“Good morning,” I said to my co-workers as the doors slid closed.
Riding in close proximity to so many proved not so lucky after al . The thought of everyone breathing in such a confined space made me a bit claustrophobic.
When the elevator doors opened, I pushed my way out, taking a deep breath when my heels hit the carpet. “Oh, thank God.”
Grant's door was open, and his ankles were crossed on top of his desk, and he was lazily leaned back in his chair. My momentary relief from the elevator was short-lived, and my face screwed in disgust.
I made a bee-line for my office, hoping Grant would be too comfortable to get out of his chair.
“Hey Peanut,” Grant said just as I sat down.
“Nina,” Beth said, walking in with her head down. She was biting on the end of her pencil, concentrating on her notebook planner. “The meeting with Yawa…Yaw…the Japanese is on Thursday, but the Wel ington’s wil be in town, and hoped to squeeze in some time.”
“Make time. I’d love to steal them away from Donaldson,” I said tapping a pen against my desk.
“Sounds like it’s a better day,” Grant said, nodding. He bowed out without another word.
“Now it is,” I said, noting Beth’s smile as she stifled a giggle.
“So,” she said, forcing her smile to fade. “Chad’s been asking. Have you heard from Ryan lately? Or at al ?”
I no longer had to fight a smile, my face immediately fel . “No. Nothing.”
Beth nodded. “I hope he’s okay.”
“If he wasn’t, we would find out, right?” I said to reassure her.
She took a deep breath, and nodded. “Right. I’ve gotta make some copies. You want coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
Once Beth was off doing other things, Grant returned.
“I actual y had a point to coming in here. I needed to talk to you about Beth.”
“Oh?”
Grant flashed his mil ion-dol ar smile, and I had to physical y restrain myself from recoiling.
“Peanut, I realize she’s your friend, but it’s not exactly cost-efficient to keep her on-board during the school year.”
“Are you suggesting I fire her?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
Grant sighed. “You’re not looking at this objectively. You’re in the office, yes, but technical y you’re stil an intern until you graduate. Why would I pay someone to assist an intern?”
“Because I told you to.”
After a short pause, Grant smiled, wider than before. “You’re going to do just fine here.”
“Thank you, Grant. That wil be al .”
He shook his head, chuckling to himself as he left the way he came.
Buried under a few stacks of documents, Beth brought me back to reality with her chirpy voice. “Time to go home, Nigh.”
“Oh.” I looked at my watch, and then smiled. “Home.”
I haphazardly stuffed a few files into my brief case before rushing down the hal , and then pressed the button. As soon as the doors opened, I hopped inside, fidgeting the entire trip to the first floor. The doors slid open, revealing the bril iant late-afternoon sun gleaming through the lobby glass. Jared was waiting by the Escalade, a contrived smile on his face.
“What is it?” I asked, after greeting him with a quick kiss. My excitement to see him was infiltrated by a sense of dread. The two didn't settle wel , and I instantly fel nauseous.
He raised a pair of my sneakers. “I thought we could check out what’s left of the loft. See if anything’s left.”
I could only nod, dreading the sight of our home reduce to a heap of ash.
“Put these on,” he said. “It'l be hard enough sifting through everything, let alone in heels.”
I took the shoes in my hand, and then sat on the curb. Jared handed me a pair of socks, and I tugged those on, fol owed by the sneakers. He watched me in silence, a residual forced grin on his face. He wasn't looking forward to the aftermath anymore than I.
The drive seemed to take an eternity, yet it stil wasn’t long enough for me to prepare. When Jared pul ed to the curb, I stumbled from the Escalade, each side of my hair bunched in my fists. “Oh my God,” I whispered.
Jared mil ed about the charred remnants, bending down once in a while to inspect something not-quite destroyed.
“There’s a few boxes in the back,” Jared said. “Would you grab one?”
