Just a Girl - Becky Monson Page 0,38

soul.

“Sure,” I say when I turn back to him. I hand him a piece of sandpaper, and we work in tandem on the cabinet door, my dad keeping to the larger areas at the base, under the glass, and staying away from the carved ones I’m working on at the top.

“Do you . . . want to talk about it?” he finally asks after I sniffle.

I give him a small smile. “Not really.” I already hashed it out with Holly on the phone after I left the station. She didn’t have much advice, since what could she say? I can’t walk back in there again and demand we give it a go. Henry clearly has some issues with dating a coworker, and I’m not the kind of girl you give up—or at least try to overlook—issues for.

Holly did say that whatever happened to him must have been pretty bad for him to not even consider continuing what we had going. She has to say that, since she’s my best friend. But I know the real reason.

It’s fine. It’s . . . I’ll just go back to dating average men and live a normal, average life. I had a taste of what the other side was like, and it was kind of overrated anyway. Not really. But I’ll just tell myself that.

“Where’s Mom?” I ask. Mostly because I’m hoping she’s not home and I can avoid her coming out here and asking me if I read the book she gave me.

“She’s inside,” my dad says.

I let out a breath. “Great,” I blurt, not intending to. But then I decide to just go for it and say the rest of what I’m thinking. “She’ll probably be out here soon with another diet book.”

My dad sighs, his eyes full of concern. “Your mom loves you, Quinn.”

I huff out a laugh. A sardonic one. I know what I’m doing here; I’m annoyed with how things went down with Henry and I’m now projecting my feelings onto my mom. I know this, and yet I just want to keep going.

“She loves me . . . she’d just love me more if I were thinner.”

“That’s not true,” my dad says. There’s a note of defensiveness to his tone that I’ve heard only a few times in my life. For all their differences, my dad is eternally devoted to her. It’s admirable, really.

“Dad,” I say, my voice matching his defensive one. “Don’t you notice all the diet books she brings me? All the things she prints off the internet for me to read?”

“She loves you, she does,” he says. “She just . . . she thinks she’s helping you, that’s all.”

“Do I seem like I need help?” asks the woman with the red-rimmed eyes and the snot-covered T-shirt.

His lips curve upward, just slightly. “I think you are your own woman and can hold your own. I’ve always been, and still am, proud of the person you are.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Love you, my Quinn,” he says before pulling me into a side hug.

My eyes fill with tears for a different reason this time. Those are just the words I need to hear from him.

Chapter 11

“We need a good feature,” Dwayne says from the head of the conference table.

It’s been a week since I was in Henry’s office. My life has gone back to the way it was before. Work, restore furniture, see my friends whenever, rinse and repeat. It’s like everything went back to pre-Henry life. Except for my stupid brain and heart. They are on a constant stream of screaming his name at me. Heeeeeenryyyyyyyy. Heeeeeenryyyyyyyy.

It’s super annoying.

Even when I haven’t seen much of him—which is how the past week has been. Just a glance or two as I see him walking around the office, acclimating himself to how we do things around here. He’s also adding things, like this weekly meeting with the anchors and the producers. It’s a good idea, even though I want to hate it. I want to hate all the good ideas Henry has—and he has a lot of them. It’s interesting to watch him; he’s so different than the guy I went on a few dates with. He’s so sure of himself, so confident. There’s never a moment of insecurity, of vulnerability. Work Henry knows exactly what he wants.

I find that this side of Henry only makes him hotter. Which is why I’m trying to hate things about him. But I’ve yet to find anything tangible. Except that he won’t take me across