The Kiss Quotient (The Kiss Quotient 1)

{ CHAP+ER }

27

A soft ding sounded, alerting Michael that the front door of the shop had opened. He looked up from his sewing in time to see Janie explode into the workroom.

“I got an offer.”

He set his sewing aside. “Hey, that’s great.”

His mom squealed and ran to hug her. “M? is so proud. Good job.”

“I didn’t even know you were interviewing,” Michael said. “What company is it?”

A combative glint shined in Janie’s eyes as his mom patted her head and returned to her sewing machine. “Stella’s company. Advanced Economic Analytics.”

Silence roared in his ears. “What?”

“I asked her to help me find an internship, and she did. I start work in a couple weeks. I’m so excited.” Janie danced in place, her smile going from ear to ear.

“She got you a job?” He had to have misheard. Stella wouldn’t have gotten his sister a job.

“You never told me she works for AEA. Even my professors are envious I’m interning there. When they like you, they fund your research in grad school and postdoc. I’ve got it made—if I don’t mess this up.”

“You need to call her and thank her, Michael,” his mom said in a serious tone. “This is a big thing she did.”

Did people do that when their exes got jobs for their siblings? Wait a second. How could there be a precedent? Exes didn’t do that. Only Stella. How was he supposed to stop loving her when she did things like this?

Janie puffed out her chest and blew on her fingernails. “In my defense, I killed those interviews. I spoke to all six of their senior econometricians, and they have to decide unanimously when they make an offer.”

He realized then that Janie had seen Stella. Recently. His heartbeat sped up. He had to know.

“How was she?”

r /> With that question, Janie’s eyes hardened. “She’s fine. She looks really good, actually.”

“That’s . . . good.” It didn’t feel good, though. It felt shitty. He should be happy she was doing well, but he wasn’t. He wanted her to be sad without him, as sad as he was without her.

She’d really moved on. Fuck, a knife in the ribs would be better than this.

“That’s right. It is good,” Janie said.

His mom sent Janie an admonishing look, but Janie merely crossed her arms and jutted her chin out.

Michael pushed away from his sewing machine. “Since you’re here, I’m going to take off early.”

He got into his car without a destination in mind. All he knew was he needed to leave the shop.

Janie would be starting her first job soon. His mom’s health was good enough for her to start dating. Stella was moving on.

Everyone was moving forward with their lives but him.

What was stopping him? The bills were gone, and he didn’t need to escort anymore. His mom wanted him to stop working in the shop. All the bars of his cage were gone, but he was still sitting in his old place, afraid to move.

Maybe it was time for him to change that.

He pulled his car into the parking lot outside a Vietnamese restaurant in Milpitas that specialized in noodle dishes. Bells on the door jingled as he stepped inside. Quan cleared dirty eatware into plastic bins on a roller cart and wiped down the tabletops with a wet towel. The lunch crowd had left, and he was the only one in the front of his parents’ restaurant—aside from the assortment of freshwater fish that lived in the tank covering the entire back wall of the place.

He glanced up at Michael, paused a second, and said, “You look like shit.”