all be real-life trophies!” and everyone thought that was the best idea since… Minions. I had to admit it wasn’t the most abhorrent suggestion ever. Also, I’d been a competitive cheer captain and a goddamned Panhellenic delegate. Representing my squad was ingrained in my bones like an eternal honor code, even if that meant showing up dressed like a freak-show disco cheerleader.

  As soon as we got to work, we convened in the HR office. The more competitive among us took turns getting dressed in the cramped copy room so the other teams wouldn’t see their costumes until the judging ceremony. From Connie, each of us collected a square, spray-painted box we were supposed to stand on, because yes, we had devised poses for ourselves. The boxes sported shiny plaques listing our names and the life-sized trophies we represented, courtesy of Connie and Kelsey, who were in it to win it:

  TREY ROSS: 1ST PLACE NATIONAL SKEET SHOOT BATTLE

  CONNIE GARCIA: 3RD PLACE COLLIN COUNTY BAKEOFF: PIES

  ISAAC MAAT: 1ST PLACE SLIDE RULE COMPETITION—HUTCHESON JR HIGH

  First thought: Bahahahaha—nerd. Second thought: It’s against the goddamn laws of nature for a nerd to be that hot.

  “Why does yours say third place?” Laurel (1ST PLACE LPGA FINALS) asked Connie.

  “Because I placed third?” Connie said, as though explaining something so obvious it shouldn’t need an explanation. She opened a craft-store bag and pulled out a golden Styrofoam replica of a pie, necessary to her chosen pose of a middle-aged lady holding a prizewinning dessert. I wondered if there was any gold spray paint left in Southlake in the wake of Connie and Kelsey’s determination to steal the title from Sales this year.

  Laurel gasped, eyes wide under her gold visor, knuckles tight on her golden putter. “Wait. They’re supposed to be for real stuff we won?”

  “I doubt Trey’s ever won a national anything,” Kelsey said. Her gold costume included a gold tiara and multi-tiered ball gown with a sash naming her Amarillo’s Miss Teen Pageant Finalist. “Just go with it!”

  Laurel pointed at my box. “You really won that, didn’t you?”

  My box read: ERIN MCINTYRE: 1ST PLACE DISTRICT CHEER CHAMPION. “Um, yeah.” I shrugged one shoulder and she sighed.

  “I really won mine too,” Rhett said. “I was an athlete in college.” He was wearing what he wore every day: pleated slacks and a bowling shirt, except everything was gold. His box was inscribed: MVP, INTERCOLLEGIATE SINGLES CHAMPIONSHIP, AJBC 1978.

  “AJBC?” Laurel asked.

  “The American Junior Bowling Congress, which became the Young American Bowling Alliance in 1982 and was incorporated into the United States Bowling Congress in 2005.”

  “Ah,” Laurel said. “That’s… cool.”

  “And also real,” he said, staring at the box proclaiming Laurel an LPGA Finalist.

  “Isaac, what’s a slide rule? Some sort of dance?” Kelsey asked, my cue that my hot, nerdy, surly, inexplicably protective boss had entered the room.

  My back was to the door. I didn’t turn, but my posture realigned and my breath grew shallower. I could feel him looking me over in that surreptitious way of his. Or maybe I just hoped he was. None of us had disclosed our intended trophies to anyone but Connie, whose husband had engraved the plaques. Sipping my coffee, I willed myself to appear indifferent.

  Indifferent. HA. Fat chance, McIntyre.

  “Um, no. It’s a math competition.”

  I stole a covert side glance as he came to stand beside me, nerdy hot in a gold lamé shirt and slacks, unridiculous even with the gold pocket protector and pens, a tie made of gold sequins, and gold-framed glasses.

  “Oh.” Kelsey looked disappointed. “But you look like a seventies funk vocalist. Except you’d need to let your hair grow out more.” She held her hands six inches out from her head.

  I choked on my coffee, but he chuckled, unfazed.

  “Where did you get those shoes?” She pointed. “They make actual gold Chucks?”

  “Ebay,” he said, giving me a rapid once-over. Our eyes met and his were warm and dark, but inscrutable, as always. I couldn’t tell if he was repulsed or turned on by my golden cheering getup, but one thing was certain—he wasn’t indifferent.

  Trey emerged from the copy room, dressed in a camouflage cap and coveralls that had been spray-painted. The paint was scattering from him like gold dust with every bend of a knee or elbow, but the camo pattern showed through the thin layer of paint. He was holding what appeared to be an actual firearm, which had to be against company regulations even if it had been goldified like everything else in the room.

  “Is that thing real?” Laurel gaped, echoing my thoughts. “Because I swear to God, Trey.”

  “It’s not loaded!”

