Stephanie Doyle - For the First Time

Mark was different, somehow. He threatened her in a way she couldn’t define.

Unfortunately that threat didn’t mean he wasn’t someone she might be attracted to. If anything, it contributed to the possibility. Telling him he wasn’t her type had been a flat-out lie. Done out of pride because he was so completely not into her. Also because she wanted to affirm there was no way she would ever be attracted to someone she worked for.

Which was a crock. A woman couldn’t control who she was attracted to. She only controlled what she did with that attraction.

She had been lucky that it was never a concern in her prior job. Even if there had been someone, she never would have crossed the line. It was hard to earn respect from your peers if they thought they could take you to bed. A perfectly logical reason to avoid interoffice dating.

Of course she’d also never had a relationship with any of the men from her last firm because she was completely and totally messed up emotionally. Every once in a while she forgot that.

“So,” JoJo said, dipping a chip into the salsa. “What’s your deal?” She looked at both Sophie and Mark. It was a nosy question, but she was a detective. She lived to be nosy.

Mark didn’t say anything, but Sophie looked at him, clearly waiting for him to say something first. Mark just shifted in the booth and reached for a chip.

“No deal.”

“Okay.” JoJo was prepared to let it go, but she could hear Sophie huff.

“Uh, please. She wants to know why I call you Mark. And why we’re together.”

“You call me Mark to annoy me.”

“My mom is dead.”

JoJo heard the flat note in the girl’s voice. It was as if she practiced saying it over and over again in the mirror so that when she had to say it out loud, to real people, she wouldn’t crack.

JoJo was sure her own voice had the same tone when she told people her sister was dead.

“I’m sorry.”

“Whatever. It was an accident that happened months ago. Actually...it’s over a year now. I forgot.” Sophie frowned but quickly shook away whatever bad stuff was floating through her head. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Mark left me when I was a baby to save the world in Afghanistan and when my mom died he had to come back. I wanted to stay with my grandparents, but they’re too old to keep up with me so I’m stuck with Mark.”

Mark clenched his jaw and JoJo watched the muscle in his cheek spasm. “That’s about eighty percent accurate.”

“What part is wrong?” Sophie asked, having clearly told her story as truthfully as possible.

“You say I left you like I dropped you on the side of the road. Your mother and I reached a decision. Also, I would like to add that I have been in touch with you throughout your life.”

Sophie turned to JoJo. “Sorry. He sent me cards and gifts for my birthday and Christmas. When he wasn’t hiding under a rock somewhere, we would talk over the internet. Really intense conversations, too, like, ‘What grade are you in now?’ Mostly I saw a grainy picture of a guy with a scarf over his face. Half the time I didn’t even recognize him. So emotional.”

“It’s sandy and windy in the Stans. Scarves are a necessary accessory for, you know, breathing.”

“What—”

“—ever,” Mark finished. “Yes. But you should also know I didn’t come back because your mother died. I was coming back regardless. Your mother’s death only sped up the process.”

Sophie said nothing, but shook her head to show she didn’t believe it. Then she lifted her hand to her mouth and nibbled on a fingernail.

“You’re not supposed to do that,” Mark said.

Instantly her hand dropped and she reached for the chips.

“That’s the other thing about Sophie,” Mark said. “She’s a child prodigy. A piano player who has toured the country and Europe performing with various orchestras. Right now she’s under contract with the Philadelphia Orchestra.”

“I’m almost fifteen now. We can lose the child-prodigy tag. Just say I play the piano.”

“I would like to hear you sometime,” JoJo said.

“I can get you tickets.”

“Cool.”

JoJo looked again at Mark. He sat back in the booth defensively, looking like he wanted to escape, but he didn’t move. JoJo knew what it was like to have a broken relationship with her father. The difference between Mark and her dad was that Mark cared about what Sophie thought of him. He cared that she felt abandoned. And his expression showed that he also felt guilty.

That was something JoJo’s father had never felt. Still didn’t.

Mark excused himself to go to the restroom. “If the waiter comes—”

“You want a beef burrito,” Sophie said. “Like that’s news.”

Mark paused and a small smile lit up his face. “You know how tempted I am to say I want fajitas?”

“Cutting off your nose to spite your face. You know you want the burrito.”

His smile only grew larger. “You’re right. I do.”

JoJo watched him walk away and tried not to notice how nicely his jeans fit over a firm ass. Nice shoulders, nice ass. Oh, my. When was the last time she’d taken in a man’s appearance like that? And of all men, it had to be her new boss?

When she looked at Sophie, the girl was biting her fingernails again. As soon as she noticed JoJo’s eyes on her, Sophie dropped her hands into her lap.

“Why aren’t you supposed to bite your nails?”

Sophie wiggled her fingers. “Don’t want anything messing with the tools. A hangnail or infection could be death for an artist like me.”

JoJo heard the sarcasm that was obviously a big part of who Sophie was. But it also let JoJo know the girl didn’t take herself too seriously. Which was probably a good thing in someone so talented.

“I really am sorry about your mom. I’m not just saying it.”

There was a shimmer in the girl’s eyes that she would hate to know was there. A small crack. Instantly JoJo felt contrite for making the girl crack in front of company. As a concession she offered her own pain. “I lost my sister. When I was young.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“It blows.”

Sophie nodded. “It’s like...I get up every day and I do the stuff I am supposed to do. Like nothing happened. Only everything happened.”

“You feel guilty.”

“Yeah. Like I should be in my room crying every day. And some days that’s all I want to do, but I don’t. I go to practice, I go to rehearsal. I get ready to perform. It’s like this horrible thing didn’t happen. Only it did. I forgot it was more than a year ago.”

This was where JoJo was supposed to offer up some nice words. You’ll work through it. It will get better. It was the least she could do.

“It will get better.” JoJo choked out the words.

“Will it?”

“No,” JoJo admitted truthfully. The girl was too smart and would see through any fabrication. When you removed the bullshit there was only the truth. “No, it doesn’t get better. It just gets less worse.”

Sophie took a chip from the basket. “She died in a car accident. The guy wasn’t even drunk. It was just some stupid car accident.”

“My sister was murdered. She was my twin and she was murdered.”

JoJo had belched up the words—they never came out freely. But she’d played a game with a master spy and had won. Sort of. And she had gulped down a really good margarita on a stomach that was empty except for a few chips.

It felt like Sophie got it. They both knew the same pain. It was different when people died when they were supposed to because of old age or after a long illness. When they died young, the pain was sharper because it happened so abruptly. Sophie’s pain was fresher, but JoJo’s was no less intense.