Chapter 8: Company Property

Blaine stood in the middle of the lobby with a bunch of white roses and his daughter's hand in his.

Birdie wore her school uniform and her yellow raincoat, and her braid had come half undone.

She saw me step out of the elevator and pulled free of him.

"Jo!"

I dropped to my knees on the marble and she hit me hard enough to rock me back.

"You smell like the hospital," she said into my neck.

"That's the new soap."

"I don't like it."

"Noted."

Behind her, Blaine kept his face carefully mild.

"She hasn't eaten properly since Sunday," he said. "She asked to see you. I thought, what's five hours?"

"It's a Friday. She has school."

"She has a father who knows what she needs."

Four people at the front desk had stopped pretending to work.

A courier in the corner held his phone at chest height.

I didn't look at the phone.

"Birdie," I said, "can you go sit with the lady at the front desk? She has stickers."

"I don't want stickers."

"The glittery ones."

Birdie narrowed her eyes.

"Five minutes," she said, and walked over like a tiny general.

I stood up.

"You brought her here to use her," I said quietly.

"I brought her because she misses you." He held out the roses. "And so do I."

"You counted days at me in a text."

"I was angry."

"You let forty people put a price on me and you stood there."

"I didn't know it would go that far."

"You knew it existed."

He had no answer for that, so he tried a different one.

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