by Boone Brux
“No.” How did she put this without coming right out and accusing him? “Actually, I just got off the phone with Jonathan Lawson.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to offer me a job.”
“Kinni, that’s fantastic.” His smile faded and he shook his head. “That’s good news, right?”
“Definitely, it’s just…” Pacing a couple steps to the right, she put some distance between them. “He mentioned talking to you this week—about me.”
Alarm flashed across his face. “He said that?”
“Did you talk to Mr. Lawson about me?” Maybe she wouldn’t have pushed the issue, but his guilty expression goaded her. “Price?”
“I might have given him a call last week…on your behalf.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, I just asked if he’d take a personal look at your résumé before making a decision.”
That didn’t sound so bad. “And that was it?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“What does pretty much mean?” A sinking feeling swam through the pit of her stomach. “What else did you say?”
“Listen, you’d been having such a hard time landing a job. I just wanted to help.”
Stopping in front of him, her eyes leveled on him. “What did you say, Price?”
“Does it matter what I said?” He grabbed her hands and gave them a tiny shake. “You got the job.”
“Yes, but I want to know why I got the job.”
“Because you deserve it. You’re smart and a hard worker.”
She pulled her hands free. “That’s what you said to him?”
“Yes, I definitely said those things.”
Getting him to tell her the whole story was like pulling teeth. Why couldn’t he just admit he’d called in a favor and gotten her the job? “What else?”
He propped his hands on his hips and stared down at the ground. “Kinni.” His tone was almost pleading. “It’s not important.”
“It’s important to me.”
“Why?”
“Because, Price, I need to know if I got the job on my own merit or if you called in a favor.” Anger bubbled just below the surface, but she kept it contained.
“Of course you got it on your own merit. All I did was make sure John didn’t miss all your good qualities.”
“Why would he miss all my good qualities? They were written on my résumé.” Leaning in, she cocked her head. “And I was in the middle of an interview, telling them all my merits.”
“Well, sure, but you know how you can be.”
Her body straightened, his comment hitting her like a slap. “No, please, Price, tell me how I can be.”
“You even said it yourself, you can be a little intense sometimes, and it can put people off.” Listing his head from side to side, his voice took on a placating tone. “I wanted to make sure Jonathan made an effort to get to know you and get past your rigid shell.”
“So you told a potential employer that I really wasn’t an anal-retentive automaton and that once he got to know me I was a swell girl.”
“Not in those exact terms.” He cringed. “But something like that.”
A tirade caught in her throat, and it took all her strength to not spew it at him. “And when exactly did you make this call?”
To add insult to injury he said, “After you left for your interview.”
“Oh my God, so while I was there, actually interviewing for a position, you were on the phone, giving the owner of the company a complete rundown of my faults.”
“Not all of them.” He backpedaled. “I mean, I was trying to help by telling him how great you are.”
“Oh well, then thanks so much for making me look like a socially inept imbecile.”
“That’s not what happened. Even if I had, you still got the job.”
“No, Price, if you made me look like an idiot and they still offered me a position”—she jabbed a finger at him—“then you got me the job. Don’t you see, he gave it to me as a favor to you, not because I deserved it.”
“Wrong. Jonathan isn’t like that. He gave it to you because you earned it. I just gave him a nudge in the right direction.”
The vision of a future in her dream job slipping away floated through her mind. “I realize you think I’m incapable of getting a job on my own, but I didn’t ask for your nudge. God, you must think I’m a joke.”
“Come on, you’re making too much of this. I used a connection to help a friend. That’s all.”
“Like I said, I didn’t ask for your help.”
She started to walk away, but he blocked her path. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d get so upset about it or I wouldn’t have called Jonathan.” He held up his hand and made an X over his heart. “I promise I’ll never do it again. Can we forget about this and move forward?”
“Move forward? There’s no moving forward. How can I possibly be with somebody who doesn’t respect me?”
“I more than respect you.” He gently grasped her arms. “Kinni, I’m falling in love with you.”
“Oh, you’re in love with me?” Of all the things he could have said, this was the most hurtful, because it was a lie. When one person loved another they didn’t belittle them to others. That’s what he’d done to her, tried to explain away her character flaws. A sneer pulled at her mouth and she shook her head. “Why?”
“What do you mean?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and jutted her hip to the side. “Why do you think you’re falling in love with me?”
“I don’t know why, I mean, there are lots of reasons why. I think about you all the time. Things that used to be fun aren’t fun anymore without you. I like doing things with you.”
“It sounds like you need a dog, not a girlfriend.” She stepped around him and climbed the steps. “Look, maybe you actually believe you’re falling for me, and maybe you are, but in a few weeks, maybe even a month, you’ll realize that this”—she waved a finger between them—“isn’t what you want and can’t work. You’ve already had to make excuses for my quirks, so I’ll do us both a favor and end it now.” It took all her will to keep her voice steady. “Now, I think you should leave.”
