Another pause. I slide my chair a few inches to the right, and I can see her. Bristol is hunched low in front of her desk, her cell phone pressed tight to her ear. What is that on her desk? A small plastic palm tree, looks like, next to a dish of candy. “It’s okay. Mia, no. It’s okay. I’ll be right there. Did Ben lock the door? Oh—okay. Yes, I’ll hurry. I love you. Bye.”
I slide back into place as she stands up. When Bristol reaches the door, I look at her over the report. Her face is pale, brow furrowed. She grips her purse with one hand and her phone with the other.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Leblanc. I’m so sorry, but I need to take the rest of the day off.”
My heart’s beating hard, and it’s just from the sound of her voice on that phone call. I’m not going to ask her a damn thing about it. Not a thing. I don’t want to care. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing major.” Bristol gives me a bright smile, clearly lying. “Just something I need to take care of. I’ll come in early tomorrow to finish my work. I’ll have your coffee and reports ready then.”
2
BRISTOL
This is bad.
There’s a scale, you know? There’sbadlike getting a C- on your math test, andbadlike getting a C- on your math test because your dad’s landlord decides he’s had enough and, oh, it’s the middle of the night.
There’sbadlike having an attractive boss andbadlike sitting tall at your desk, hoping he doesn’t notice how hard you’re blushing because his face is so gorgeous it makes you feel like the world has taken you in its hands and twirled you around until you lost your breath.
There’sbadlike pissing off your boss at the brand-new temp job that pays well but not well enough to bail out your family, andbadlike pissing him off because your ten-year-old sister has called to say that someone broke into the apartment and attacked our dad.
I hurry down the cracked courtyard sidewalk with dread in the pit of my stomach. The shitty-apartment surroundings don’t help. The sublet in Building C isn’t a great situation. Not for any of us. Not for my dad, not for me, and definitely not for my twin siblings, Mia and Ben.
The fact that somebody broke in to beat up my dad isn’t exactly a surprise. My sense of dread has nothing to do with shock and everything to do with horrible anticipation.
What has he gotten himself into now?
And how long before it screws the rest of us over?
Really, the question I’m rushing to answer ishow muchhas it screwed the rest of us over already?
Take the apartment, for one single example. Subleasing makes our living situation very tenuous. It means we don’t have very many rights as renters. It means that if my dad is going to add even more trouble to an apartment complex that already simmers with stress, we might end up without a place to live.
The metal front door squeaks on its hinges. Little pieces of rust fall from the worn kickplate at the bottom. Inside, a sign hangs from a thin chain stretched across the ancient elevator doors. It saysout of order.The sign was up when we moved in a few months ago. I know it’s not going to be fixed. Not any time soon. I still hold out a faint, silly hope that one day I’ll come home and find it whole.
No shortcuts. It’s three flights of stairs up to apartment 306. I’m out of breath by the time I get there.
Before I can wrestle my keys out of my purse, the apartment door flies open and my siblings tumble out into the hall. They throw themselves into my arms. Mia tucks herself in first, a half-step ahead of Ben, who wedges himself next to her with an arm thrown over her shoulders. At ten, Ben only has an inch or two on Mia, but he protects her with the energy of someone six feet tall.
“Are you okay?” I rub Ben’s back with one hand, holding them close with the other arm. “What happened?”
Mia lets out a breath. “Dad.”
“Did he leave?”
“No,” Ben answers. He and Mia were born five minutes apart on the same day. They’re fraternal twins. She has red hair, and he has dark, but they have matching green eyes. She loves reading, and he loves math, but they’re best friends. “Someone came in.”
“They knocked on the door,” Mia says into my shirt.
“Dad didn’t want to open it,” Ben continues.
“He stood there for, like,foreverlooking out. But they kept pounding on the door.” Mia’s voice shakes. “It was so loud. And then the guy said—”
Her voice cuts off, and Ben steels himself. “The guy said he’d shoot out the doorknob if Dad didn’t open it.”
“So he did?” I ask, forcing my voice to be even. I want to shatter at the idea of someone shooting a gun into the door while my siblings stand on the other side, but I have to stay calm. I learned that when they were babies. My dad would do something risky, and I’d have to stay calm to protect the twins.
Mia nods.