Chapter Text
“Who did you get to do the pick ups tomorrow?” Beth asked casually, conversationally, as she packed up the last of the money from that week’s printing run.
So focused on what she was doing, she didn’t notice he had looked up from his phone and was staring at her, brow furrowed in confusion, until she had finished tying the string around the sturdy brown cardboard box and slid it across the worn worktop toward him.
“Whaddaya mean, who’d I get? I got you.”
Beth blinked back at him slowly, wide-eyed, as a frisson of dread worked its way up her spine.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” She hissed, forcing down the hysterics that threatened to bubble out. “I told you two weeks ago that I had a conflict tomorrow and you needed to find someone else. I sent you an email.”
It had rankled at the time, playing like he actually was HR, and she needed to get his permission - because he absolutely wasn’t, and she absolutely didn’t - but she’d wanted it writing so he couldn’t turn around and do…. Well…. This.
The quick flash in his eyes told her he remembered; he just didn’t particularly care.
“Yeah,” he drawled. “You know that ain’t how this works, Elizabeth. You don’t get paid what I pay you just so you can blow off work whenever the fuck y’feel like t’go get your nails done and whatnot.”
“That’s…” Beth sputtered, completely taken aback by the accusation. “That’s not what this is. It’s not a spa day. I need the afternoon because I have a doctor’s appointment at 2:00, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take.”
The admission was hard. She hadn’t wanted him to know even that much because it really wasn’t any of his business. Not that her very valid excuse seemed to make an ounce of difference; the annoyed look on his face didn’t waiver.
“Don’t change the fact the banker’s still gotta get paid. Schedule that shit on your own time.”
Beth stared in doe eyed shock at the bitter scorn that dripped from his words. Why was he being so difficult about this? Things were good with them now. Well, okay, that was maybe a bit of a stretch, but they were better. Better than better, even, when he was inclined to forget what she’d done and focused instead on what she could do.
Was she really surprised by his insensitivity, though? No. No one would ever suggest that empathy or sympathy were his strong suits - especially when it came to her. She’d seen him cold - callous, even - but this was a new low. Or maybe it just felt that way because what they were talking about was so personal, even if he didn’t know the full extent of it.
Needing to put some distance between them before her emotions got the better of her, Beth abruptly pushed herself up off her stool. Ignoring the grating screech that filled the heavy silence as its legs scraped across the scuffed linoleum floor, she moved to tidy the shelves on the other side of the room. If she had to give him more, she couldn’t look at him while she did it. That might break her, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing that on top of everything else.
“It’s not that kind of appointment,” she explained. “I couldn’t pick the time, I had to take what they gave me. And if I cancel, I don’t know when they’ll be able to fit me in again. It could be months, and I don’t know…”
Her breath hitched as she choked a bit trying to get the last words out. “That might be too late.”
Well, that might have been an exaggeration - she really didn’t know - but it was her deepest fear. For two weeks she’d lived with it, feeling like that cat trapped inside that box, somehow both very sick and also perfectly healthy, existing in a cruel limbo waiting for someone to lift the lid and reveal her fate.
Rio didn’t know everything, but cracking herself open and admitting even this much left her feeling raw, and entirely too exposed. There was little she hated more than feeling vulnerable, and now he had enough pieces to be able to put together at least the outline of a picture - more than enough to figure out that whatever was going on wasn’t good.
It gave him a degree of power she wished he didn’t have, and she could only hope that he wouldn’t wield the information like a weapon against her. Their history had shown her that he was often quick to pile insult upon injury, and at times he seemed to genuinely enjoy hurling pointed barbs meant to cut and slice and eviscerate her in ways only he could. But as the seconds passed, marked by the steady tick-tock of the shop’s old wall clock, all she heard was the sound of his even, measured, breathing. Until…
“You sick?”
The words, when he finally spoke, were softer than Beth had expected. It somehow made things worse, and nearly broke her remaining resolve.
Gripping the edge of the counter tight in the palms of both hands, she shrugged a shoulder and stared, unseeing, at the reams of premium linen blend stationery stock stacked on the shelves in front of her while she tried to catch a breath. His sympathy, it turned out, was infinitely worse than either his anger or his indifference ever had been.
“I don’t know,” she whispered finally, her words far more brittle than she’d meant for them to sound. She didn’t want his pity and she didn’t deserve his anger, but she wasn’t sure how to deal with this. “That’s what the appointment’s for. They need to…”
Breathe in, breathe out…
“I found a lump.”
There it was. The secret she’d been holding onto, holding in, for the last two weeks. Her soon-to-be (if she had anything to say about it!) ex, Dean, didn’t know. Neither did her sister or best friend, Ruby. Beth knew it wasn’t entirely healthy to keep it bottled up, but it was easy to rationalize the choice since - really - there wasn’t anything to deal with. Not yet. That’s what she’d convinced herself, anyway.
She couldn’t let herself take the time to think about what any of it might mean - couldn’t let herself trip and fall down that deep, dark rabbit hole. There had been so much - too damn much - else to worry about while she worked to get back on track financially to prepare for the divorce. There was no point in obsessing over what ifs.
You get what you get and you don’t get mad.
After she got the results from the procedure tomorrow, then she’d start worrying. If it turned out there was something to worry about. Until then, until she knew something - anything - for sure, she was just a cat in a box, and there was nothing to do but put her head down and focus on everything else.
Everything would be alright until it wasn’t, because it had to be.
All she needed from him was a damn afternoon.
Behind her, the room was quiet. Seconds, then a minute passed… two… with no response, no reaction. The longer the silence dragged out between them, the more self conscious she began to feel. And that made her angry. Just as she was about to turn around and confront him - because how dare he make her feel bad - she felt the lightest squeeze of her shoulder as he passed behind her.
“You got this,” she heard him say, the words almost swallowed by the jingle of the bell above the door as it closed behind him.
Beth exhaled a ragged breath as the tension in the room finally broke. She didn’t know what she’d expected from him, but she supposed she had to give him credit for being consistent. He knew her secret now, and while he might not have treated her well by anyone’s measure, at least he hadn’t treated her any differently. That was… something.
Swiping a finger under each eye, she dried her waterline before any tears had a chance to fall, and turned around to face the now empty room. She needed to get back to work; there were a million things left to do before tomorrow, and there was no time for that.