I took wide steps and hopped until I was clear of the debris, and then went to the Escalade, opening the back door. I brought back a large, cardboard box. There were two more, but it was overly optimistic to bother with them, we couldn’t fil up the first one. Silverware, a few brittle-edged pictures, and the monitor of my laptop were among partial y intact documents, and a set of throwing knives. Yel ow tape surrounded most of the carnage.
My hands turned black as I dug slowly, but surely through the black mess under our feet.
“What are you looking so ambitiously for?” Jared asked.
“I was hoping we’d find at least pieces of your journal, but I haven’t even seen the binding. Have you come across it?”
He smiled. “I keep it in the Escalade. It’s safe and sound.”
“Good,” I said, overwhelmed at the mountain of rubble.
“We should go. The Fire Marshal has already interviewed me twice. If anyone sees us poking around, it’s going to attract attention.”
“I guess.” I stood up from my squatted position, throwing down a charred piece of the frame that the last picture of my father was in.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Jared said. “I should have tried to get that out, too.”
“It’s not your fault. They did this to get a reaction, to see if we’d retaliate, or if it would cause dissension between us. The last thing I’m going to do is give them what they want. It’s just stuff.”
Jared walked over to me, tenderly wiping my face. “You’re covered in soot. Let’s go home.”
“That’s not home, Jared. This was home, and it's gone.” I was surprised at the tears that wel ed up in my eyes. Crying hadn't crossed my mind until that very moment.
“Maybe we should start looking for a place?” he smiled.
“So they can torch it again? No, thank you.”
Jared’s expression was pained. “It won’t happen again.”
“You don’t know that,” I said, tugging on his hand, leading him to the Escalade. “We have no idea what they’l do next.”
Chapter Ten
New
Summer wound down, and Beth and I undertook the process of delegation. Our schedule at Brown would make it impossible to maintain the hours we’d been keeping at Titan.
Jared made frequent call s to Claire to check on Ryan’s progress, which steadily improved. At times faster than Claire would have liked. To al of our surprise, Ryan wasn't fighting the decision to decommission him. He was focused on getting wel and getting back to the States—something none of us had anticipated.
As promised, Jared didn’t try another ambush on Shax, or Donovan and Isaac. Instead, he became obsessed with constructing a fail-safe plan, one that included a Plan B, and help. He refused to let the book get away from him a second time.
Bex grew two more inches, which was a good thing. His inflated ego needed al the room he could give it.
Jared and I spent my last day of Summer Break at our Oak Tree. We stretched out across a blanket Jared had spread over the grass, just inside the shade of the tree. I kept my eyes closed, quiet and lazy, listening to the bugs buzzing and the grass dancing in the wind.
“You’re official y a col ege junior tomorrow,” he said with a proud smile, brushing the petals of a wildflower down the line of my jaw.
“I am,” I said. “Another summer gone by. Just one more left before I graduate.”
Jared squeezed my hand, turning his attention to the carving above us. “Hmmm…where do you see yourself this time next year?”
I breathed out a laugh. “I have no idea. Why don’t we make this an annual event? We spend the day at our Oak tree the last day of Summer Break next year, too.” Jared grimaced, and my expression mimicked his. “What?”
He worked to smooth out the deepening line between his brows. “Nothing.”
“Jared,” I warned. I became impatient very quickly when he kept things from me, and he seemed to be taking that risk more frequently.
He sighed. “I was hoping your answer would be different, that’s al .”
“Different how?” I asked.
“I was hoping that you would say you saw yourself married this time next year,” he said quietly.
“Oh,” I said, sheepish.
“I’m trying very hard to be patient about this,” he said, his voice suddenly strained. “I don’t understand why you’re putting it off.” He chuckled nervously. “I thought we’d be married by now.” His eyes were stil bright, but I could hear the edge of worry in his voice.
“We’ve discussed this, Jared. A lot. I don’t have time to plan a wedding right now. It’s not that I’m putting it off, I’ve just got a lot on my plate is al ,” I said, twisting my ring around my finger.
