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“I mean they were treating you like shit.” She tosses up both hands in frustration for me, and this is what I love about her—her ability to stick up for me while hitting me with the hard truth. “They’re letting Rivera get away with harassing you, and it’s not right. You want my opinion? Bring a lawsuit against them. They don’t deserve you.”
“You know what? You’re right. They don’t.”
“So you’re gonna, what…go mooch off Nash now?” she asks, and I giggle.
“Something like that. I’m going to put everything into the podcast. He’s going to get an in-home studio set up so we can record any time, and I’m going to take your idea and expand it. I just…at some point, and probably soon, I think I’ll need an assistant, but I have no idea where to even begin to look for someone who could help me.”
She clears her throat, and my eyes dart over to her as my brows dip.
She raises her hand.
“You?” I ask. “I mean, I love the idea of working together, especially since we won’t be living together, but…you have a job, and I’m looking for someone full time who can help with administrative tasks so I can focus on the stories and the research. I might need someone who can help me film and get the content up online after I’m done producing it.”
She raises her hand higher.
“Sam, be serious.”
“I am serious. I like being a nurse, but with all the extra shifts I’ve been taking lately, I’ve realized something. I like it. I don’t love it. I need a break. I need to do something fun, something a little…I don’t know. Lighter. Something where I don’t literally make life and death decisions every day. Something where I can work while Cade is at school but then have the time to go to baseball games and have weekends off to spend time with my family. I just…think I might be burned out, and I think I’d make a great assistant.”
I don’t even have to think about it. It’s a perfect fit. One more sponsorship and we’ll be making enough for me to pay her a salary. “When can you start?”
“I just need to put in my two weeks. So…two weeks?”
I grin. “Perfect. Welcome to the team. Now would you mind watching Jonah for a bit so I can run to the station and grab the equipment I left there?”
She nods. “Go. You need any help?”
I shake my head and grab my keys. “I’ll be quick.”
It finally feels like everything is falling into place…which is why I don’t even see the next hit coming.
CHAPTER 27: LINCOLN
I walk into the smoky casino, one of the few casinos left where cigar and cigarette smoke seems to hover in the air. I head toward the back since that’s where the high-stakes poker rooms are, and I find my father sitting at a table back there just like my mother predicted. He’s tossing chips out onto the table like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
My blood boils.
He doesn’t see me at first since he’s focused on his cards and his back is to the door, but I sure as fuck see him.
His wife is leaving him.
His family is falling apart.
Because of him. Because of his actions. Because he’s an asshole.
And he’s sitting there tossing chips out onto the table, a glass of amber liquid in one hand and a cigar in the other.
Maybe this is how he distracts himself from the harsh realities he’s facing, or maybe he doesn’t have a heart after all.
I stand behind him and watch him. He loses, but he seems unfazed by the loss as the dealer rakes in the chips. He tosses more out, and I watch him lose another hand before I step up behind him and make my presence known.
“You losing on purpose so you don’t have to give it to the woman leaving you?”
He freezes for just a fraction of a second before he turns toward me. “She feeding you that bullshit about leaving me?”
“I don’t think it’s bullshit, Dad.” I’m about to add that she doesn’t want to sell the farm, that she’s heading back to New York, but I realize if he doesn’t know, it’s not my place to tell him. Knowing him, he’ll find a way to stop her or to push the sale through or something that’ll turn the tide back to his favor.
I will not be the one to help him do that.
