Episode 613: My Last Name

With that task completed, he took a moment to lower his hood and close his eyes. He turned his face to the bright warm sun. A hand grasped his shoulder and he turned with a start.

"Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump," his boss, Quentin said.

He waved off the concern. "I should have been getting back in to work. I’m the one who should apologize."

"It’s a beautiful day. I don’t blame you for taking a minute or two to savor it. My little girl nearly talked me into us playing hooky today." Quentin chuckled. "My wife would never trust me to do the school run again. She’s a lot less lenient about Tansy’s academics than I am. Tans has me convinced she’s a genius already."

"She is a great kid. I hope you passed along my thanks to her for this job."

"I did. So how do you like it here?"

"So far, so good." It was only his first day, but it was working out pretty well. He worked out back by himself, hardly interacted with anyone and those he did interact with respected his space, they didn’t ask questions or stare too hard, probably on the boss’s orders. "Thanks again."

Quentin nodded. "I’m glad it’s working out. So everything went okay, you know getting through that anniversary you had yesterday."

"Yeah, keeping busy really helped." Not that anything really kept him from thinking about her.

"Good. I just wanted to check in with you, make sure things are going well for you. You’re doing a great job." The boss clearly had more to say, he hesitated, which probably meant it wasn’t good. "So, I get that you’re very much wanting to keep to yourself, but I’m gonna need some personal information from you, starting with your name for the payroll."

He swallowed hard. "I can’t give you my name."

Quentin grimaced. "Then you can’t work here."

Episode 614: Better Together