Chapter 9
Julia
Accepting a ride from Dylan was a good idea because it started raining cats and dogs the second we stepped outside. Visibility was poor, but he was an excellent driver. Plus, it helped that he knew our hometown like the back of his hand. Ever the gentleman, he walked me straight to the door.
“Do you want to come inside for a coffee?” I asked. “That way we can wait for the rain to let up before you drive home. It’s far, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not imposing. I’m inviting you, silly.”
I was starting to realize that Dylan’s small smiles were just as beautiful as they were rare. He had a trustworthy face, albeit tired.
Over the past couple of days, I’d been studying him out of the corner of my eye.
Dylan was very good at pretending everything was fine, redirecting my attention toward Cash or Red with carefully timed questions or interesting anecdotes, like he might shrivel up and die if I placed the spotlight on him.
Something was weighing him down. What exactly? I wasn’t sure yet. However, I could see it in the way his gaze became distant sometimes, or the way he pressed his lips into a thin line as he lost himself in thought.
Placed before the mountainous backdrop of Sunville, Dylan looked the part —a small town guy used to working the land and staying close to his tight-knit family. A good man, an honorable one.
Yet something about his general aura was off. Like he was bored of this place. Like he wanted to be anywhere else.
There were only two instances when I saw his eyes sparkle with life: when he was in the ring helping Red and Cash, and when he was looking at me.
“Make yourself at home,” I told him. “And don’t mind the mess.”
“Did a library explode in here or something?” He gestured to all the loose paper lying around. “All you’re missing is some red string to connect the dots and we’ll have walked onto the set of a dramatic thriller.”
“I know I probably could have saved a tree, but I work better when I can see everything laid out in front of me.”
“What is all this?” he asked, picking up a page next to his foot. He squinted as he read. “Leo Holistic Lifestyle is suing you? What’s going on?”
I grimaced. “It’s not exactly a fun story.”
“I have time.”
“It could get you wrapped up in a massive conspiracy,” I joked.
Dylan crossed his arms. “Finally, something interesting.”
I took a deep breath and started from the beginning. “This lady, Rachelle. She reached out to me a few months ago claiming she was wrongfully terminated from her job at LHL.”
“Wrongfully terminated? How so?”
“She was five months pregnant. Rachelle gave her bosses plenty of heads-up and kept an email chain detailing her conversations back and forth with management. She thought she was all set to take time off for maternity leave, but the day after she gave birth, she received a pink slip.”
Dylan frowned. “Seriously?”
“That’s what she said. Naturally, she had a ton of questions. Rachelle thought she was above board and had management’s approval for the time off, so this was coming out of left field. She had a lot of things to juggle with the new baby and all, so by the time she managed to show up to work to grab the email detailing everything, she found that her entire work computer had already been wiped. Upper management claimed no conversation chain existed and that they terminated her on the grounds of poor performance.”
“That’s incredibly shitty.”
“My thinking exactly. That’s why I decided to look into things for Rachelle when she reached out. It turns out she isn’t the first person to be fired from LHL for bullshit reasons. There are tons of people who have experienced similar mistreatment, but because of the company’s squeaky-clean image, it’s always brushed under the rug. There’s rumblings here and there about wrongful termination suits, but LHL has a scary team of lawyers that shuts things down before they can get off the ground.”
“And you tried to expose them?” Dylan reasoned.
I nodded. “Precisely. I compiled all my research, wrote a scathing article about their two-faced nature. I had witnesses, dates…”