Page 29 of Level With Me
“You ready?” I asked Lila after coming in her and Brynn’s back door. It was sometime close to sunset—the gray overhead was darkening to a deeper shade of charcoal. At least the weather matched my mood.
“You look like you’re going to a funeral,” Lila said when she saw me.
I was wearing a charcoal suit with a black tie. “I don’t look any different than I do on a workday,” I said. “Except maybe the umbrella.”
“He looks nice!” Brynn said. Lila was dressed and running around looking for earrings or something. Meanwhile, Brynn was in her PJs, looking eager for us to go so she could kick back with a movie. I half wanted to ask if I could join her.
“It’s the dour expression,” Lila said to me in the mirror. She was slashing on that red lipstick she always wore.
I smiled, but it came out a grimace.
“Jesus,” Lila said. “Don’t do that.”
In the car, she inspected me for a long time as I made the quick ten-minute drive up to the resort. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Bullshit.”
I glanced over at her. Rain pecked against the windshield, and for a moment, that and the soft thump of the wipers was the only sound in the car. Lila was usually good to talk to about whatever was up with me, even if it was about us and our situation. But I couldn’t talk to Lila about the specifics on this one. Maybe that’s what was getting at me the most.
“Do you ever feel like quitting?” I asked her instead as I turned up the winding road to the Rolling Hills.
“What do you mean? Quitting the business?” Her voice sounded as shocked as I should have suspected it would.
My chest tightened.
We’d talked about it before, how long we wanted to keep the business going, but not for years. Back then, I’d said I’d never want to quit. I’d had no reason to.
“Never mind.”
“Maybe someday,” she said, suddenly serious. “Maybe. But Blake, you’re the one who wanted to take this one as far as we could.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. I did know. This business was our whole life. It was our whole identity. Mr. and Mrs. Shark.
“Are you unhappy?” she asked.
I almost laughed. The thing was, most of the time, I wasn’t so grim. This arrangement suited me. But ever since we’d gotten here, things had changed.
“I’m fine,” I said, realizing how tightly she was holding herself.
The truth was, ending this would destroy her life more than mine.
“It’s fine. It was just a theoretical question.”
She studied me for a moment longer. Lila knew me well. Better than I knew myself sometimes. We were familiar. Old friends. I didn’t have any sisters, but that’s what Lila was like to me, were anyone to ask. If I were to answer honestly.
“I’m not unhappy,” I said finally, when she didn’t say anything. Maybe it wasn’t true right now, but it was enough of the time that it didn’t feel like a complete lie.
The resort came into view up ahead.
When Lila and I strode through the front doors of the resort a few minutes later, I felt the strangest thing—the faintest kernel of hope.
I’d almost forgotten why I’d wanted to take this job in the first place. While yes, I’d been deeply intrigued by the resort’s CEO, I’d first been wooed by the project itself.
The resort truly was stunning.
The front entrance opened onto an expansive lobby, white marble with a massive modern chandelier overhead. To the right were the counters for check-in and the entrance to the restaurant. On the left, a wide hallway led to the rest of the rooms, and directly across from where we stood, a massive floor-to-ceiling window overlooked the Quince Valley. A gap in the thick cloud cover had appeared where the river ran out to the horizon, and shafts of light—God’s fingers, my mom used to call them when she was still all there—made the water below twinkle like diamonds. Inside, a water feature running from one wall to the other, meant to replicate the river, twinkled with underwater lights.
