Single Sashimi (28 page)

Shrieking brakes that seemed to go on forever. Then
bam!
Venus’s car hopped sideways on impact. Her airbags erupted and slapped her with hard white hands.
Ow!

All was silent for a long moment, which was nice because she needed time to make sure she was still breathing.

What had she done? She ached from the top of her head down through her spine. Rubbing the crown of her head, she wondered if she’d hit the ceiling. Good thing it was convertible cloth. Her chiropractor was going to kill her.

Oh, man. She took another deep breath. Maybe she shouldn’t have done that. At least, not with her seatbelt off.

She reached over to open the passenger side door, then dribbled out of the car. She glanced at her front end. Luckily, she’d cleared the other cars parked on either side of her, so she hadn’t dinged any of them.

She could walk at least. The airbags had hurt worse than the impact. She wandered around the car to the driver side door just as Esme’s car door swung open.

Hmph. Not bad, considering. The damage to her door didn’t look as bad as Esme’s dramatically crumpled front end. She guessed Esme had been farther away than she’d thought when she first backed out in front of her.

“Are you crazy?”
Esme had finally found her voice. She stumbled out of her car, eyes glued to the ruffled metal, mouth swinging open. Venus had never seen Esme completely unhinged, and the sight entertained her way too much.

Her horrified gaze rose to Venus, who could feel the smile pulling at her mouth. The sight of the unfortunate Mercedes gave her more satisfaction by the second. “New car? Bought it with your signing bonus, huh?”

Esme gave an inarticulate sound of rage and took a step toward her. Venus did a Billy Blanks and brought her fists up. “I wouldn’t if I were you.” She had a good ten inches and at least twenty pounds on Esme’s tiny frame, never mind that her only kickboxing experience was TaeBo Boot Camp DVDs.

Esme stopped, although she stood there fuming and flinging her arms around. “Why did you do this?”

“Why do you
think
I did this?”

“You’re just jealous!” Esme stabbed her finger at Venus like a woodpecker at a tree trunk. “You can’t stand the fact I’ve got the job you wanted!”

“If I’d wanted the job, I wouldn’t have quit.”

“You were stupid enough to quit Oomvid!” Esme screeched so loud that her voice cracked. “You don’t deserve this job!”

“Yardley didn’t offer me that job.”

She stopped mid-breath. “What do you mean?”

“He offered me VP of Programming, you twit.”

Esme’s pouty bottom lip dropped full open. Her face darkened, and she trembled like a bowl of chili about to erupt in the microwave. “I can do any job you can do! I would have been a better CTO than you are!”

Ah. That was it. She’d finally dug out the root of her animosity. “Drake would have promoted you to CTO if he thought you were competent.” It was true. Drake didn’t play favorites when it came to his team. Venus had known that about him before, and she had seen that in him during the last few months.

“Competent? Ha! He just wanted to get into your pants.”

Rather than your pants
. But the girl might go ballistic if she said that, so Venus kept her mouth shut in a rare moment of tact. Drake had somehow told Esme he wasn’t interested, whereas he’d been quite clear to Venus that he was more than interested. She felt rather warm and fuzzy about that.

Esme’s attention returned to her car. She kicked at a tire. “You’re insane!”

Venus crossed her arms. “You lose your sanity when your Operations Manager sabotages your company and steals your proprietary software.”

Esme stilled. Her mouth twisted into an evil smile. “Prove it.”

Venus frowned. Her sparkling apple-cider feeling at the destruction of Esme’s personal property suddenly fizzled. She couldn’t prove it. And the injustice of everything overshadowed this petty bit of revenge.

Make that an expensive bit of revenge.
Venus, you have reached an all-time low
.

Suddenly, headlights turned the corner into the parking lot. Oh, great. They were blocking the entire street and had to call tow trucks right away. Good thing one of her cousins owned a body shop and another cousin was her insurance agent. She left Esme weeping with her head on her door frame while Venus climbed into her passenger door to get her purse and her cell phone.

The headlights approached them and stopped. Why had the car turned toward them? Couldn’t the driver see that he couldn’t get through?

The car door opened, closed. A man’s figure, but she couldn’t see him because of the glare of his headlights. Venus had a flashing vision of a serial killer chopping off both of their heads. She flipped open her cell phone.

“Venus?”

She almost dropped her phone. “Drake?”

He moved into the light and surveyed the mess. “This is what you call not doing anything stupid?”

T
he rest of her world fell apart exactly two feet from her condo door.

Her cell phone chirped. She handed her keys to Drake so she could dig in her purse for it. He obliged by opening her door as she answered the call. “Hi, Jaye.”

