Before he could continue, before he could try to force the conversation back along the track that he had expected, Lara spoke up, interrupting him without any hesitation.
“Maybe that’s a good idea. I’ll send someone else to help them through the Canadian and United States parts of their tour. You come back here, and we’ll start interviewing men to take Aaron’s place.”
Wait, what? Was she actually saying what he was hearing? It seemed impossible to him, but it didn’t appear that he had been fired. He had told her everything, maybe not in the greatest of details but she was smart, she had surely picked it all up. And she was telling him to come back so that he could keep doing his job?
All of this time, he had assumed that, if anyone knew about him and Aaron, he would be fired. After all, he was Aaron’s boss, but that didn’t seem to have annoyed Lara as much as he would have thought. Actually, there was an odd sort of tone to his voice, one almost of satisfaction, though surely that was his own imagination coming into play.
“Are you sure?” Brad had to check. For the first time, it occurred to him that she must be drunk or something, because why else was she still giving him this chance, after everything that he’d done?
“Yes, of course.” No, she wasn’t drunk. Her voice was far too crisp and clear for that, and besides, he had never known for her to be the sort of person who drank to excess. She enjoyed keeping her mind clear, ready for challenges, too much for that. “Come back home, Brad. We’ll figure this out.”
And then she was gone, and slowly, Brad lowered the phone, and his thumb pressed on the screen to end the call, only to find that she had already done it.
How strange that, all of this time, he had been terrified to ever fail at anything. He had always assumed that, if he did, it would ruin his life. It would all be over if he failed at even one little thing.
He still had his job, though. By some miracle, for now, at least, and it made him adore Lara more than ever. If only he hadn’t disappointed her. With a sigh, he started to pack, to get ready for the plane trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles which he knew that Lara would already be setting up.
She still believed in him, he realized. Or so it seemed, anyway, and he would do everything that he could to justify that belief. And now, at the very least, he wouldn’t have Aaron to distract him from that.
God, though, he wished that he did. As pathetic as that made him, he would have cheerfully taken every single moment of distraction if it meant that he could touch that bright hair, that smooth, pale skin, even just one more time.
