Page 73 of Say You'll Stay
“I’m in love with her.”
He pauses. “It’s like that?”
I nod once. “And not being able to contact her is getting to me.”
“Hey, here’s a question I never thought I’d ask— do you need to go to West Virginia?”
“I do not know if she is en route to here or where she is. It’d be pointless to go if she’s on her way here.”
“It’s West Virginia. Isn’t it kinda pointless, anyway?”
I huff a laugh. “Honestly, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, minus the obvious lack of upkeep. And the lack of facilities, but that’s any small town.”
“She left for a reason.”
And I still don’t know it. “Moving on. For now, I must wait to see how this all shakes out. I presume Cormac and you worked this out with Walter?”
“We did.”
I let out a hot breath of frustration. “Which means she likely thinks we fired her. ThatIfired her. Fuck.”
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32
ELSIE
It’s good to be home, gabbing with Savannah at my apartment. It has felt like a hundred years since I saw her cheery butt. Sipping tea on my couch, she says, “I, for one, am glad you’re back in Manhattan. It hasn’t been the same without you.”
“Thanks for that.”
“And your dad is doing okay?”
I nod, relieved by the fact. “He’s going to drive Mom crazy, but she likes it. She retired, so now, she spends all her time doing his rehab with him, and occasionally FaceTiming me.”
“That’s great.” She sips her tea. Stalling. Savannah always looks like she’s thinking too much, but when she’s stalling, she gets this line between her perfectly manicured eyebrows. “The Beau thing—"
“No wonder you stalled. You know I don’t want to talk about that.”
She sighs. “Is he still texting you?”
“And calling, leaving increasingly desperate voicemails. I just erase them.”
“He could have something important to tell you.”
But I shake my head. “I don’t need to hear him apologize for firing me. He’ll only do it to make himself feel better, and I am not here to make him feel better. The damage is done.”
“There could be extenuating circumstances—"
“And I solidly do not care about them. His reasons don’t matter. I care about results. He wanted to work with Pavel this whole time, and now he has what he wanted. I don’t know if Dad’s medical stuff was the reason—maybe Beau thought the situation made me too unreliable or something—but I don’t care. I’m on the Apple account again. They love me there, and I don’t need his drama to get in my way.”
She sips and stalls again before saying, “I know you liked him. Do you think that’s why you’re taking this so personally?”
“He fired me. Thatispersonal.”
“They shifted you to a new account when you didn’t have the time for Beau’s. I’m not saying it was right— he definitely should have told you himself, at least. But from a business perspective, I can understand why he might need to move forward on the project. How many jobs is the resort projected to bring to that tiny town?”
“Several hundred,” I say with a shrug. “I’m not heartless regarding the people of Somerset Harbor, Savannah. They need jobs. I get moving forward. It’s ubiquitous in business. The problem is, he should have told me in person, instead of making Walter deliver the news. It was a dick move. He should have handled it himself. For God’s sake, he’s a COO. I can’t be the first person he’s fired.”