There was a reply to my application in my inbox the next morning

Figuring it was yet another automated rejection letter—after all, only a computer program would have gotten back to me so quickly—I checked the rest of my messages first before clicking on the email. I had to read it over twice before realizing that this was no rejection; they actually wanted to schedule an interview.

A few dates and times were listed at the bottom of the email, so with trembling hands, I clicked reply and sent back my availability. Five minutes later, my laptop dinged again and I grinned as I read the one-line message confirming my selection, saying they looked forward to meeting me.

For the first time in weeks, I got ready for work without a pit of dread in my stomach and even found myself smiling as I cooked breakfast for me and Dad.

“You’re in a good mood,” he noted as I set down an omelet and a cup of coffee in front of him. “Are there magic beans in this coffee or something?”

I laughed as I joined him at the small kitchen table. “No, it’s not the coffee. I applied to a job last night and they already emailed me back to schedule an interview for Friday.”

“Really? That quickly?” He lifted his #1 Dad mug in a toast, teeth bright against his dark skin as he grinned. “This is it, Rosie-posie. Good things are coming for you.”

“I haven’t even gotten the job yet,” I pointed out as I grabbed my fork, needing to hurry up and eat if I was going to make it out of here on time.

“Maybe not, but I think this might be the one.”

I made a noncommittal sound as I dug into my eggs, not wanting to say anything else and accidentally jinx the best opportunity that had come my way since graduation. Still, I couldn’t deny that I wanted this job.

No, I needed this job.

We finished breakfast in companionable silence. As I got up to put the dishes in the sink, Dad cleared his throat.

“I was thinking about going to visit your mother this weekend. Do you want to come with me?”

I was glad my back was to him so he couldn’t see my smile slip away.

By going to visit my mother, Dad meant going to the cemetery to sit by her grave. It wasn’t exactly my favorite thing to do, but Dad rarely asked me to join him, so obligation and a desire to spend as much time with him as possible had me agreeing without much thought.

“Um, yeah, okay. We can do that.”

I’d only been four when Mama died, leaving me without many strong memories of her, but Dad never let me forget how much she had loved us both. There were pictures of her in nearly every room of the house, her dark eyes and knowing smile having watched me grow-up. Other than her pictures, her book collection was the main thing I remembered her by, something my father had passed on to me on my sixteenth birthday.

“You got your love of reading from her,” he’d said as he motioned to the three large cardboard boxes he’d taken out of storage. “Me, I barely picked up a book before I met Mahin. But her… you couldn’t keep one out of her hands.”

I had been touched by the gift, but when I opened the boxes I’d been a little disappointed to find that half of the books were in Farsi, the language of my mother’s homeland—a language that I had never learned.

Mama had come here from Iran for the chance at a better education and more opportunities than her country could offer. She and Dad had met when she’d been working as a waitress at a small café in D.C., one that he frequented often since it was around the corner from the garage where he worked as a mechanic. He always said it was love at first sight, but it had taken him months of ordering coffees to work up the nerve to ask her on a date.

A year later, they were married.

Unfortunately, her family hadn’t approved of the union for a variety of reasons, but the biggest was that their daughter wasn’t marrying a good Persian doctor like they wanted. No, Dad was the furthest thing from that, being African-American and boasting nothing more than a high school diploma. But she had loved him and he had loved her, and that was all that mattered.

Even after she died, taken slowly by breast cancer, Dad hadn’t stopped loving her, and never entertained the idea of dating or remarrying.

“No one will ever be half the woman your mother was,” he’d once told me. “Except for you, Rose. I know you’ll be more.”

I was trying to live up to that, but these days I mostly felt like a disappointment to both him and Mama. So if going with him to visit my mother would make him happy, I’d do it without complaint.

“Okay, I gotta get going,” I said, brushing off the front of my slacks as I turned back towards him, bending down to press a kiss to his cheek. “See you later.”

“Have a good day. Love you.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

***

My current temp job was the most boring I’d been placed in so far.

I was stuck doing tedious data input for an accounting firm, something that had me nearly cross-eyed by lunchtime every day, but at least it was bringing in a little money. Although, if I ended up needing reading glasses by the time I was out of here, I knew who to blame.

I was in the middle of inputting another line of numbers, close to falling asleep from sheer boredom, when my phone buzzed in my lap. We weren’t technically allowed to use cell phones in this office, but there was only so much I could take before needing a game break.

Dinner tonight? the message on the screen read, and had it been from anyone else I would have been excited. Unfortunately, this offer was from my ex-boyfriend.

