Chapter Twenty-nine

Simon strolled into the office without a care in the world. Last night had been spectacular, this morning even better, and he was the damn boss. He deserved to be late every now and then. After Lacie had agreed to live with him, his heart had felt an indescribable thrill and he’d insisted on making love to her—long and slow—to celebrate. And then they required showers. So yeah, he was a little late.

Miriam followed him to his office with a stack of messages, but he stopped her at the door. “Don’t we have a program to do those on the computer?” She froze, little pink slips in her hand, mouth agape. She’d been trying to get him to use the program for messaging for almost a year. Everyone else in the office did, and Simon realized he’d been a pain in the ass about his incessant need for paper, making Miriam’s job more difficult in the process.

“Ye-es,” she said, almost in a question.

“I’ll get Q to show me how to use it. Go ahead and digitize those or whatever. I’ll get to them later this morning unless there’s anything urgent.” Yesterday, the FBI had told him they were finished until the Grand Jury hearing, which wasn’t for another couple of weeks.

Simon sat in his chair behind his desk and looked at the massive piles of papers and binders. He had always liked his organization system, but it was outdated and made more work for Miriam. Everyone else in the office had neat desks with everything on a laptop or tablet. He sighed. Simon could get with the twenty-first century.

He started pawing through a stack of papers pertaining to Jonas and decided against it. Baby steps.

Quinten walked by as Simon was stacking everything on a shelf behind his desk to clear it off.

“Are you smiling?” Q’s question in his doorway froze Simon while he examined himself.

Sure enough, a vague smile sat on his mouth, his cheeks feeling it.

“Why yes. Yes, I am.” His smile broadened into a grin, and a slight chuckle left his mouth.

“So last night went well? I was hoping it would.” Quinten came in and sat in the chair opposite Simon’s desk.

“Last night went spectacularly, and this morning, I feel like making a few changes.”

Quinten eyeballed his cleared-off desk. “It’s so shiny,” he said, noting the gleam of the wood nobody ever saw for the papers usually strewn across it.

Simon threw a ball of paper at his brother, who didn’t even try to duck, letting it bounce off his forehead while he grinned stupidly.

“What the hell is everyone working on now?” Simon was so out of the loop with all the stuff with Lacie and Jonas, but he found he didn’t really mind. Maybe that meant it was time for a vacation. For the first time in years, that thought didn’t stress him out.

He continued piling papers around his desk on the shelf behind him as he opened drawers, while Quinten softly spoke about the different jobs the team was working on. When he got to the bottom drawer, Simon paused.

Quinten knew what was in the drawer and stopped talking, waiting for Simon.

He pulled out the bottle of scotch and the picture of Tanya, his self-pitying reminders of everything. Fingering the picture’s edges, he remembered the day. For the last time.

It hadn’t been real. Certainly not on Tanya’s part; the smiles she’d given him were great acting. And his smile? He examined it closer, seeing it as if for the first time. He’d really liked Tanya, and she’d seemed to love him. His smile was a throwback to the smiles in his family portraits. Put-together. Pasted-on. What Tanya expected.

Had it been real? He would never be able to tell. Not now. And it didn’t even really matter if he’d really loved her or not. She was dead. He was over it. He’d finally moved on, with Lacie’s help.

With a whoosh of expelled air, he tore the picture in half and tossed it across his desk. “Goddamn that felt good.” Half the picture slid to the floor at Q’s feet. “Get rid of that for me, would you?”

Quinten grinned and picked up the pieces of the image. “No problem, brother.”

Passing the bottle across the desk, Simon continued, “This too.”

His brother’s shaggy eyebrows rose. “Why? What if you want to celebrate or something?”

Simon set the bottle down with a clank. Celebrations would now be reserved for Lacie. And the bottle represented his inability to deal with shit that got too heavy. “I have other ways to deal now. Changes, remember?”

Quinten took the bottle and leaned back in the chair, scotch and picture in hand. “Change can be good.”

“Change can be excellent.” Simon pulled a new picture out of his bag and set it on the desk. The picture showed him and Lacie surrounded by this summer’s class of kindergarteners after the assembly.

“Yes,” he reiterated. “Change will be good.”