Jared rested his hand on mine. “I know you do. But it doesn’t have to be an elaborate event. We’re engaged, we’re living together…is there a problem I should be aware of?”
“Of course not,” I smiled. “I just need a little more time.”
Jared’s contrived smile didn’t hide the heavy disappointment in his eyes, but I pretended not to notice. I wanted to marry him more than anything, but I wanted to do it right. I certainly didn’t want to feel rushed to get home from our honeymoon because of chapters to study, papers to write, or learning how to run another department of Jack’s company.
“A year is a reasonable engagement. Two years is….” he trailed off, clearly vexed by the idea of waiting another year.
“We won’t have a two year engagement, Jared,” I assured him.
“So you’re going to settle on a date sometime this year?” he asked, hopeful. The look in his eyes made it impossible to say anything but yes.
“I wil . I just have to find time to plan a wedding between twenty hours of school and Titan.” I felt my expression compress as I thought about the ramifications of my statement.
Jared looked ahead, his eyes tightening with focus. “I wil find time. I wil create time if I have to.”
“Wel , you do have Divine connections. I’m sure you could make that happen,” I teased. I peered up the giant tree, squinting from the sunshine poking through the leaves. The branches swayed with the breeze, and I smiled. “I love it here.”
“Good. I do, too.”
“It’s so amazing that Gabe brought Lil ian to this exact spot.” My eyes lingered on the rudimentary heart and initials of Jared’s parents, and then on the elegant details of the vines and leaves inside the heart with our initials inside. I looked back to Jared’s glowing blue-grey eyes. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Just get my fiancé to actual y marry me,” he said, winking.
I pressed my lips together into a tight line. “I said I’d set a date.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Jared said, raising an eyebrow.
“Is that a chal enge?”
“Whatever works,” Jared grinned.
“I promise. I’ll set a date.”
“Within the next ten years?” he asked playful y.
“I’ll set a date for this year,” I said, stubbornly raising my chin.
“This year,” Jared repeated, dubious.
“Did you think I was kidding when I said yes?”
“No. I just didn’t realize when you said yes that you meant someday.” His tone was lighthearted, but I felt a twinge of guilt in my chest. Jared immediately reacted. “I’m kidding, sweetheart,” he said, tucking my hair behind my ear. Instead of the ends of my hair wrapping around the bottom of my ear like it used to, it brushed against my shoulder.
I looked down, picking at my fingernails. “I know, but it’s true. You didn’t expect a long engagement.”
“Wel , I assumed maybe a year with everything happening so fast. But when the year came and went and you never so much as mentioned it….”
“Oh. You think it’s not important to me,” I said, my face feeling hot.
“I didn’t say that,” he quickly backpedaled.
I looked up at him under my lashes. “But that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Wel ,” he hesitated, “you do tend to insinuate that there are other things you’d rather focus on. I understand, but I can’t help but be a little disappointed. It was my idea after al ,” he grinned, kissing my forehead.
I slowly crawled into his lap. “I love you, Jared Ryel. There is nothing I want more than to be your wife. I promise to get right to work on that date, okay?”
Jared beamed. “Thank you.” His lips traveled to mine, but quickly pul ed away. “You’d better keep this to yourself. I think mom has final y accepted that no amount of encouragement on her part is going to produce a wedding. It’s probably best to let her think you have other things on your mind.”
“Good plan,” I said, leaning him back against the blanket.
He smiled. “Speaking of Lil ian…she invited us to dinner. Apparently, she has a surprise.”
“A surprise….” I trailed off. “Do you know what it is?”
Jared shook his head. “Not a clue.”
I looked at my watch. “We’d better get going if we’re going to wash up and make dinner.”
Jared stood up and brought me with him. We rol ed the blanket and I fastened it to the back of Jared's motorcycle, and then we made a quick stop at the loft, trading the bike for the Escalade.