  Uncle Hank came in then, wearing some sort of gold superhero outfit complete with faux bulging muscles. His feet were stuffed into Tony Lama boots that had been coated in gold glitter, as had the cowboy hat he shoved onto his head before picking up h
is box, which read: HANK GREENE, 1ST PLACE TEXAS TROPHY HUSBAND. Miranda had outdone herself.

  He glanced around, taking in our costumes and chuckling until he got to Trey. “Is that a real shotgun?”

  Trey repeated his defense a bit less forcefully to the CFO. “It’s not loaded.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.” Hank took the gun, opened and checked the barrel for ammo, and handed it back, shaking his head. “You didn’t think to yourself, ‘Maybe bringing an actual firearm to a professional office building isn’t a bright idea’? A toy would have done. Soon as the contest concludes, that thing goes out in your truck—if Aaron doesn’t wrap it around your neck first.”

  Trey dropped his defensive demeanor and swallowed. “Shit. I forgot.”

  I turned toward Isaac, confused. It sounded like they were talking about me.

  “Aaron in marketing,” he murmured. “I’ll explain later.”

  “Ah.” Every now and then, someone summoned Aaron or me over the intercom and clarified which of us they wanted with a last name or, more often, “Marketing Aaron” or “Liaison Erin”—a shortened title I did not appreciate.

  • • • • • • • • • •

  After our free lunch from Truluck’s—because of course we beat Sales’ done-to-death Scooby Doo cast and Operations’ even less imaginative Corona six-pack (and a slice of lime—portrayed by Ted’s secretary, who won the Costco card, bless her heart)—I asked Isaac for the promised explanation about Aaron from Marketing and Trey’s shotgun.

  He glanced behind us on the staircase, but we were alone between floors. “Aaron’s sister was a shooting victim a few years back—one of those ‘disgruntled ex-employee’ situations. She hadn’t even worked with the guy. She was just in the hallway when he rounded a corner and started shooting. First one shot. Only one killed.”

  I faltered on a step and gripped the railing. Aaron was a traditional marketing type—high energy, usually smiling or joking. But I’d come into the break room one afternoon, and he’d been standing, staring out the window, his arms crossed.

  “Hi there, Marketing Aaron,” I’d said.

  He always replied, Hey there, Liaison Erin, and then we’d both laugh or groan—often both.

  He’d turned, mumbled, “Hey,” grabbed his cup of coffee from the counter, and left the room. I wasn’t having the best day—one of my clients was rebuffing every effort at conciliation and Isaac was being scowly and brusque—so Aaron’s response had felt personal. I’d spent the next hour wondering if he was pissed off at me and feeling miffed at his rudeness because I had been nothing but nice.

  It’s easy to forget that we encounter people every day who are waging private emotional battles or enduring invisible pain—minor or all encompassing, fleeting or relentless. Some lash out constantly, their anguish so near the surface or so agonizing that it erupts from them. Some mask their pain with levity or bury it and block it off. Both need and deserve compassion. My training had taught me that fundamental truth, but I’d somehow overlooked it.

  Isaac and I stopped at his office door.

  “Aaron didn’t seem to have a problem during the party. I guess that’s good?”

  He picked up the end of his sequined tie and examined it. “I called him beforehand. So he’d know. In my mind, that isn’t the sort of thing to let play out.”

  I agreed with him, though the thought hadn’t occurred to me.

  “I think he appreciated the heads-up so he wouldn’t be ambushed by a surprise reminder of the worst news he ever got.”

  “I’m sure he did.”

  Those yawning potholes of grief weren’t always avoidable. Hearing a song Chaz had loved or seeing his fraternity letters on a college boy’s T-shirt could trigger reminders of him. Passing his birthday and holidays, one by one, that he would never experience again, until I reached the anniversary of his death weeks ago. No nightmare that night. Just crying in the shower. Just overarching sadness and a stupid relief that the day had fallen on a Saturday so I could hide away from everyone. Just going over what I had done and what I could have done for the millionth time.

  This was the second Halloween he’d missed. The next few weeks would bring the second Thanksgiving, the second Christmas, and another new year.

  I forced my thoughts to the here and now, to the man standing in front of me who was watching whatever clues were playing across my face. Erin mask, engaged. I smiled up at him. “Going to any parties tonight? You’ve already got a winning costume.”

  Awareness of what I had just done lit his eyes. I had purposefully veiled my thoughts rather than sharing them, and he knew it. Did Isaac Maat recognize my self-protective suppression because he did the same? I wanted to ask what he was hiding, but I didn’t dare reveal my hand. He wouldn’t have told me anyway.

  “Yeah, but I’d have to stand on my box or no one would know what I was supposed to be.”

  “Isaac, no one knows what you’re supposed to be with the box.”

