help her out. She’d apologized over and over again for deciding to leave, and for moving out of the house she was splitting with two roommates—a house she’d offered to let me come live in while I figured out what I was doing. She had offered to let me take over the bedroom she rented, but I didn’t want to live with people I barely knew. My assistant, my friend, was leaving, and I had no idea what the hell I was going to do or who was going to help me from now on. I was going to miss her a lot, but at the end of the day, what really mattered was that Deepa was there for her mom, and that the other woman fought as hard as she could for her health.
So there was that.
And then there was the second thing. The email that started it all. Another stupid, stupid thing I’d done.
I’d only been holding it together because I was at work when the emails had started coming through from my viewers. I’d read their messages and checked my WatchTube channel on my own to confirm what they’d been trying to tell me during my brief breaks in between members and Gunner’s loops of terror around the building.
My viewers hadn’t been lying. The profile on my channel had been changed to some bogus person.
And maybe I’d been pretty distracted over that when I’d busted my ass and landed myself at urgent care, waiting to see a doctor so I could get stitched up or glued back together or whatever it was they were going to need to do. I was pretty sure I’d stopped bleeding finally, but my elbow was just throbbing like crazy to the same beat as my pulse.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I tried to tell myself it—everything today—wasn’t the end of the world. That I hadn’t actually lost anything. That I could get it all back. Most of it. Not Deepa. I needed to make some phone calls, fill out a form or two, and then everything would go back to normal, which had been my plan the instant I’d realized what had happened.
I had just been formulating a plan to start pretend-gagging to try and leave work early when this shit had happened.
How the hell did I let this happen? I asked myself as I shifted around in the uncomfortable chair and made eye contact with a woman across the room who was leaning her head against the wall and genuinely looking like shit.
But… I knew. I knew how it had happened. I had just prayed it hadn’t. But I’d had to leave for work, and I’d been distracted by Deepa’s call and had just told myself what I’d done was enough.
And now….
I squeezed my eyes closed so that I wouldn’t cry. I wasn’t helpless. Everything would work out. I had everything that WatchTube would possibly need or want to confirm my identity.
But this tiny little thread of fear still pulsed through my body at the what-if.
What if they wouldn’t give me my channel back?
Breathing in deeply through my nose, I told Gunner, “You really don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll wait,” he repeated himself. Unfortunately.
The old owner of the gym I worked at, Mr. DeMaio, once told me that there was no one more stubborn than a professional athlete. “It doesn’t matter if they’re retired or in the middle of their prime, Bianca, they’re stubborn asses. Just look at my granddaughter.” And I remembered then how he’d said that right as she had been walking by because she’d pointed at him on her way to the manager’s office and replied with “Shiiiit. Look in the mirror, Grandpa.” And all three of us had laughed, and man, did I freaking miss them.
One of them would have come with me if this had happened while they’d still owned Maio House.
The difference was that I wouldn’t have complained if one of them had been around, taking Gunner’s place. I wouldn’t have minded at all. They weren’t assholes.
I guess that stubbornness explained why Zac was coming even though I told him not to.
I sighed and tried to dig deep in my heart and be more patient. Be a better person and not be aggravated by Gunner just for the sake of being aggravated because it was him here.
I had bigger shit to worry about.
Sure, he was annoying. And a micromanager. And a dick. And not charismatic or likable enough to get away with the