“So that’s it? You’re just going to walk away?”
“Don’t worry about me getting home. I’m sure my father won’t mind driving me.” A lump formed in her throat as she peered through the screen door at him. He looked so helpless and hurt. But that’s usually how it went. “Good-bye, Price.
…
By eleven o’clock, everybody had left the celebration and the house had quieted. Kinni had told her mother she’d be spending the night, and asked if one of them could drive her back to Seattle in the morning. Of course her mom had agreed. It was a rare occasion that her daughter spent more than two or three hours at the commune.
Kinni sat on the front porch, rocking in the same chair she’d sat in this afternoon with Price, though this time her mood was quite different. Bright-colored Chinese lanterns lit up the driveway, gently rocking on the summer breeze. It was beautiful here, but right now it was difficult to appreciate it.
The screen door creaked open and her mother stepped onto the porch. “Mind if I join you?”
“No.” Kinni patted the rocker beside her. “I saved you a spot.”
Her mom eased onto the chair and sighed. “Good party.”
“Great party.” Folding her hands across her belly, Kinni stretched out her legs and crossed them at the ankles. “And despite the naked bits, it was a nice ceremony.”
“Thank you.” Her mom was quiet for a minute, her chair setting a steady cadence with its back-and-forth motion. “So, do you want to tell me what happened between you and Price?”
“What makes you think anything happened?”
“Honey, as much as I’d love to think you came here with every intention of staying overnight and spending time with your father and me, I know that’s not the case.”
Would her mother really understand how she felt, or would she spout some positive affirmation she’d found on Pinterest? “Lawson and Associates offered me a position at their firm.”
“That’s fantastic.” When she saw Kinni’s frown, her smile fell. “Isn’t it?”
“I thought it was fantastic until I found out that Price called Jonathan Lawson while I was having the interview and asked him to personally take a look at my résumé.”
The look she gave Kinni was contemplative and sage. “Well, that’s a little meddlesome, but not unforgivable.”
Still not looking at her mother, she said, “He also asked Mr. Lawson to look past my personality, and assured him I was much better once he got to know me.”
“Are you sure he said it like that?” Her mom stopped rocking. “Maybe you’ve misinterpreted the situation.”
“No misinterpretation. He pretty much owned up to it. Then as a diversionary tactic, he said he was falling in love with me.” At the mention of him loving her, a tiny ripple of joy skittered through her.
Sitting forward, her mom settled a hand on Kinni’s arm. “Price told you he loved you?”
Warmth spread across her skin, calming some of the emotions tumbling around in her head. “Yes, but he didn’t mean it. When I asked him why, he couldn’t even tell me.”
“Well, love isn’t always easy to describe, especially if somebody has never been in love.” Pulling back her hand, she resumed rocking. “Songs and poems make love sound so wonderful, but most of the time people have no idea why they care about somebody, they just know they do.”
“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Hope mixed with dread. Could he have been telling the truth and she’d simply cast his feelings aside because they weren’t logical?
“I think it’s worth finding out if he meant it.” Though the pace of her rocking remained steady, her mother’s voice took on a higher pitch, a sure sign she was prying, but didn’t want to appear as if she was prying.
“So…how do you feel about him?”
Kinni uncrossed her ankles and sat a little straighter, pushing away the first impulse she had, which was to say she was falling in love with him, too. “I liked Price.”
“Just liked?”
“Okay, I liked him a lot.” Her eyes cut to her mom and away. “A lot-a lot.”
“Sounds serious.”
“But I’ve known him for almost nine years, and until a week ago, I didn’t actually care for him that much.”
“So what changed?”
She thought about that for a second, remembering all the fun they’d had together. “I guess I got to know the real him.”
Her mother stopped rocking and gave her an all-knowing mom stare. “Then isn’t it possible he got to know the real you and fell in love?”
“That’s what’s so confusing. How could he be in love with me but still feel the need to justify my personality with people?”
“I’m not condoning what he did, but I think his heart was in the right place. He’d seen you struggling with getting a job and stepped in to help. The one thing you have to understand about men is they are fixers.” She tapped her index finger against the wood of the chair as if driving her point home. “It’s in their nature to fix things. The reason I stopped venting to your father about trivial stuff is because he’d keep offering me solutions. He didn’t get that I just wanted to blow off steam.”
“So you think that’s what Price did, tried to fix my problem.”
“Yes, because he saw how much you wanted it, and he cares about you.”
“I get that, but…it’s humiliating to think he had to make excuses for my personality. That’s kind of a trigger for me.”
“Because of the girls,” her mom said matter-of-factly.
“What girls?”
“The girls at dance class. You didn’t think I knew.” She nodded. “But I overheard them teasing you one day.”
“You did?” All these years Kinni had dealt with the repercussions of their bullying alone, too ashamed to even tell her parents. Not wanting to hurt their feelings about being odd. “You never said anything.”
