From a Humiliating Bet to the Boss He Can't Have novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Day Two

Jo talks Birdie through a panic from three hundred miles away and sets a Saturday call; then she finds the pool is public and Nate's name is alone on the 'never goes back' side.

"I'm here, Birdie," I said. "Tell me what your stomach feels like."

"Like a washing machine."

"That's a worried stomach. It's not a sick one."

"How do you know?"

"I've known yours for three years."

She laughed, a wet little hiccup, and I felt it in my chest.

Nate had come to the glass wall of my office and stopped there.

He didn't come in.

He held up one finger, then pointed at the conference room across the hall, which was empty and quiet.

I nodded and walked there with the phone against my ear.

"Birdie, can you give the phone to the nurse for me?"

There was a rustle, and a woman's tired voice came on.

"This is the school nurse. Who is this?"

"I'm Jo Hazlitt. I used to be Birdie's emergency contact."

"I know who you are," the nurse said quietly. "She asks for you every day."

"Has her grandmother answered?"

"Not yet. We've left two messages."

"Her grandmother lives ten minutes from the school. Call the house line, not the cell. She keeps the landline by the kitchen window."

I heard a pen scratch.

"Thank you," the nurse said. "I'm not allowed to release her to you."

"I know. I'm not asking you to."

Birdie came back on the line.

"Jo? Are you mad at Dad?"

I stood at the conference table and looked at the skyline.

"I'm mad at some of the things he did," I said. "I'm never mad at you."

"Did you leave because of me?"

"No. Never because of you."

"Then why did you leave?"

I had a dozen adult answers ready, and none of them were true for an eight-year-old.

"Because some people said something unkind about me in front of a lot of people, and your dad didn't tell them to stop."

She was quiet for a moment.

"Grandma says unkind things about you at dinner," she said.

"Does she?"

"She says you wanted the house."

I pressed my lips together.

"I never wanted the house," I said. "I wanted you to have dinner on time."

Birdie laughed again, and then a door opened on her end.

A woman's sharp voice said, "Birdie, honey, we're going home."

Blaine's mother had arrived.

I could hear her in the background, brisk and cold.

"Who are you talking to?"

"It's Jo," Birdie said.

"Give me that."

There was a short scuffle.

"You have done enough," his mother said into the phone. Then the call cut off.

I stood there with the phone in my hand and my own heartbeat loud in my ears.

A moment later, there was a knock on the open door.

Nate set a paper cup of coffee on the table.

"Did she get picked up?" he asked.

"Her grandmother's there." I took the cup. "I couldn't have done anything from here."

"You did something. You told the nurse where the landline was."

I looked at him.

"You listened."

"I stood near the door," he said. "I was not subtle."

I almost smiled.

My phone buzzed with a text from Blaine.

"Birdie was sent to the nurse because of YOU. Come home and fix this. Day 2. I'm still counting."

I read it twice.

He was not asking whether his daughter was all right.

He was keeping score.

"Anything I can do?" Nate asked.

"No. This is mine to answer."

I typed slowly.

"Birdie calls me every Saturday at five. Put her on the line, or I'll call the school and ask them to make me her emergency contact again, in writing. You can reach me through that."

I hit send before the second half could soften.

The answer came in under a minute.

"Fine. Saturdays. But you apologize to my mother first."

I put the phone face down on the table.

"He wants an apology," I said.

"Are you giving one?"

"I'm giving him a Saturday."

Nate nodded, then looked down at his own phone as it chimed.

He read something, and the corner of his mouth tightened.

I took my coffee back to my desk and opened the warehouse file, but the numbers wouldn't line up for me.

At noon, Carly texted me a link with no words.

I opened it.

It was the same group chat that had been on the screen at my party, but it was no longer private.

The new name across the top read "FIRST REACH LOSES."

Under it, in smaller letters: "Day 2. Who calls first?"

Thirty-eight thousand people were watching.

The pot had passed forty-one thousand dollars.

There were two columns of bets. One said "She goes back." The other said "She never goes back."

The first column ran for pages, forty names, fifty names.

The second column held one entry.

I zoomed in on it.

"N. Coughlin. $5,000. She never goes back."

Through the glass wall of my office, I saw Nate look up from his desk, and he met my eyes.

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