Moment
Anastasia
“And he took you home?” Ree asks, balancing herself on the loveseat in our den as she does so.
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
I’ve been back from Jake Keaton’s for two hours now and Ree has been bombarding me with questions like she is my fucking therapist.
Not like I ever had a therapist.
She slumps. “Not even a kiss?”
“No, Ree,” I send her a disgusted look, “he is my boss I do not think about him like that,” but the reddening on my cheeks goes against my partial lie and says that I do in fact think of my boss like that sometimes in the past and very much so during these few hours succeeding his hand around me in his guest bedroom.
“A hug?” Ree persists.
“Ugh, let it go already.”
“Some kind of touch?”
“Oh, Ree, stop – well a little bit of a touch if I’m being honest.”
She bounces up and down her seat, her black hair bouncing along with her. “So there was a moment.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it a moment …”
Was that a moment? No, definitely not. Then I remember the heated look in his eyes as his gaze roamed my face, the way he held me even after the fall when he didn’t have to, the sweep of his lingering eyes on my bare legs—
Oh my God Jake Keaton and I just had a moment, and I didn’t even recognize it. I might be some plain ass girl to the sophisticated demeanor of the man but there is no hiding the fact that the moment in his guest bedroom with his arms wrapped around my waist is probably the first time my boss saw me as a woman with feelings and desires.
Richie trudges to us, dragging his legs sluggishly as he does. He just had a nap so his hair looks like some sort of bed nest. I don’t know what Ree sees in this guy apart from the fact that he is kind and well kind of cute if he decides to put the effort. Asides that, Richie is probably as clumsy as I am and probably has at least five unwashed socks lying around which is a direct contrast to Ree’s prim and proper, organizes girly lifestyle.
“What’s all the squealing for?” his voice is groggy.
Ree claps her hands together, squealing in an excitement I don’t feel. “Anna is falling for her boss!”
I groan. “Ugh, Ree what the hell?”
Richie raises a comical brow. “The douchebag?”
“Yup,” she taps a chair for him to seat, “they had a moment.”
Richie’s head whips to my direction so fast I’m worried for a second his head would come running off. “You had a moment with Mr. Douchebag?”
“I did not—” I throw my hands up in exasperation. What is the use anyway? This people will still tease me forever no matter how much I deny it so I move to change the subject. “Why you here anyway? You living with us now or something?”
Richie relaxes back on his chair with a lazy grin, “That’s for me to decide and for you to find out,” he wiggles his brows.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah whatever.”
Ree is right back on the topic, “So is he gonna call you or something?”
“Unless he wants to get a job done,” I try to sound logical, “which is unlikely because I mean, it’s a Sunday.”
“Oh come on, he did touch you.”
There is something about the way she says it that makes it sound perverted to my ears. “What did you think I mean when I said he – oh! Oh no, no, Jesus Ree it was nothing like that.”
She frowns, “what did you mean then?”
“I meant our body parts touched – in a non-platonic way.”
She slumps. “Oh.”
I’m saved from shooting her a reply when my phone buzzes on my lap.
Just like that she perks up again. “Is that him?”
I flash the phone on her face, “My sister.”
Then I leave the two of them there and rush to my room to take the call. When my sister ever calls me it always means something bad happened and I don’t think I want to face that with people around.
I pick up the call and press the phone to my ear. “Hey Aggie?”
The other side is silent for a while before I hear the distant cry of a baby. Then my sister’s voice pops up. “Annie, hey, sorry I was just trying to give him some breast milk. How you doing?”
I nod, even though she can’t see me. “I’m chill.”
“Okay,” she pauses for a while and I reflect on how much I’ve missed her and my nephew who I barely even got to see. Aggie moved out from home when she got knocked up by the guy she was dating and for me that felt like some kind of escape technique on her part to be honest. Now baby number two and she is probably already out of the trauma that we had to go through as kids.
“I heard about Dan.”
My breathing picks up. “What about Dan?”
“You know, the keeper called. I think he is down or something. Like really sick.”
Dan is our adoptive father but I don’t feel anything melancholic towards the fact that he is on the unfavorable side of health.
“Okay,” I reply her, “Is he…” dead? “okay? Is he okay?”
“I don’t think so. I mean I would’ve checked up on him or something but I’m halfway in the opposite direction, and … it’s too early to travel with the baby. So I was thinking, would you maybe want to … you know—”
“No Aggie,” I snap, “not really.”
How can she ask me that? I was finally able to leave it behind and get away from there and she expects me to just what, go back?
“Yeah,” she mutters, “yeah you’re right. That’s probably a bad idea.”
Probably? Aggie and I were never close, maybe while growing up at some point we were but she left early in my life and we drifted apart immediately the door closed behind her. And apart from the fact that she depends on me financially because well, the guy she was dating was kind of a loser and left her after my niece was born and she needed all the financial support especially after he came back and she got pregnant with my nephew before he disappeared again. They are the reason I still work for Jake even though he can be an arrogant jerk most times, because I need all the money I get with that much people depending on me.
Regardless, I think some part of me resents her for leaving me behind when she knew what we both went through with Dan as our father figure.
“I’ve got to go, Aggie.”
“Right. Of course. You’re probably busy. I heard you got a job in New York.”
“Yeah, six months ago. I told you about it last month.”
“Cool. Well have fun, Annie. Call me when you’ve got the chance.”
I hand up immediately and I feel the dread creeping back on me. How could she forgive so easily? Dan ruined us. He and stupid, insane tactics.
Sick? Why the fuck isn’t he fucking dead yet?
I spend the rest of the day in my room, curled to a ball under my blankets as I try to block out the past.
But no matter how hard I try, the words… “… I know you miss me, Annie…” still sticks to my brain like dried gum on jeans.