11. SARA

“So this is pretty weird, huh?”

Tre chuckles as he guides me to a chair in his beautifully understated office with a view of the Chicago skyline.

“No,” he says, taking his own seat. “‘Pretty weird’ would be running into you at Wrigley Field. I think this qualifies as pure Twilight Zone.”

I smile. Tre always did know how to make people feel at ease. It's almost like he’s the anti-Quentin. I sometimes wonder whether I might have fallen for him instead of Chance under different circumstances.

Who am I kidding? It was always going to be Chance. He was the only one who’s seen me at my absolute craziest and never ran away.

Until that final night, when he wanted to run away with me, and I couldn’t do it.

“So what’s the Sara Bishop story in a nutshell?” Tre asks. “What have you been up to since you, uh… since you graduated?”

Since you walked out on Chance and broke his heart, you mean.

“It’s been a long and winding road,” I say. “First, I took journalism at Moorehead College in Pittsburgh…”

His eyes narrow. “Really? An all-girls school?”

I give him a wan smile. “You remember my mom, right?”

His eyes widen. “Ah, yes,” he says. “How could I forget?”

He doesn’t know the half of it. But that’s another story.

“Anyway, after that I worked as a freelancer and met a guy who was looking for his birth family. Turned out he was rich, and he hired me to do research for him. After I reunited him with his peeps, he gave me a bonus and I used that to start Bishop & Associates.”

“Wow,” he says. “So you specialize in due diligence now?”

Should I tell him? I don’t know how long I can keep up the act of knowing anything about business.

“Well…” I say.

He holds up a hand and smiles. “It’s okay, Sara. It’s actually pretty standard to hire private investigators to look into the personal lives of key people during an acquisition. In fact, it usually means that the buyer is pretty confident about the financial side of things. But when people like Pearce are putting up billions, they don’t want any surprises.”

Tre can’t imagine how much of a relief that is.

“I’m glad to hear that,” I say. “I’m not a good enough actress to pull off being a business expert.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to Chance and let him know, though he probably already suspects as much.”

I wince. “Yeah, about that,” I say. “He’s not exactly receptive to my being here. Do you think you might be able to stand in for him and answer some basic questions?”

He spreads his hands wide. “Shoot. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Okay,” I say. “I told you about me. How about you tell me about you and Chance?”

“Pretty straightforward. I went to Harvard on a football ride, Chance joined the Marines.”

That’s not really surprising. Tre’s brains and skill always made up for his lack of money, and I would have been stunned if Chance hadn’t ended up in the military. He had his sights set on being a soldier from a young age. I always assumed it had something to do with growing up in the foster care system. He wanted a structured life to make up for the chaos he lived in after his parents were killed.

So many nights I’ve lain awake in my bed, wondering what my life would have been like if I’d gone with him that night at the farmhouse instead of sending him away. Seeing him today made my heart ache with what could have been.

“What about Atlas?” I ask, shaking off my woolgathering. “How did this all come about?”

Tre smiles. “That’s a bit longer of a story. You heard them talk about Patrick Sullivan in the meeting. Well, Sully was one of the private security contractors that popped up during the invasion of Iraq. Chance did some after-hours work with him for a few years, until Sully offered him a full-time job when he mustered out.”

“He offered him a job as CEO?”

“No, as a specialist. It was Chance who suggested changing the focus to war zone humanitarian work. There was so much need for experts who could get in and out of hot areas and help the people caught in the crossfire. So they expanded the business together.

“I bet you had something to do with it, too,” I say.

“I helped with the numbers, but it was really their dream. Atlas grew exponentially after that. When Sully passed away a few years ago, he left thirty percent of the company to Chance. The rest of the family voted to make him CEO and chairman.”

“Wow. That says a lot about their relationship with him, wouldn’t you say?”

Tre shrugs. “They’re family. You know Chance never had a real one, outside of me and Moms.”

I know better than anyone. The two of us spent long nights in each other's arms, talking about our fucked up lives. Chance was shuttled through a dozen homes in the ten years before high school, so when he turned sixteen, he just started sleeping on Tre’s sofa, or breaking into the rec center and using the storeroom there. His foster parents at that time were a pair of real winners; they didn’t give two shits about him as long as they got their monthly check.

“The Marines must have really turned him around,” I say.

“I think the best word would be focused,” says Tre. “You know how smart he was, even though it was never reflected in his grades. And I’ve never known anyone with willpower like his. The discipline from the Marines honed that natural talent into something he could use like a tool to get whatever he wanted in life.”

He sweeps a hand at the Chicago skyline outside the window. “Atlas is the result.”

So is that Roman statue of a body, I’m assuming.

“I assume that applies to women, too,” I say, not really wanting to know the answer.

Tre nods. “Chance has had a pretty steady stream over the years,” he says. “But they never seem to last more than a few weeks. I guess he’s a little too… intense for most women.”

He’s intense, all right. So many nights I spent stuck to him like a magnet, wondering how I could ever live without him. I guess I learned how, eventually. So much of me wishes I’d had the courage to…

Stop it. Focus on the here and now.

“Okay,” I smile. “I think that’ll probably do for now. Thanks so much, Tre. You’ve been a great help. And it’s been awesome reconnecting with you.”

He pulls me in for a hug. “Same here, girl. I didn’t realize how much I missed you until you showed up again. And don’t worry about Chance – he’ll come around. Eventually.”

I give him a peck on the cheek. “From your lips to God’s ear.”

The clock in the hallway says 11:07 a.m. It feels like I arrived at the Atlas offices a month ago, and my head is still throbbing. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve earned my thousand dollars and Quentin Pearce can go fuck himself.

I’m taking the rest of the day off.