Page 18 of The Truths We Find

“Yes, sorry. Everything is fine. Just banged my knee.”

“Do I need to get the first aid kit?” Her lips pull into a small smile, but her expression still holds genuine concern.

“No, no. It’s already feeling better. Just the initial impact caught me off guard. I appreciate the concern though. Go ahead and get back to whatever you were doing… I’m so sorry, please remind me your name again?”

“Jenny.”

“Jenny. Thank you, Jenny. I promise to remember that.” I return her smile with one of my own to show my gratitude.

“Okay then. If you’re sure.” She closes the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I can’t let my personal feelings impact my job. I can’t have another outburst like that happen. No matter what I say, Dani isn’t going to listen.

Even if I did tell her what Sam is really like, the truth of what I learned about him all those years ago, she would never believe me. And even if she did… well, I don’t even want to think about that. It’s not worth risking everything both of us have worked for all these years.

I pull out my phone and decide there’s only one person I can talk to about this. I scroll through my contacts until I find who I’m looking for and hit the video call button. I make myself comfortable in my chair when I hear “Hey, dickwad” from my phone’s speaker.

I laugh. “Good to see you too, bro.”

Emmett is my fraternal twin brother, and my best friend. If you looked at us, you’d never guess we were related. I got Dad’s dark blond hair and blue eyes, while he takes after Mom with his brown hair and steel-gray eyes. He also makes my six-one frame look short, towering over me at six-five.

After our parents died, it felt like our worlds were empty, and all we had left were each other. We became each other’s anchors.

When I decided to go into journalism, he took over the repair business so our regular customers wouldn’t lose someone they could rely on. I’ll never forget that. How he put my dreams above his own plans. Turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Business has been booming for years, and he’s even been able to hire a whole team to help with the load.

“Shouldn’t you be telling people to go hide in their homes from a natural disaster or to go outside because the weather is really pretty?” Emmett quips.

“Ha. Ha. You’re so funny.” I hold up my middle finger to the screen.

“But seriously, what’s up?” His tone drops. “You never call me in the middle of the day unless it’s serious.”

I take a deep breath. “So, guess who runs my afternoon shows?”

“Uh. Anderson Cooper.”

“Very funny.”

“You know I don’t know people in news unless they’re like super famous. How the hell would I know?”

“Think about it. Who’s the last person on the planet I should be around?”

Emmett scrunches his face like he’s really thinking about it. Suddenly, his forehead relaxes, and his eyes widen, sending his eyebrows to his hairline. “No!”

I nod.

“Dani is there?” He stutters, “But… how… I thought… What?” His jaw falls.

“Do you need a moment to process, or can I talk to you about this like I need to?”

“Sorry, dude, but holy shit. I mean this is Dani. How’re you holding up?”

“How do you think?” I sink in my chair. “The minute I saw her, it was like no time had passed. She’s still as incredible as the last time I saw her. She still has the fire and passion that first drew me towards her, and I didn’t think it was even possible for her to be even more gorgeous than before. All I wanted to do was scoop her up in my arms and tell her what an idiot I was all those years ago. Hell, I wanted to do that the minute I made that stupid phone call. And then I found out I beat her for this job.”

“You what?”

“Yeah. Just to make matters worse, I found out it was between her and me for this job. And obviously we know how that turned out.”

“Oh, she must love that,” he chuckles.