What I Should’ve Said
Chapter 18

Tuesday, August 17th

Norah

Another week of working at CAFFEINE and messing up everything I touch. Another week of depending on Josie for simple necessities and a place to stay. Another week of feeling like I’m in limbo, waiting for the world to crash down around me.

And one full week of waiting to hear about the interview with nothing to show for it—and unfortunately, I really got my hopes up.

Agitation stirs inside me as Josie cleans the used grinds out of the espresso machine—that she finally got working again—and makes two customers’ drinks all at once.

The whole scene makes the writing on the wall more obvious—I’m useless here. And that stark reality only makes me think more about the one and only interview I attempted. Sure, it was entirely strange, and I didn’t actually talk to anyone, but painting that wall made me feel more like myself than I have in, well, forever.

Decorum tells me I should let it go. Try something else. Interview to shear sheep for Tad or settle for bagging groceries at Earl’s. But I’ve spent my whole life being the perfect little girl who does what other people expect of her, and now, every burning sensation in my body is rebelling against being that girl.

I watch Josie juggle two more orders and decide I can’t watch anymore. I can’t sit by and let life happen to me. It’s time I make life happen for me.

Screw this. I’m getting that job.

On a huff, I shove away from the counter, unwrap the tie on my green apron, and slam it down on the counter. The aggressive display causes several customers to look in my direction, all pairs of eyes wide and confused. And I’m not surprised that my unhinged, unexplained outburst has Josie scowling toward me.

Shit.

“Sorry.” I pick up the apron with apology in my eyes, and Josie goes back to making whatever fancy drink has her spraying a mound of whipped cream on top of cold coffee.

I hesitate for a long moment, a small part of me tempted to ask her if she knows anything about the mystery artist I still have no information on, but I decide I’m too vulnerable for that. I can’t risk other people’s opinions or the possibility that my only current hope balloon might get popped.

I need this hope. And I need to see it all the way through. On my own.

“Josie, I have to go somewhere. I…I can’t stay here and be useless and—”

“Okay,” Josie agrees without a second thought, without even looking up to meet my eyes. Frankly, I’m shocked. I figured she’d ask me questions. Interrogate me about where I needed to go. Something.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” She nods. “Just do me a favor, Hulk, and go easy on the equipment on your way out.”

Dramatically, I hang my apron on the hook by the door to the back kitchen and tiptoe my way around the counter. Josie has the decency to smile, and I’m almost laughing by the time I step out into the drizzle.

It’s a nasty day, one that makes me long for the hot stench of real summer, and I pull the hood of Lil’s Prada hoodie over my head and run for Josie’s old Civic like the water will melt me.

By the time I plop down in the driver’s seat, I’m breathing hard and silently cursing the mystery artist for making me go to so much trouble.

Good. Lord knows I’m going to need a bit of seething anger to bolster my confidence. I need backbone and determination and a “don’t take no for an answer” attitude, none of which are in my wheelhouse.

I crank the engine, which thankfully fires on the first turn of the key, strap on my seat belt, and take off down the road toward the outside of town. I don’t need directions this time; the route is burned into my brain.

When I turn onto Maple Avenue, which happens to be comprised of nothing more than dirt and gravel that’s now slickened by rain, the Civic fishtails so hard I end up spinning and facing the other direction. My heart throbs inside my rib cage, a mix of fear and resolve elevating my adrenaline to an eleven out of ten.

It’s raining harder now, coming in driving sheets that move from right to left instead of straight down, but I’m so far gone with determination, not even that can stop me.

I lift the hood of Lil’s hoodie back over my head and jump out of the car, abandoning it completely. In the distance, the big white house sits up on the hill, and I run the rest of the way to it, past the barn and up the drive until I reach the door.

I don’t wait to catch my breath, and I don’t even consider the fact that I have no idea who’s going to be on the other side. I need answers, and I need them now.

I want this job. Badly.

Scratch that. I need it. I’m not walking away from this with “No” as an answer. I can’t.

Fully soaked and shaking with the chill, I lift my hand to knock on the front door and pound until the light comes on in the hall. I can’t see anything clearly, thanks to the thin white curtains in the sidelight windows, but I know someone’s home.

Mustering every fiber of bravery I have, I knock harder, willing myself to take breaths as pounding footsteps sound on the other side of the deep blue door.

They’re getting closer and harsher, and holy shit, what if it’s an angry, scary man on the other side?

