Page 16 of The Apparent Trap

Maybe I should ask Lee for a good recipe for stew. Because over the last few days, without anyone to talk to about this, that’s essentially what I am now: slowly simmering stew.

I want to tell Georgia, but after Carmen once again asked me to keep another secret, I have to stick to my word.

I’m a little annoyed at myself for agreeing. When it comes to Lee, that’s Carmen’s private issue. But this new secret isn’t personal information just about my work colleague. It’s about my dad. And if my dad had started dating under normal circumstances, it would’ve been a happy observation I’d have immediately passed along. Right?

God, this is so much more complicated. It’s not just the fact that he’s my dad and there’s an age gap that makes me want to hurl. But she’s also my coworker. My new coworker, whose success is tied to mine, whose dating life is not my business. My new coworker, who, despite not being particularly open about anything, I now know two highly personal facts about—both that she specifically asked me not to share with anyone else.

It’s not like she’s exactly done anything to earn my loyalty. But I don’t break promises, even ones made without thinking.

So I don’t say anything. And I stew.

And as I stew, the main conclusion I keep coming back to is that someone is bound to get hurt here. It’s not the ages alone—it’s the specific people. There’s no world where a sweet fifty-five-year-old widower and a twenty-six-year-old rising star can maintain a relationship where they both get what they need. It means the person I care about most in the world is inevitably on a crash course.

It’s eating me up. And I can’t say a damn word.

Although, even without telling her anything, I’m almost positive that Georgia senses that something is up. We’re sitting on the floor of her dressing room after the show, eating my regular BLT sandwiches and working on a LEGO model of the Titanic.

In the last year, we’ve built a few of the architecture series—a scale model of Neuschwanstein Castle has to be the most random. But I suspected my internal spiral was starting to show on the outside when Georgia said she’d bought the Titanic. She knows how much I’ve wanted to do that one, even though it’s absurdly overpriced and, as Georgia noted, “boring to build what is mostly a solid boat.”

And on that part I have to concede that she’s completely right, since we’re essentially only assembling red bricks on top of each other to make the base.

“Your forehead’s gonna get stuck like that,” Georgia says, apparently my mood making everything furrow.

“I’m concentrating on the LEGOs,” I bat off. “Did you know,” I say, wanting to talk about anything other than my worry wrinkles, “that the White Star Line that made the Titanic was originally going to name their next ship the Gigantic, but after the Titanic sank, they changed it to Britannic?”

“They’d have to have had a lot of hubris to keep going in that direction.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t matter anyway. Britannic sank in 1916, during the war.”

“Oh my god, really?” This is why we fit so well together—news junkies who use their time off to hoover up factoids for fun while they build LEGOs (in our defense, it’s a perfect way to unwind after a morning of being on). “So what you’re actually saying is we shouldn’t waste our time building this because it’s just gonna get destroyed?”

“I don’t think there’s any chance of icebergs in a New York television studio.”

“Only emotional ones,” she chuckles.

I take a big bite of my BLT as a distraction and say nothing. Maybe I could tell her that my dad started dating someone younger without saying who?

But before I can even get that far, a different iceberg barges their way in.

“Hey, Ezzie, can I talk to you for a minute?”

My jaw practically hits the floor. Because standing in Georgia’s doorway is Lee Morgan. Lee Morgan, who I was convinced didn’t even know my name until this exact moment. He was on the show this morning, but as usual I’d avoided him. I thought, successfully.

And, of course, it’s here where he sees me, not while I’m doing something impressive or important. I must look ridiculous, cross-legged on the floor, building a toy. But he doesn’t say anything else, he just looms over me, waiting out my stunned silence.

“Uh, yeah?” I say, unsure.

I see Georgia out of the corner of my eye, now a dog with a bone, flicking her gaze between me and him and wondering what on earth this is about. Great. So much for keeping things under wraps for Georgia.

But I guess I’ll have to deal with that later. For now, I stand up and, inexplicably, bring my BLT with me as we walk out. Maybe my subconscious knew I’d need an emotional support sandwich for whatever this conversation is going to be.

His long strides carry him down the hall, and I follow, feeling like a kid on the way to detention. He walks into one of the private offices that are hilariously dubbed “crying rooms,” but are really just spaces for people to take phone calls outside the noise of the newsroom.

He shuts the door, and it makes me realize this space is small. He must notice it, too, because he sits on the edge of the desk, as though being slightly farther back and at eye level makes this all less weird. I press myself into the opposite wall. I hate how potent the energy is between us. He taps his foot, a nervous habit that betrays whatever must be happening in his own messy mind.

“You called your dad Mark,” he finally says. Well that’s not what I was expecting.

“What?”