“I waited to see if you’d handle the situation yourself or ask me for help. You never asked, and by the time I decided to step in, it was too late. You wanted to quit.” Sitting forward in the chair, she grasped Kinni’s hand. “But do you know what the saddest part is? You believed what they said about you, and then you worked so hard to not be that person that you lost yourself. And the kicker—even today you still wonder if they were right.”
“They were right, Mom. We lived on a commune. I was homeschooled. I brought tofu as a snack to dance class while the other kids were eating Cheetos. I was a freak.”
“Everybody has baggage, Kinndalynn. Even the most famous or most popular person has quirks. But you’ve been so engrossed in your own woes that you’ve never noticed you weren’t the only freak out there.” Again she tapped the arm of the chair. “The trick is to recognize the problem and deal with it. Don’t let those girls steal another twenty years of happiness from you.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You live way out here with people who adore you.”
Her mom cocked a brow. “Do you honestly believe it’s just one big group hug out here?”
“I know it is.” She gave an unladylike snort. “I lived this life.”
“Please, you left when you were eighteen, and before that you never lifted your nose from your books. Trust me, we have problems.” She glanced around and then leaned toward Kinni. “Emily Johnson made a pass at your dad last week.”
“Are you kidding?” She mirrored her mother’s pose.
“Nope. And old man Earl, he has quite the healthy crop of”—she mimed air quotes— “‘medicinal herbs’ growing in his greenhouse. And remember Patty Jean, the woman who lived here for about three months…kleptomaniac. Once a week I’d have to visit her just so I could steal my stuff back.”
This was not how she remembered life on the commune. Probably because her mother had sheltered her from a lot of the unpleasantness, leaving her with benign memories. “Do you think Patty Jean stole Dad’s stuffed armadillo?”
“Oh no, I threw that out a week after he bought it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But I did blame it on her after she moved away.”
Kinni laughed, shamelessly loving the inside gossip her mother was dishing. “Wow, I did not know all that.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Everybody has their trigger. For you it’s believing those girls might have been right about you, but trust me, they weren’t.”
She weighed her mother’s words. A lot of what she said rang true. “It’s scary to put myself out there. What if I tell him I love him and then things fall apart?”
“I think a better question is, what if you tell him you love him and they don’t? It’s all the way you look at things.”
“I guess.” Love was something she couldn’t rationalize until it made sense. There was no algorithm or formula to follow, and that sucked. “Still, I’m going to have to turn the job down.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She flopped against the chair back, hating that her pride wouldn’t let her ignore Price’s part in her new job offer. “I can’t take a position that Price got for me.”
“Why?” A hint of the mother bear Kinni had only seen a few times in her life flashed in her mom’s eyes. “Don’t you think you’ll be an asset to the firm?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then I don’t see what the problem is,” she said as if the matter was closed. “So what if his call cinched the offer? That’s the easy part. Now comes the hard part, proving to Lawson and Associates that they didn’t make a mistake.”
Her mother’s words weighed heavily on her, generating a lot of difficult questions. But most of all, was Price worth risking her heart for?
Chapter Sixteen
Kinni had taken her mother’s words to heart and had thrown herself into her new job
, determined to show Jonathan Lawson he hadn’t made a mistake by hiring her. Whatever her supervisor wanted, she was on it. The hours were long, but she could honestly say she loved the work.
The part of her life that wasn’t so great was her free time. It had been ten days since she’d seen Price, and she missed him more each day. The talk with her mother had been good, not only because it helped calm a lot of her fears about her future, but it had shrunk the gap that had grown between her and her parents. Until it happened, she hadn’t known how much she missed and needed them, despite their unorthodox lifestyle.
Today was a new day. After a week of making pro-con lists, writing in the journal her mother gave her, letting her mother align her chakras before she left, and watching a slew of romantic comedies, she’d come to the conclusion that she was ready to take a chance with Price and put herself out there. The only question was if it was too late for them.
Finally working up the nerve to confront him, she swiped the rain out of her face, took a deep breath, and strode into the hotel. A few feet into the lobby she drew to a stop, her heart sinking and tears instantly burning at the back of her eyes. Price stood next to the registration desk, hugging a beautiful redhead. Kinni couldn’t peel her eyes from them. They looked stunning together, like a couple out of a trendy perfume ad.
The woman leaned away from Price, but kept one hand on the handle of her suitcase and the other on his waist. What was she, a flight attendant? Were Seattle and Price one of her layovers? When they both laughed at something the woman said, Kinni shook herself out of her stunned stupor, spun, and walked back out of the hotel.
It was too late. Blinking several times to keep the tears at bay, she sniffed. She’d blown her chance with him. All the pro-con lists and analysis worksheets hadn’t taken into account that he’d moved on. That was the one variable, human nature. If she’d only acted instead of pondered, maybe she wouldn’t be fleeing yet another painful relationship.
Raindrops pelted her head, the sprinkle turning into a downpour. Why not? It was the perfect setting for her day—her life.
“Kinni!”