Page 186 of The Storm

“What did I do?”

She pokes her manicured fingernail into my chest. “You’re his goddamn PA. What happened to keeping an eye on him?”

“When I left, he was having fun!” I protest. “The regular, nice type of fun.”

“I’m talking about yesterday,” Bridget says impatiently. “At any point, did it maybe sound like a good idea to stop him? At any point? Because then, maybe, I wouldn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night with my phone going absolutely insane with notifications about a viral video where, and I quote, ‘Patriots star Callum Hayes drives a golf cart into Boston Harbor after leaving a private party.’”

I look at Bridge. “He did what?”

She holds her phone up and shows me a video where exactly that happens. There’s Callum in a golf cart, and then there’s Callum and the golf cart in the water after the cart rolls down a boat ramp with a giant splash.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay, this is… Mostly it’s funny.”

Bridge sends me a murderous look.

“Bad,” I correct myself quickly. “We do not condone this kind of outrageous behavior.” Just in case, I shake my head with what I hope is a disapproving look on my face.

She rolls her eyes, and I hold my hands up in front of myself, the smoothie in one hand, a sandwich bag in the other. “I wasn’t there.” I wave the sandwich bag at her. “And before you yell at me for that, I was not supposed to be there. It was my day off. He’s an adult, for crying out loud. What am I supposed to do? Stalk him in my free time? I’m pretty sure there are laws against that kind of thing.”

“I’ve been calling you all morning,” Bridget says, “and you haven’t picked up your phone once, even though it’s very much a workday today. So I wouldn’t get too comfortable about being all high and mighty about your workers’ rights.”

“I don’t have my phone because my employer stole it from me on Saturday. I only got it back when he came back from training.”

That seems to take a bit of the wind out of her sails. “Well,” she says before she shakes her head. “We’re not done discussing this.” She lets out an annoyed huff. “Why are we still standing here? I have a client I need to knock some sense into.”

I motion for her to go ahead of me, and she marches into the building, brandishing her laptop bag like a battering ram.

Dia and I follow her inside.

“So?” Dia says once we’re in the elevator. “How was your weekend?”

The question is innocent enough. The tone is not.

I shrug as casually as I manage. “Busy. You know, with the event and all.”

Dia nods. “I bet. Must have been crazy seeing as you didn’t make it home until about five this morning.” She sends me an innocent smile.

Bridge looks up from her phone with raised brows. “Really?” she asks Dia.

Dia nods, looking unbearably smug. “I don’t know where he was, but that bed hasn’t been slept in since Friday.”

I make a face and flip my middle finger up at her.

Her smile gets even smugger. “Who was it? One of Callum’s teammates? I always thought Hendrix was hot, and I don’t have any evidence, but I’m pretty sure he swings both ways.”

She raises her brows at me, clearly waiting for me to confirm her suspicions. I studiously avoid saying anything or meeting her gaze.

The elevator doors slide open, and we step out. I hurry toward the door, but Dia rushes after me, grabs my arm, and pulls me to a stop.

“Come on, Go,” she says. “Don’t leave me hanging like this. Tell me stuff.”

“I would, but there’s nothing to tell,” I lie. There is so much to tell, but I’ve never once been able to talk about Nick to anybody, and that’s never going to change.

I hate lying to her. Ever since I committed the greatest fuckup of my entire life and kept my mouth shut about the truth, I’ve been doing my absolute best to be a decent person. Step one is not to lie. Step two is especially not to lie to Dia. When she found out about the whole switched-at-birth thing, and that I knew and had kept it to myself for weeks, she was, of course, shocked and slightly fucked up about that new knowledge. I lied to her just like I lied to Nick, and she was pissed and angry andthere was a lot of yelling. But she didn’t run, and eventually we got back on level ground.

She presses the tip of her index finger to the side of my neck, the fingernail digging into the skin painfully.

“Hey!” I push my shoulder up and scrunch my head to the side to get her to pull her finger away.