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I close my eyes briefly, half pleased she sought me out, half wishing she’d stayed away. It’s not safe to be alone with her at work.
“I couldn’t concentrate in my office.” I’d tried for nearly an hour, but it just wasn’t happening.
She joins me at the living room window in Dad’s… No,myapartment. I have to start thinking of it as mine.
“I didn’t get a chance to mention how good you were at the meeting. Everyone seemed to be on board with fewer meetings.”
“What a legacy,” I murmur. “The CEO who slashed meetings in half.”
“Well, you have time to focus on bigger picture things now that you’re not swamped with the day-to-day minutiae.”
I release a long sigh. “Yep.” I get that she’s trying to be helpful, but I’m not in the mood.
She fiddles with the hem of her shirt, wrapping a loose thread around her forefinger. “What do you think of the apartment? Different, huh?”
I turn to her, sticking my hands in my pockets. “You don’t have to try and distract me or cheer me up or whatever.”
She rolls her lips between her teeth, looking down at the ground. “You said Dave wouldn’t say anything, right?”
“Right.”
“So I just don’t want you to be upset over something that didn’t even happen.”
But it could have. There’s no use in saying that aloud, though. She’s perfectly aware.
“Come on, youneeda distraction. How about I give you a tour of what me and Hannah came up with?”
I nod, resisting the urge to drag my feet as she leads me away, wanting to wallow for a while longer. But as she describes her plans to me, all warm, dark tones that are a one-eighty from the previous white, minimalist furniture, I find myself getting into it, enraptured by her enthusiasm more than anything else.
A cozy study in one of the smaller bedrooms. A green garden on the private terrace off the bedroom. Framed art throughout the place she knows I like from prior conversations.
My mood lifts listening to her, internally smiling at the way she gestures, the light in her eyes, the passion in her voice. Maybe I should let her move in here instead. She obviously cares about what she has planned. And she’d seemed so impressed that first day up here. Besides that, her house looked like it was in need of some major upgrades. Would she…
What am I thinking? If I’m worried about someone just seeing us together, there’s no way I can move her in here.
She lightly touches my arm, bringing me back to the present, her expression kind even as it clearly shows she knows I wasn’t fully paying attention. “Can I show you something?”
She leads me to the bedroom closet, which I haven’t actually been in yet, and pulls a box from the top shelf. “What’s this?”
“Personal effects.”
I blink at her, taken aback. “What?”
She smooths her hand over the lid, my heart beating painfully as her fingers flirt with the edge of the box. “I had everything in the apartment put in storage for you to decide what to do with later. Except this. I meant to talk to you about it, but so many other things have been going on.”
That’s an understatement. “What’d he have worth keeping?”
“I didn’t realize what it was at first. And when I did, I closed it up. But it seems to be some of your mother’s effects.”
My hand grips the closet door frame, unprepared for that. “Can I…”
“Of course.” She takes off the lid and hands me the box, my gaze zeroing in on the silver-plated hairbrush she always kept at her vanity. God, how can a single item hold such strong nostalgia?
I take a seat on the ground, leaning against the wall as I dig out the next thing, a picture of my parents on their wedding day.
Emma kneels beside me, reading the back of the photograph. “Harold and Eileen. Nineteen eighty-nine.”
“You like those sleeves?”