“Venus.” His wheezing voice sounded like he’d aged a hundred years. “At the airport. Mom fell and broke her hip.”

“Oh, no.”

“Fell sometime this morning. Been on her kitchen floor all day. My sister didn’t find her until tonight.”

“How is she?”

“Doctors think she had a stroke.”

“What?”

“Venus.” The pause stretched out like a rubber band.

“Just tell me.”

“We’re going to move to Arizona.”

She didn’t answer. She was vaguely aware of her bag slipping to the ground from her shoulder.

“Nancy already called her boss to let her know she’s quitting. She and Junior are coming with me to Phoenix tonight. In a couple days, I’ll head back to California for a few weeks to clear things up.”

“The Spiderweb…”

“I can still help you develop it.”

“The company…”

Jaye sighed. “Venus, while it was
our
tool, it was always
your
company.”

That wasn’t true. Well, Jaye had been more excited about the tool than the game ideas, but the nights they spent thinking up applications and brainstorming…

“Talk to you about this later, Venus.”
Click
.

Not have Jaye to help start her company? It had never occurred to her before. She still needed to find a strong core of people to form her team. She’d always thought Jaye would be with her in that core. But now, he wouldn’t be there with her.

She was entirely alone.

Why did it suddenly feel like her entire world had shattered around her in raining panes of glass? They cut her, sliced through her skin, and she cried out in pain.

And then she was wailing. She couldn’t open her mouth wide enough to unleash the despair that came rushing up from her gut. Drake’s arm closed around her. She couldn’t feel her feet.

Movement. The closing of her front door. Her knees hit the cold tile of her foyer. And then arms folded her close and she cried, her face buried in a warm shoulder. The tang of his cologne mingled with the salt of her tears. She bawled and unleashed all the pain, all the anger, all the frustration, betrayal, regret.

Her throat ached. Her lungs heaved. Her stomach cramped. She felt stripped and beaten, curled up on her tile floor. Gone. Everything had been wiped away. She had utterly failed. No matter how hard she had tried, it hadn’t been enough. She was so tired.

She sat there for what felt like years. She became aware of Drake sitting beside her, cradling her body with his. She didn’t want him here. She didn’t want anyone here. She wanted to be alone. Her feelings were too raw, like an asphalt scrape on her knee, where the slightest breeze of kindness stung.

She pushed away from him. Her palms fell to the floor, propping her body up. She dropped her head, and loose strands of her hair curtained her face. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Go away,” she sobbed.

“Venus.”

“Go away. Please.” She choked on the word.

“You need me now.”

She didn’t want him here, in her house—in the one place she was vulnerable, at this one point when she was most vulnerable. “No, I don’t need you.” Her voice echoed off the walls, the floor. “Just go.”

He didn’t answer.

Her words still hung between them. She cried because she couldn’t take them back. In the past few months, she had stabbed him over and over again with a dagger made up of her independence, fear, pride. But now, she’d reached a point where she didn’t care, because she had absolutely nothing left.

He rose to his feet, slow and silent. She didn’t look up at him, but her crying came harder and faster, heaving up from her chest. She didn’t want him to go, but she couldn’t form the words to make him stay.

His foot nudged aside her purse—he must have brought it in for her. She sobbed at his thoughtfulness. Why could she only hurt people?

He opened the door and left, closing it softly behind him.

Venus lay on the tile floor and cried.

She stared at the reflection of herself in her widescreen HDTV. Perched on the sofa, distorted and out of focus. Kind of like how she felt.

Indifferent morning light crept in through the blinds. She hadn’t closed them last night. She hadn’t done a lot of things last night.

She still made lists, even in her misery She’d lost the Amity Group as investors for Bananaville. She’d lost the Spiderweb. She’d lost Jaye. She’d lost her car. Without help, she wasn’t going to get a demo ready for Hudson Collins anytime soon, so she’d lost him too. Grandma would be peeved, so she had probably lost Grandma. Mom was upset at her and probably wouldn’t speak to her ever again, so she’d also lost her mother.

She’d probably tried Drake’s patience and lost him too.

She didn’t have anything left to lose.

God has failed me
.

The rational part of her shrank at the words. God didn’t fail people. People failed God. She shouldn’t say such things.

“Well, I don’t care!”

The walls didn’t respond.

“I don’t care.” She didn’t have any tears left in her. They’d all soaked onto the tile floor. “Do you hear me? I don’t care.”

When have you ever cared what God thought?

She stilled. It was as if a chill wind blew through the room, making her shiver.

She did everything a Christian was supposed to do—Bible reading, praying, going to church, tithing, serving with the youth group.