Immediately, I pull my knuckles away, and my throat seizes around a ball of panic.

Gah, Norah. Way to think this through!

My legs twist on themselves as I turn to leave, but it’s too late, I can tell by the sound of the door whipping open behind me.

“What in the hell is going—Norah?”

For as scary a scenario as I pictured of a stranger with a gun or a knife or a will to kill, the voice I hear behind me is infinitely more terrifying.

Oh my God. Don’t tell me that voice belongs to who I think it belongs to.

Slowly, I turn around, trying to catch my breath as I do, but it doesn’t get any better when I see his grumpy, gorgeous face. Bennett stands there, staring at me with bewilderment in his eyes and irritation on his lips.

“Hi, Bennett,” I say with forced dignity—like I’m not at all surprised to replace him here. Like I’m not utterly floored that he’s the mystery artist. “Sorry to bother you at home.” I steady myself, refusing to shake my head at my stupid apology. “But I was wondering if you could replace a minute to tell me whether I got the job or not.”

My skin feels clammy, and my heart may actually be seconds away from an explosion, but I steel my spine and roll my shoulders back like I’m not on the brink of demise from replaceing out that Bennett Bishop himself is the artist I interviewed to work for.

“I know you’re a busy guy and all, but I’m kind of trying to get my life started over here. And in order to start starting over, I need to know if I got the job. So do I have the job, or don’t I?”

He stares at me for what feels like an eternity. Seriously. I fear I might reach my deathbed before he responds, but then, he runs a harsh hand through his hair, lets out a deep sigh, and shocks the ever-loving shit out of me.

“You’re hired.”

Evidently, I’ve lost it, because I swear I just heard Bennett say I’m hired even though I’m standing on his doorstep uninvited, demanding answers while looking like a wet sewer rat. I’m pretty sure a psychologist would call these auditory hallucinations, and that would warrant an inpatient hospital stay.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve answered your question, and this is the part where you tell me your decision,” he states, his gaze locked with mine.

“What?” It’s all I can say.

“I just offered you the job. Now, you need—”

“You want to hire me?” I question, completely ignoring that he had more to say. “You want to offer me the job?”

He sighs again, but he also nods. A silent yes, but still, a yes.

“But why?” I don’t even think he likes me, and I know today’s behavior is completely outside of what he’s looking for more of in his life. But he’s offering me a job? Where he’ll have to see me every day? I don’t get it.

“You have an intuition with color, Norah,” he answers, and his voice is matter-of-fact. “A tangible ability to connect reality with the abstract. The wall you painted? It was from memory of a sunset last week, right?”

His words are a shock to my system. They are a one-thousand-piece puzzle, and I feel like I’m missing half of the pieces.

“I… How do you know that?”

His answering smile isn’t happy—it’s edgy. I wish I understood it. I wish I understood Bennett Bishop at all.

God, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I mean, I really want the job—need the job—but working for him sounds like one of the worst notions I’ve ever had.

“Look, I don’t know if this is going to work,” I say, my voice devoid of any and all confidence I had on my way over here. “You and me together, every da—”

“Dad!” a young but strong voice calls, completely interrupting not only my sentence, but my very ability to breathe. “Daddy!”

Daddy?

Bennett whips around quickly, just as the small girl appears at the mouth of the hallway. She’s walking slowly in a long, pink nightgown, seemingly holding on to the wall for support. She’s a beautiful little thing, but she’s also small and frail, and it seems like each of her movements takes a Herculean effort. Like the simple task of walking isn’t a simple task at all.

“Summer!” Bennett shouts, panic lining every single note of his words. “What are you doing out of your chair? Where’s Charlie?”

“Who’s that?” the little girl asks, staring at me with familiar blue eyes, wild, curly blond hair, and a megawatt smile. She ignores Bennett completely. “Who are you?”

“Summer—”

“Tell me who she is, and I’ll let you get my chair.”

“Summer.”

Her name on his lips makes my eyes dart down to his left hand, noting the visible S-u-m on top of his ring finger. Holy hell. My jaw wants to go unhinged at the revelation, while something I don’t know how to explain comes over me. All I know is that I step up and inside the door without invitation. “Hi, I’m Norah,” I call out. “Norah Ellis.”