Okay, well, he wasn’t an actual ex-boyfriend. He was more of an ex-almost-boyfriend considering we had never officially dated, but Chad had insisted from the moment we met in our sophomore year of college that we were destined to get married. It might have been creepy if he hadn’t been one of the hottest, most charismatic, and certainly richest boys I’d ever met. Guys like him were used to getting whatever they wanted, and Chad Barrington had decided early on that I was what he wanted.

Except, I had never really wanted him back.

For the most part, Chad respected that, and over the past few years we’d been relatively close friends—occasionally with benefits. However, in the year since graduation, he’d once again started to make it clear that he wanted more than just friendship. I still couldn’t figure out why he wanted that, especially since with his looks and family fortune he could have had practically any woman in the world, but I’d found myself back to square one with him.

Maybe another time! I texted back, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one in the nearby cubicles was watching. But let’s do happy hour with everyone soon!

There, with any luck that would reinforce the message that I was willing to hang out, but only in the context of friends. Who knew, maybe his offer of dinner had only been a friendly one, but considering the last time we’d gone out to eat alone, he’d spent half of the meal inquiring into my love life and once again asking if we could ever be a couple, I wasn’t so sure this time would be any different.

It probably would have been best to cut him off completely. His behavior crossed about a million lines and the fact that he couldn’t accept my boundaries was a massive red flag, but Chad was fun to be around when he wasn’t actively trying to propose to me.

I was quick to slide my phone back out of sight when I spotted my supervisor coming around the corner, a reminder that I should have been working instead of deflecting Chad’s advances. I returned my gaze to the computer screen in front of me, sending up a silent prayer that I wouldn’t have to be at this stupid job or fend off unwanted advances for much longer.

Hopefully Dad was right. Hopefully good things were coming for me.

***

A headache had settled behind my eyes by the time I turned onto my street later that night, the ancient Toyota Corolla shuddering to a stop in front of my house. I sighed as I slid the keys from the ignition, ready to eat dinner, read a few chapters of a book, and then go the hell to bed, but a flash of movement from across the street caught my eye as I climbed out of the car.

My keys were clutched defensively between my fingers before I realized it was Chad sliding out of his brand-new Mercedes, a bag from my favorite Chinese takeout place in hand.

“I figured if I couldn’t take you out to dinner, I’d bring dinner to you,” he greeted, leaning in to press a lingering kiss to my cheek before pulling back again. “I even got extra spring rolls.”

Part of me wanted to be mad that he had shown up unannounced, but the gesture was sweet. Not to mention I’d been craving spring rolls for the past few days, so I really couldn’t scold him for it.

If there was one thing I couldn’t deny, it was how well Chad knew me.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the bag when he offered it to me. “But you really didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to.” When he smiled, I started to feel my resolve to keep turning him down begin to slip a little. Chad really was handsome, like an all-American hero in a blockbuster film. However, when he spoke again, his good looks couldn’t make up for what came out of his mouth. “Gotta take care of you in whatever way I can until you agree to let me wife you.”

Though the words sounded like a joke, I knew they weren’t. Over the past few months, he’d gotten more and more insistent about “taking care” of me—as in, if we got married, I would never have to worry about money or a job ever again in my life. He was a trust fund baby who wanted a trophy wife, but he was sorely mistaken if he thought I was going to take up that place on his mantle.

While we made decent friends and no-strings-attached hookups, Chad and I had too many core differences to be compatible. I believed in hard work and determination; he thought everything should be given to him. I wanted to build a career and climb as far up the corporate ladder as I could; Chad wanted to simply take over as CEO at his family’s company when his father retired. And I wanted someone who would actually love and cherish me for the rest of our lives, just like my parents had with each other. As for Chad… well, I was pretty sure the only person he was capable of truly loving was himself.

“We’ve talked about this,” I sighed. “Enough with the marriage stuff, okay?”

He put his hands up in a show of innocence. “I know, I know, but one day you’ll come to your senses and see what you’re missing.”

I highly doubted that, but all I could manage was a half-assed eye roll and a shake of my head.

“God, you’re so cute when you’re annoyed,” he laughed. The next thing I knew, he was reaching out to wrap one of the errant black curls that had escaped from my bun around his finger. “Anyway, you gonna invite me in? It’s been a while since we last hung out.”

Even if I wanted to bring him inside—which I didn’t—there was no way I was going to do that with my father home. While I liked Chad in small doses, Dad outright hated the guy, and I couldn’t say I blamed him.

“I had a crazy long day, so maybe another time, yeah?” I took a second to pull my hair out of his grasp before stepping up onto the curb and giving him a quick wave. “Thanks for dinner, though!”

Thankfully, he didn’t try to follow me as I let myself in the front gate, but his soft laughter followed me all the way to the door, sending a not-so-pleasant shiver down my spine.

“Goodnight, Rose.”