“You still with Darwin?” Bruce asked almost as soon as their drinks were placed in front of them. It’d been on his mind ever since she’d called Hadley telling them she had to take the rest of the afternoon off.
She’d ordered a margarita, he’d settled for a light beer. She’d told him to order whatever he wanted when they sat at the bar, that it was her treat, but he stuck to the lowest ABI he could find on tap. He wanted to be as coherent as he could be while still having a drink.
“Yes, we are,” she said curtly, sensing he was still waiting for their relationship to fall apart so that he could get a chance with her. He couldn’t help but notice the slim traces of a smile.
“Well, it was probably easier surviving the recession Preston and Moore caused with someone else,” he commented.
“It was tough,” she said, nodding, but noticeably treading lightly. Whatever she and Darwin had gone through, she knew it couldn’t compare to what Bruce had experienced.
“He lost his job too. We burned through our savings pretty quickly, and for…I don’t know, eight months…it was definitely longer than half a year, we were living off my paycheck. By the time he got another job, we were getting notices from the bank about being months behind on our mortgage.” The way she glanced down into her drink made it seem like the margarita was home to a bottomless pit.
“Thank god he got a job offer when he did. We’d already scaled back on everything that wasn’t essential, had had monthly garage sales, and were still behind on our payments. And the bank wasn’t dealing with us because so many other people were behind in their payments as well. They could only deal with so many people at once.”
“Maybe we could’ve been neighbors,” Bruce said, then paled. “I take that back,” he added quickly.
“No, no, it’s okay,” she assured him. “I deserve that.”
“No, you don’t,” Bruce sighed. “I know it wasn’t your decision to can me.” He shook his head as he drained half his bottle, then scowled at himself for having done so. She’d buy him another, probably would buy him all the drinks he wanted today. But, for the first time in a year, he really didn’t want to drink.
“It’s just,” he went on, “It’s always bugged me. I mean, why me? I did a lot of good work for Hadley. And…I got to be honest; it actually kind of took me by surprise when you called me into your office in the HR department to break the news.”
“I made a strong case to keep you on, I swear,” she said, putting her hand on his forearm. It was the first time in months someone touched him without a look of repulsion, or wanting to fight, in their eyes.
“I reminded them all about your stellar record signing new clients to the firm,” she said. “It’s just, they were only looking at the last year of the firm’s data…”
The frown swallowed what was left of her trailing voice. Bruce filled in the rest for her. “So all they saw was the clients I signed leaving in droves to set up accounts with Preston and Moore, and that I wasn’t bringing anyone else in to replace them.”
Miranda nodded. “All the raises you’d gotten from bringing in all those clients didn’t help your case either. It was between you and Stevens. And him and his wife just had another child…no one wanted to be the one to put him out on the street facing these economic conditions.”
“But they had no problem doing it to the guy who had no one to come home to,” Bruce said glumly.
“We all thought you’d land on your feet,” she said. She hadn’t touched her margarita since it’d been placed on the table. “Those investments you always bragged about, about how close you were to having enough passive income to live off of…the directors thought you’d have to tighten your belt a little, but that you’d see it through.”
“Those were,” he started, then didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know. The goal I had to earn a living wage off of my investments always seemed just out of reach. And when the bombshell that was Preston and Moore went off, most of the stocks I owned lost half their value within the month. The renters that I had couldn’t afford to live in my apartments anymore, no one could afford to move in, and because the real estate market was in the toilet, I couldn’t find a buyer until I was willing to take pennies on the dollar.”
“I’m sorry,” Miranda said, finally retreating to her drink for a sip. “Maybe we should talk about something else.”
“No, it’s alright,” he said, polishing off what was left of his beer. “Like the directors surmised, I didn’t have a family to provide for. This is the first time I’ve been able to talk to anybody about what Preston and Moore put me through.”