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“Great.” I walked right into that one. “It’s gonna sound like—I don’t know—I need a year-long vacation or something. But ever since the day I first walked into that office and met Garner, it’s like I belong there. Like Ineedto stay there. Like leaving hurts.”

“I see.” He took a long sip of his drink and set it back down again. “Is that why you’ve been there so much?”

I nodded.

“Anything else I need to know?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Yeah, there’s more. I have dreams about the CEO.”

“Unless those are dreams of youharminghim, I don’t see what the problem is.”

“No, notthosekind of dreams. Like... the other kind.”Please don’t make me tell you they were sex dreams.

He squinched his nose. “I think you’re gonna have to give me more details. Spell it out.”

“You’re enjoying this too much.” I pretended to drink my coffee, which was actually still too hot.

“Iamenjoying it. But tell me. What kind of dreams?”

“Naughty dreams, okay?” And they’d become progressively hotter, but I left that part out. It was already embarrassing enough.

“Anything else?”

Gods, why did I have to open my mouth?

“Yeah, so... he thoughtyouwere going to be his point person. And that seemed to really bother me far more than it should.”

Harold’s face got suddenly serious. “Wait, who are we talking about again—still Garner?”

I nodded, and his mouth formed a little “O,” but he quickly schooled it. I brushed it off, because honestly, there was way more going on in this conversation than that.

“Okay, so he wanted me. Not unusual. We’ve always had people who requested each of us specifically.”

Harold said that, but really, there were people who requestedhimspecifically. I didn’t have his popularity. And I wasn’t really sure how he got it, other than, I don’t know, maybe charm, word of mouth. It didn’t really matter. There was plenty of work to go around.

“Yeah, and when he did… I got jealous. Jealous of work. Iknow, right? It doesn’t make sense. But I guess... I guess what I’m saying is, I think we need to switch. I’ll man here for a little while if you finish up this contract.”

Harold stared at me for a full 30 seconds before speaking again. “Here’s the thing. There’s a lot you don’t know—things he needs to tell you.”

“Are you trying to help with this? This is like a pep talk?” Because if it was, it sure wasn’t working.

“What I mean is... trust me, you want to stay with this job.”

“Did I mention his brother’s creepy?” I probably should’ve led with that, because the more I replayed our conversation, the less comfortable with it I became.

“No. But still… think about it… Don’t rush off too quickly. This job is exactly where you need to be. I just need you to trust me on this. Have I ever steered you wrong?”

He had me there.

“No. But to be fair,I’vesteered you wrong multiple times. So it kind of balances out.”

“Your logic isn’t logicking.” He pointed toward the door. “Now go. Skedaddle. Work.”

“Yes, sir.”

I walked out, just as confused as I was when I went in. Only this time, about different things. Why was Harold so sure I needed to stay there? At no point in the conversation did it feel like he was looking for a way to dodge responsibilities. He had no problem doing the gig, from anything I could tell. It felt like he was being very sincere in his belief that I needed to do it.

It didn’t make sense. But also, if Harold was going to give me more information, he’d have already done so. He had his reasons. Would I ever discover what those were? Probably not, but they existed, and if I couldn’t trust him now after all these years, I wasn’t ever going to be able to.