Stranger. Megan Hart

into the pile of papers. “And why are we getting a cable bill?”

      “We aren’t.” I plucked it from his hand. “That’s mine.”

      My dad wouldn’t ever come out and accuse me of trying to slip my personal bills into the funeral home’s accounting. He’d hammered hard the idea that the home’s expenses had to be kept separate from family bills enough times that I had no trouble remembering it. Considering the fact I’d be expected to cut my salary should the business require it, I didn’t see any issue with paying for my cable bill out of the same bank account, especially when it was ridiculous to have two separate cable Internet accounts to serve one location. I lived just upstairs. I could share the home’s wireless.

      “I’ll have a talk with Shelly. Tell her to make sure the bills don’t get all jumbled up like that.” My dad harrumphed a little. “Maybe give Bob a mention, too, next time I’m at the post office. Make sure he’s putting them in the right slots.”

      “Dad. It doesn’t matter.”

      He gave me a look guaranteed to make me quake. “Sure it does, Grace. You know that.”

      Maybe it had when he was running the business while raising a family, but now it was just me, and I didn’t agree. “I’ll talk to Shelly. You’ll just make her cry.”

      Fresh from two years of business college, Shelly’d never worked anywhere else before I’d hired her for the office manager position. She was young, but a hard worker and good with people. My dad huffed again, sitting back in the chair I could tell he still thought of as the wrong one.

      “I wouldn’t make her cry.”

      It wasn’t too hard to make Shelly cry, but I didn’t argue with him. I tucked the cable bill into the drawer where I kept my private things and looked back at him. “Anything else you have a question about?”

      He looked over the bills and statements again, but perfunctorily. “No. I’ll take these home. Get it all worked out.”

      I hadn’t had a problem, but it was almost guaranteed he’d come back with a list of questions about expenses I needed to justify. You’d have thought I was running the place into the ground, sometimes, the way he talked. I shrugged and he closed the folder.

      “That still doesn’t answer my question,” my dad said. “About where your head is.”

      “I thought it was up my rear.”

      My attempt at humor didn’t make him smile. “Don’t be smart, Gracie.”

      I raised a brow in a perfect imitation of him. “You want me to be dumb?”

      He didn’t smile this time, either. He was really mad. Or upset, I couldn’t tell. “Your sister says you’re seeing somebody. Says you don’t want to bring him around the house. Meet the family.”

      I held back the groan. “Hannah talks too much.”

      He snorted. “I won’t argue with that, but is she right? You have some fella you don’t want to bring around? You’re ashamed of us, or what?”

      “Oh, Dad. No.”

      “No, you’re not ashamed,” he said, “or no, you don’t have a fella?”

      I should’ve known better than to try to get around my dad by twisting words. “No to both.”

      “Huh.” He gave me an eye. “Is it Jared?”

      I wanted to laugh, but the sound that came out didn’t quite make it. “What?”

      My dad jerked a thumb toward my office door. “Jared.”

      “Oh, God. No, Dad.” My head tried to fall into my hands, but I kept it up. “He’s my intern.”

      My dad huffed a little more. “People talk, that’s all.”

      “People like you?” I folded my hands together on my desk.

      My dad didn’t look ashamed. “I’m just saying. You’re a lovely young woman. He’s a young guy.”

      I sighed, heavily and on purpose. “And he’s my intern. That’s it. Drop it, okay?”

      My dad just looked at me, up and down. He didn’t say he was sorry, the way my mom would’ve, and he didn’t bug me for answers the way my sister would have. He just shook his head slowly from side to side and left me to wonder what that meant.

      “What’s that sign out there say?”

      Whatever I’d imagined he might say, it wasn’t that. “Frawley and Sons.”

      My dad nodded. He put his glasses away into his breast pocket. He stood, the folder of bills in one hand. “Think about that.”

      He turned to go, apparently not planning to say anything else, and I got up. “Dad!”

      My dad stopped in the doorway, but didn’t look at me.

      “What’s that supposed to mean?” I cried.

      He looked at me then, the same look he’d given when I’d sneaked in after curfew, or brought home a bad grade. The look said he knew I could do better. More than could. Should. Must. Would.

      “I’m sure your sister won’t let her kids come within an arm’s length of this place. Your brother…” He paused, but only for a second. “Craig, if he ever has any, won’t either.”

      “So it’s up to me, is that what you’re saying?” I blinked, hard, thinking the sting in my eyes would go away.

      “You’re getting older, too, Gracie, that’s all I’m saying.”

      If I was getting older, why was he still so good at making me feel like a kid? “Dad! Are you kidding me? You are not actually suggesting I need to get married, are you? Have some sons? Just for a stupid sign?”

      He bristled. “There’s nothing stupid about that sign!”

      “Right, nothing stupid except for the fact I’m not a son!” My shout shot around the room and hung there for a moment until silence defeated it.

      Everyone had assumed my brother would take over from my dad. Everyone but Craig. The news had finally been delivered one Thanksgiving when the inevitable argument erupted between him and our dad about Craig stepping into the shoes of the son in Frawley and Sons. Craig, eighteen at the time, planned to go to NYU film school instead. Craig had left the table and not come back for a long time. He lived in New York with a series of increasingly younger actresses and made commercials and music videos. One of his documentaries had been nominated for an Emmy.

      “I’ll get these back to you in a few days,” he said.

      My dad pushed through the door and I watched him go, then sank back into the seat behind the desk. My chair. My place. My fucking desk, if you wanted to get right down to it. This was my office, and my business now.

      Even if I wasn’t a son.

      I’d never thought of Jared as anything other than an intern, but knowing that other people were making romantic assumptions about us, I couldn’t stop thinking about him like that. It pissed me off. Until now, we’d had the perfect working relationship. It was as uncomplicated as my dates with Mrs. Smith’s gentlemen.

      It wasn’t as if I’d never noticed Jared was attractive or anything. He had a nice face, kept in shape, had an affable personality that made him easy to get along with. We joked a lot, but I’d never had even a hint that he was flirting with me, and I know I never did with him. Why couldn’t men and women just be friends without someone, somewhere, shoehorning sex into it? On the other hand, why did everyone assume that having sex with someone meant you had to fall in love?

      “Hey, Grace. Want me to give Betty a bath while I’m out there?”

      “You know, I have noticed you have a serious hearse fetish, Jared.” I took the last