Page 5 of The Grump I Loathe (The Lockhart Brothers #3)

Apparently, that was where Alannah hit her limit. Her lip trembled, and then all at once, she curled her knees to her chest and burst into tears. My eyes darted between her and the road, trying to find a good place to pull over.

“Hey,” I said, reaching for her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “What’s going on?”

“We’re supposed to have a showcase tonight at the gym!

” Alannah cried. “To show our routines off to our parents. Mom and Dad were supposed to pick me up from school, take me to dinner, then all three of us were supposed to go to the gym. But if they didn’t even remember to grab me from school, then they definitely forgot about the showcase.

” She trembled from the force of her sobs.

Goddamnit. A Simon Sheppard special, indeed. “We’ll make it okay,” I promised.

She cried harder .

“Seriously.” I swallowed hard, blinking away the sudden weight behind my eyes. I hated seeing her like this. Part of me wanted to say it was just a misunderstanding—that her parents hadn’t actually forgotten her or her showcase, but I’d decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to lie to Alannah.

She was too smart for empty promises and platitudes. “Look, I’m guessing they got sidetracked with work and forgot your nanny was out sick. That doesn’t make it right,” I told her. “At least one of them should have been here for you. But we’ll text them to remind them about the showcase.”

“And what if they still can’t come?” she sniffled.

“Won’t matter because you’ll have a kickass cheering section either way.”

“You’ll be there?” she asked, rubbing tears from her cheeks.

“Of course. I’ll text Cassie, too, because she’ll definitely want to see what you’re working on.”

Alannah caught a sob in her throat, the sound choked. “Okay.”

“But before all that,” I said, just wanting to see her smile, “we have some errands to run.”

Alannah’s face shifted from despair to suspicion. “What kind of errands?”

“The totally cool and insanely fun kind,” I said as I changed lanes and hung a right toward Lombard Street.

I parked in a garage and led Alannah to the cable car stop at the bottom of Hyde Street .

“I’m supposed to be doing my homework,” she said as we boarded the cable car, the gears clunking as we headed up the steep California Street slope to Nob Hill.

The city stretched out around us, the skyscrapers of downtown reaching into cloudless blue, the Golden Gate Bridge winking in the distance, framed by hills and valleys.

The higher we went, the more of the bay and the Marina District we could see.

I figured I’d get used to these views at some point, but I’d grown up in Ohio, and the novelty had yet to wear off.

“Seriously,” Alannah continued. “Mom would say I should be doing my math.”

“And you will,” I said, sniffling away my con crud. Thankfully, the cold meds were starting to kick in. “What’s the square root of one hundred and forty-four?”

Alannah looked at me flatly. “I don’t even know what a square root is.”

“Which is why, after our totally cool and insanely fun errands, you can do your math in the car on the way to the gym. Sound good?”

The corner of her lips twitched.

I folded my hands together over my head, standing on one foot. Math could wait. “Listen to your older and wiser sister. Life is all about balance, Lana. Speaking of, bet I can balance on one foot for longer than you.”

Alannah gave a surprised giggle, and my heart soared at the sound of it. “As if. Have you not seen me on a balance beam?”

“Yes, but you’ve never seen me.”

She snorted, lifting her leg, the two of us wobbling and bumping into each other and laughing as the subtle swaying of the cable car sent us toppling over on more than one occasion. By the time we got off at the top of the hill, Alannah was beaming, her earlier bout of tears forgotten.

“Where are we going now?”

“Thought we’d pop into the Hill Café for some dinner and ice cream. You still committed to cookies and cream?”

Her lips twisted. “Heck yeah.”

We headed into the café, where we ordered cheeseburgers with side salads, so Valentina wouldn’t roll her eyes too hard at my dinner selection. And after that, an ice cream cone to share. While we ate dessert, Alannah yattered about the complexities of her floor routine.

When she started explaining the difficulty of timing the round-off back handspring into the back layout, my phone buzzed and I opened the email notification, frowning at the subject line. INVITATION TO INTERVIEW.

“What’s wrong?” Alannah asked, licking her lips.

“Nothing…just looks like I’ve got a job interview.”

“That’s good!” Alannah said. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s great,” I said, scanning the email.

It was from LockMill Games. I’d applied for the lead narrative design role on a whim a couple weeks ago.

I really didn’t think I had a chance—the actual job description was totally in my wheelhouse, but they were looking for someone with way more experience. Still, I’d figured why not go for it?

The email was signed by Darius Thompson, Human Resources.

I remembered his business card from earlier.

Maybe he’d liked what he’d seen when he’d visited my booth.

But just as that thought crossed my mind, I remembered another, less favorable interaction with a LockMill member. My enthusiasm dissolved instantly.

“Why don’t you look excited?” Alannah wondered.

“Well…” I’d never bothered to make things too kid-friendly for Alannah.

I’d hated that growing up. I’d been right around her age when my parents had gotten divorced, and rather than sitting me down and talking to me about it rationally, they’d explained it to me like I was a toddler, brushing off my questions by insisting I didn’t need to worry about any of that.

It had been frustrating. Kids could understand complicated things and big emotions, and they needed to be allowed to be part of the conversation. “I sort of already talked to the CEO at GeekCon.”

“And you didn’t like him?”

“I got into a bit of an argument with him. Twice. And told him to take his trust fund and bounce.”

Alannah grimaced. “Oh.”

“But in my defense, he was a real piece of work.” A piece of work that looked like Adonis, not that that made him any less of an asshole.

“Like, for a guy who produces video games for a living, he’s one giant stick-in-the-mud.

No, not even a stick. An entire log. A capital B boring log in the mud!

” I said, getting agitated by the mere thought of him.

And to make matters worse, he’d been dismissive of me while being excited to talk to Ryker. Blah!

Was I bitter about that because Ryker was my ex? No. I was bitter because Ryker was a lying, no-good, credit-stealing douchebag. But if that’s who had caught Connor Lockhart’s attention, then?—

“Dang.” Alannah nodded gravely. “If that’s how it went, then you really don’t have a shot at the job. Mom and Dad are always saying that irritating the coach is the fastest way to get kicked off the team. ”

“Mmm, I don’t know about that,” I said, trying not to grumble at another one of the unhelpful life lessons Dad and Valentina were always bestowing on Alannah. “Look, you can’t live your life tiptoeing around other people to keep from irritating them.”

If anyone knew that, it was me and my checkered resume. Yes, I knew speaking out and fighting for narrative choices wasn’t a good look for an entry-level employee, but I wasn’t going to let myself be silenced when it came to standing up for my work.

It meant too much to me for that. And I never wanted my little sister to feel like she didn’t have the option of speaking her truth, either. “You’re allowed to just be yourself, Lana.”

She looked at me uncertainly.

“I’m serious. And maybe I have a shot at this job anyway. This Darius guy who contacted me about the interview obviously liked Alterbot . I bet Mr. Fancy-Pants-CEO won’t even be involved in hiring some lowly grunt worker.”

Alannah shrugged, powering through more of the ice cream cone as I replied to the email, accepting the interview request. I was great at interviews. And Connor Lockhart wouldn’t notice little-old-me from his top-floor office suite. He’d be too busy lording over the rest of the company.

Lord LockMill.

I snorted. What a perfect name for a grumpy, fun-hating, turnip-stealing villain. I was totally using that when I got around to designing Alterbot 2 someday.