her?” Again, he made the lewd hand gesture.
More eyes turned our way.
“Holy Fran Dresh—” I took a calming breath. “It was dark. We were stuck in a closet at the Jingle Balls Ball back in December. You know, the one you bailed on?”
He nodded. “Right, I ended up in Aspen at a killer party.”
“Well, you didn’t stay, remember?”
He chuckled. “Oh yeah. I remember thinking it strange you were pissed I didn’t show up. I thought you’d be happy I was investing in The Blue Spot.”
“I was, but James locked me in the closet, naked, because he’s James and a jerk. She was the coat check girl and accidentally got locked in the closet too. One thing led to another and we had sex.”
“But that doesn’t explain why she doesn’t know it was you.”
I was about to answer him, but our waitress came back with our lunch. She grinned at Hamish and placed his ravioli in front of him. She turned her gaze to me and pursed her lips. My plate landed with a thud in front of me, a few pieces of my salad falling onto my lap.
“Enjoy,” she grumbled, continuing to glare at me as she walked away.
“She hates you,” Hamish said with a chuckle.
“I’m sure most people in this place hate me.”
Considering they all think I like to joke about rape.
“At some point Julia saw you or got your name. What happened when you both got out?”
I explained that I saw her, but she never saw me, and that when James let me out, he pulled me away before I told her who I was.
“That’s crazy. Just don’t tell her. If she does not understand it was you, she need not know.”
I rubbed my brow. This was the part I was dreading. Would he say that after he knew what happened next?
“Considering I knocked her up, and she gave birth a month ago to my son, I feel like I should tell her.”
The fork in his hand stopped mid-air. Red sauce dripped from the ravioli down to his plate.
His mouth opened and closed a few times as if he wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say.
Hamish put down the fork and turned in his chair to face me. “I know what my father would say. He’d tell you not to say anything and not to employ her ever again.”
I swallowed, trying to hold down the bile that was rising from my stomach. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Even if Hamish wanted me to do that, I never would.
“But I’m not my father. My dad’s an asshole. He’s spoiled and thinks the world revolves around him. But it doesn’t. The world revolves around the love and happiness that you let into your life.”
The profound speech my friend gave surprised me.
He slapped me on the shoulder. “Money and work and objects,” he pointed to his car parked on the street that had gathered a crowd of gawkers, “they’re nothing. It’s people that count. You have a son; don’t you want to hold him?”
Yes. Yes, I did.
Chapter 14
Julia
“IT’S FINE. IN CASE you were worried.” I reached over and squeezed Jami’s hand.
She looked up from the book she was reading and stared at me.
“I said it was fine. I will be okay.”
She nodded. “Yes.” Then she turned her gaze back to her book.
My lips thinned. She wasn’t listening to me, as usual.
I quit my job yesterday and spent the last twenty-four hours wondering if I made a mistake. This had never happened to me before.
Not the quitting part—I quit jobs all the time. That part wasn’t hard. And every time I quit, I felt relief, like there had been hands around my neck that instantly slipped away.
But this time it was different. No relief, just worry, doubt that I went too far.
“Perhaps I should have stayed for the entire week. It was only one more day.” I reached over the round breakfast table and grabbed another mini muffin from the plastic container.
The first thing I did when I left work was take the bus to the grocery store and fill up on pity party food. Lots of baked goods, chips, and dip that turned my breath into mustard gas.
Once I got home, I held Nathan a lot . . . more than usual. He was my comfort blanket for the day. It felt good to cuddle him. All he wanted from me was milk and to change his diaper. I looked at it as an even exchange of