In all those things, did you care what God thought?

Wasn’t He pleased? Weren’t all those things what He wanted her to do? He wouldn’t want her to neglect her Bible, or prayer, or any of that.

But have you ever cared what God thought?

About what? About…

About everything.

Her gaming company, which she could never seem to find time to pray about. She had prayed every day for her parents’ salvation, but she’d never asked God if He’d even wanted her to create her own company. She’d assumed it was a good thing—she had the Spiderweb, the game premise had marketing potential, she wanted the control of her own company, she wanted the success and the glory, and so many people told her she ought to start her own company.

Since when had their opinions counted over God’s?

Her chest tightened, and she bowed her head, curling herself around the pain. She didn’t have an answer. She’d wanted it so badly, she had been reluctant to ask God because she didn’t want to hear what He would say.

Well, He was forcing her to listen now.

All her dreams slipping from her fingers like water. Wouldn’t it have been better to give it up willingly—even if it was grudgingly—rather than have God yank it away from her?

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

She did have tears left, and they burned down her face like liquid fire. Bitter, not salty, on her tongue. She folded in half, she couldn’t curl herself up small enough. “I’m so, so sorry.” How sad—how typical Venus—that God had to break her, strip her, shatter her before she came to Him.

“I’ll trust you. I’ll submit. I’ll trust you no matter what happens.”

She thought she felt a hand on her head, and then it was gone.

“What do you want me to do now?”

Arms folded around her that she couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, and yet she knew they were there. It didn’t matter. Not any of the stupid things she’d done the past few months. Nothing mattered except that God still loved her. Had always loved her.

It was freeing, being in this place. She grabbed a handful of tissues to scrub her face. She felt cleansed, like when her mom took a scouring sponge to her, as a child, to get all the dirt off her hands and feet. Except…

God had never answered her question. What would she do now?

Venus had shrunk. Drake noticed it as soon as she opened the door to her condo.

“Thanks for driving me.” She exited the house and locked her door, keeping her eyes away from his face. “I’ll get a rental car today My cousin said it’ll take at least a week before he can fix my car.” She turned to go but bumped into him. “What?”

He realized he was blocking her way “You’re shorter.”

“Oh.” Did her face actually flush? Venus did not blush prettily—red splotches rose from her neck and splayed unevenly across her face. But it made her attractive, for some reason—maybe because it proved she wasn’t perfectly in control of everything about herself.

She didn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t wear heels today.”

Glancing down, he saw the metallic—and probably expensive—ballerina flats she’d worn instead. Weird. Venus without stilettos was like pizza without cheese.

“Thanks for, um…”

He almost reached out to cup her cheek, but she kept her head down, as if to protect herself. “It’s okay, Venus.”

Her eyes flashed up at him, wide and more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her before. Then she headed down the stairs to the parking lot at a fast clip, quicker without her heels to slow her down.

He lengthened his stride to keep up with her. “Why the change?” He clicked his remote and unlocked the car doors.

She shrugged as she got into the car.

“Nope.” He got in and started the engine. “No way. If I’m giving you a ride, I’m going to get an answer.”

She glowered. The splotches on her face went from rosy to radish red. “It’s complicated.”

“We have a long drive.” After everything that happened yesterday, he’d told her to come into work later—he’d insisted on nine or ten, but she’d negotiated for eight o’clock, which was still better than her normal seven—which meant the traffic would be bumper to bumper for a few miles on highway 85.

“It’s about religion.”

In the time they’d worked together, they’d never discussed God. “I go to church.” He wasn’t too happy with his Creator right now, but she didn’t know that. He’d asked, after all.

“You never liked discussing religion before.”

“I had a heart attack since then.”

She went from radish red to port wine. “I had a talk with God this morning.”

Drake had too—asking Him why He hadn’t answered his prayer for help with Amity when Esme walked. The first time he’d really prayed to God—and a lot of good that had done. “And?”

“I think everything will be okay.” She had a smoothness to her profile—the line of her skin flowed like satin. Her eyes were a little puffy but clear.

It irritated him. “What do you mean by okay?”

She caught his hard tone and frowned. “If I knew that, I’d be able to wave my magic wand and zap everything back to before.”

Okay, okay. “What does that have to do with your shoes?”

“I don’t…need them anymore.”

He suddenly knew exactly what she was talking about. “Your armor.”

“They weren’t
armor
.” She glared at him. “They just made me feel strong and tall.”

“Venus, you’re already five-nine.”

“Tall-
er
.”

Tall enough so men couldn’t look down on her or tower over her. So they’d have to look her in the eye if they said something disagreeable. And now—today, at least—she’d given it up.