It’s so not my place and breaches a million and one boundaries, but the fragility of the little girl’s body and Bennett’s panic about her chair—whatever that means—is enough to make me trample over it all. “And I guess you’re Summer, right? What a pretty name.”

She smiles again, bigger this time, and the small features of what I know would be the same on Bennett if he ever bothered to smile hit me square in the gut.

Bennett Bishop is someone’s daddy.

Bennett’s voice is careful but forceful as he calls out, “Charlie!” into the back of the house. Ten seconds later, a petite woman with shoulder-length blond hair and rugged facial features, wearing deep-purple medical scrubs, appears. When she spots Summer, her eyes widen and quickly turn to terror just like Bennett’s.

“Get her chair,” Bennett orders, and Charlie takes off without so much as a nod.

Tentatively, I move down the hallway toward them, inserting myself fully into a situation I know I have no business in. I don’t say anything, though, because for as gentle as Bennett is being on the outside, I can tell he’s a loaded powder keg on the inside.

Charlie returns with a small wheelchair in no time, and Bennett stands at Summer’s side as she lowers herself into the seat and places her feet on the footrests. He doesn’t, I note with some curiosity, touch her at all.

Crouching in front of her instead, he lowers his voice, “You can’t scare me like that, Summblebee.”

Summblebee. His gentle voice and the tenderness in his eyes urge a ball of emotion to fill my throat. Tears sit just behind my eyes, but I claw against them with absolutely everything I have.

“I know it’s hard, so hard, being confined to your chair, but the doctors said the bones are too weak to handle your own weight now,” he tells her with the kind of tenderness I didn’t even know Bennett Bishop was capable of. “I don’t want you to get hurt—I don’t want you to hurt any more than you already are.”

“I know, Daddy. But Charlie was in the bathroom, and I heard someone’s voice out here, and I wanted to see who it was.” Her eyes move to me. “Norah, are you a friend of my dad’s?”

Bennett’s head turns to me, and I try not to shrivel under the glare. It’s concern for his daughter, not ire with me—at least, I think.

Am I a friend of her dad’s? I might laugh at that question if this entire situation didn’t feel so heavy.

“Actually, I think I’m going to be your dad’s new assistant.” The words just fall out of my mouth before I think them through.

“You painted the sunset?” she asks excitedly, the corners of her mouth shooting up again.

I nod. “I did.”

“Oh my gosh! I loved it! Dad wasn’t crazy about all the pink at first, but he’s a boy, you know?”

I smile conspiratorially. I can imagine that pink wouldn’t be a macho tough guy like Bennett’s favorite color. Though, I suppose he is an artist, so it’s at least got to be somewhere in his palette.

“Boys,” I say with a roll of my eyes and a little laugh that makes her giggle.

“Come on, Summer, sweetheart,” Charlie cuts in gently. “Let’s go do your bath, okay?”

Summer agrees with a nod but shoots a grimace in my direction that makes me have to swallow a laugh to avoid exposing myself. I’m more than certain Bennett is not in the mood for me to cut it up with his kid right now.

When Summer and Charlie are out of earshot, I ask what I think is the only obvious question. “So…does the job offer still stand?”

I know better than anyone that privacy is precious, and unknowingly, I just battered through his with a ram. His home, his career, his daughter—he’s obviously kept them all a secret for a reason. And by showing up here uninvited, I completely robbed him of his right to keep it that way. I don’t need to ask questions about his life—though I am obviously curious in every way. I need to ask if he can forgive me enough to still consider the offer valid.

“The salary is seventy-five thousand a year,” he replies, and his tone is surprisingly neutral.

Instantly, my stomach turns over in shock at both the offer still being on the table and the number that accompanies it. I’ve never really made any money on my own, and he’s offering me that much right out of the gate?

“Seventy-five thousand a year?”

“Fine.” He shrugs. “Make it eighty.”

Eighty thousand a year? I was just hoping for a job that paid minimum wage. I think I’m going to faint.

“And you can start tomorrow. Be here at nine a.m. sharp.”

My heart is racing. My stomach is doing gymnastics. And my nerves threaten to make all my limbs shake like leaves on a branch in the middle of a windstorm.

I don’t know when it happens or how it happens, but I know that we shake on it. A nonverbal confirmation that I have accepted the job.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I have other things to do.”

He walks me to the door and sees me out like none of the several life-changing things that just happened to me exist at all.

I got the job with Bennett Bishop.

And I start tomorrow.

Holy shit.