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“Um. Okay? Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”

He took a step closer and set both coffees on the reception desk. “I know you look down on our little publication here. We’re funded by the college, so it’s not like we have the budget of USA Today, right?”

“Daryl,” I started, exhausted already. I didn’t know how to get him to understand that I didn’t give a single, solitary whisper of a shit about this publication. This was a job I had taken to make my shit-for-brains ex-boyfriend happy. “I don’t⁠—”

“I hired you as a favor to your father.”

It took everything in me not to laugh. It wasn’t a favor to my father. It was an attempt to shove his too-red nose up my dad’s asshole and take a big whiff. He did it as an actual favor to Leon.

But I was pretty sure Daryl was homophobic and wasn’t going to admit that aloud.

“What is your point?” I sighed out.

His eyes flashed. “This is what I mean. Mouthy, insubordinate, pathetic…”

It stung. I shouldn’t have let myself feel the pain because I didn’t care what this guy thought of me. Why would I? I had two bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and I had already proven myself to my friends and my family.

So why let this beady-eyed, insecure jackass get under my skin?

But he had. And the pain probably showed on my face because he smiled.

“You’re going nowhere in life.”

“Now, Daryl,” came a voice to my right.

Oh fuck. Like this day couldn’t get worse. I had just enough time to brace myself before Leon’s hand touched my shoulder, and it took everything in me not to shove him off.

“You don’t need to be cruel.”

I only just managed to hold in my laugh. That was fucking rich. Taking a step back from Leon, I looked up into his face, and oh. New crow’s feet. God, had he always looked this old?

Granted, I kind of had a thing for older guys, but had I really ever found Leon sexy?

“Ara can’t help himself. He’s acting out because of his grief⁠—”

“Fuck you.” The words slipped out, but I wasn’t going to take them back because fuck him.

“Ara,” Leon said, his patronizing tone dripping with fake empathy, “you and I both know people like you were never taught how to do things properly.”

People like me?

He was baiting me, and I knew it. I breathed through my fury. Six more days. Six more days, and my father would be satisfied that I finished out my contract, and I could leave. Our beach cottage was sitting in a cute little cove of Barret Inlet on Banker Island. It would be fully stocked, and the weather would be nice, and I could soak up sun and take a week—maybe more—to figure out what the fuck I wanted the rest of my life to look like.

Because while I didn’t know much, I knew I wasn’t ever going to waste my time like this again. Not for some fucking arrogant man who had no right to feel so good about himself.

“Thank you for your opinion, Leon,” I said, removing all the emotion from my words.

Leon cocked his head to the side. “You and I both know it’s true. You were not taught how to grieve. Or how to receive love, or how to give it⁠—”

“How to eat like a civilized human,” Daryl cut in with a laugh.

If rage were stomach acid, my throat would be on fire. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard racist bullshit about the way I ate, but coming from Daryl somehow made it worse.

“Listen, you tiny-dicked⁠—”

“Whoa, Ara. Do you really want to lose your job over this?” Leon asked with a tiny smile.

This time, I did burst into laughter. He didn’t know that I’d already quit? I spun and offered him the sweetest grin I could manage. “Honey, my contract is up. I have six days before I’m out. And I won’t be back.”