  He laughed. “You knew.”

  “Don’t give me too much credit. I have a nerdy brother.”

  He angled his head. “Not Leo.”

  My turn to laugh. “Corona Bottle Number Six? Um, no.”

  “That’s right – you said you have two brothers between you in age.”

  Does he remember everything I’ve ever said in passing?

  “Foster, nerd extraordinaire, is an attorney. Pax is a minor league ballplayer.”

  “The Cats?”

  “No, the Isotopes.”

  “New Mexico?”

  “Do you know everything?”

  He pulled the golden glasses from his shirt pocket and slid them on. “Yes, I do.” From the pocket of his slacks, he produced a flat leather case and then removed a short, ruler-like instrument. “And the fact that I not only have this but know how it works proves it.”

  “The prizewinning slide rule, I assume? And oh my God, it has its own case.” I pinned my lips, which made my eyes water. The hilarity pinging around inside was determined to escape me one way or another.

  “Actually, this is a vintage Keuffel and Esser, so it deserves its own case.” He cocked a brow and stared at my face, taking in my valiant but deteriorating efforts not to laugh at his geeky math toy. “But this is a pocket model. Prize winning requires the ten-inch version. Or bigger.”

  My lips dropped apart and my face began to grow warm, and any compulsion to laugh was long gone. Please do not see where my it’s-been-too-long mind just went, I begged. My silent plea went unanswered. He knew exactly where my mind had gone because he’d led the way, and it had followed him like a hungry puppy stalking a clumsy kid with a hot dog.

  “Either will get the job done. But the larger ones calculate more… precisely.” The smirk was subtle, but I knew that smug expression too well. “When there’s no room for error, precision is essential. And if I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it right.”

  Hellfire and damnation.

  I drew myself up. “Ah,” I said. “I guess me and the rest of the dummies can be grateful for calculators, ha ha.” And then I scuttled to the relative safety of my office, where I decided it had definitely been too long. Time I did something about that.

  Me: Is that invitation to join you and your friends tonight still open?

  Mindi: Sure! The more the merrier. We’re going to Uber over to 7th around 8.

  Me: Awesome. I’ll run home and grab a few things and then head your way as soon as I get off work.

  Mindi: Yay! Too long since I’ve seen you. <3

  Trophy Erin was going trick-or-treating. Done right was all fine and good, but sometimes a girl didn’t have the time or fortitude to wait for precision, she just needed to be done.

  chapter

  Seventeen

  Mindi’s squad pulled out all the stops on costumes, howling with laughter as we endeavored to pin down our shared theme for the night and ended up reclaiming the most dreaded descriptor of junior high. Ava—slutty mechanic, Claire�
�slutty nurse, Madison—slutty zombie, Mindi—slutty Cinderella, and Erin—slutty cheerleader.

  The gold skirt worked, but I ditched the tights and the sleeveless top, which was sweetly appropriate for high school cheerleading or a work costume but utterly unsuitable for bar-scene hookup hunting. Bare legs, four-inch platform wedges with canvas sneaker uppers, and a low-cut T-backed tank later, I was ready. I kept the big gold bow and high ponytail.

  Before the bar crawling began, we were meeting up with a group of guys they knew, which probably meant they were all college boys. I’d been out of school less than six months and I felt a hundred years too old for someone conceivably my same age. But I wasn’t in the mood for a complete stranger, so friend of a friend would have to do. One of them had to be cute enough, for fuck’s sake. Literally.

  “This is no time to be fastidious, McIntyre,” I admonished my rearview mirror reflection before getting out of the car now wedged between a TCU-window-stickered Mini Cooper and a TCU-bumper-stickered Volvo. (Thanks be to Pax for insisting on teaching sixteen-year-old me to parallel park with only inches to spare.) Grabbing my gold pom-poms from the passenger seat, I gave myself one last motivational edict. “Go get you some college-boy ass.”

  Mindi shared a small off-campus house with her friends. The neighborhood might have been picturesque once upon a time, but it was all student rentals now rather than manicured lawns and darling cottages like Tuli’s, which was only two or three miles away. I erased the pout that thinking about Isaac’s cute, artistic friend brought to my face; there would be no moping tonight.

  I didn’t want to think about Tuli or Isaac. Or Isaac with Tuli.

  We started the night at Chimy’s to load up on greasy Tex-Mex and cheap margaritas. PSA: if you haven’t barhopped in a while and then do so on a costume-encouraged, Friday-landing holiday, the experience can be overwhelming. The place was packed with pre-partiers who’d all had the same idea we’d had. The weather had turned cool in the past twenty-four hours, but when a bunch of tallish guys bunched near us decided to head across the parking lot to the Reservoir, I realized I’d felt suffocated.