Blast From The Past 2 Read Online Free Page B

than it was lifted, it was let down again.
    “Forgetting about it and pretending it never happened is not an option,” J.R. went on, smiling a more restrained smile at me. “But we definitely have got to move past it. What happened, happened; it’s in the past. Right now, we have to think about the future—and both of our butts are on the line here. We’ve got to figure out what’s going on at rEcore, not revisit a mistake we made a long time ago.”
    Of all the words I would have used to describe what happened with J.R. seven years ago, “mistake” would not have been one of them, and I was upset that he used it. I’d regretted what I’d done—because of the promiscuity aspect of it—but I’d never once called it a “mistake.” I guess I never thought it had been… but J.R. obviously had a different opinion.
    “Okay,” I said, deciding to go with the flow rather than disrupt it. “I’m willing to move past it, if you are… Though, at some point, I have some questions I want answered.”
    “Me too,” J.R. said. “But now is not the time… And, speaking of time, like Julie said—it’s getting pretty late. I really should be going home now… Some of us have work in the morning, you know.”
    “I know,” I replied, not missing J.R.’s attempt at caustic humor. “If it wasn’t for you firing me, I’d still have a job to wake up to… but I guess I’ll sleep in instead. So, thanks for the added nap time.”
    “No problem,” J.R. said with a fake grin.
    “Keep up the good work,” he added when he got to the door. “I’ll be in contact tomorrow night to see what you’ve found. In the meantime, I’m gonna pull some personnel records at work to see who Gigi’s canned since that company party—maybe that’ll lead to something.”
    I walked to the door to see J.R. out and felt a strange sensation wash over my body the moment he was gone. It was as if I’d been blasted by a spray of hot water. I was both invigorated and relaxed, both excited and a little shaky. J.R.’s involvement in this investigation was something I never saw coming, and, now that he was in on it, I had no idea where this would go.
    I hoped, of course, that we’d get to the bottom of things at rEcore, and I was pretty sure that we would. But I wasn’t sure where this would go in terms of me and J.R.—was this my chance to finally face the demons of my past and get closure? Or, maybe was there something more there—was this my opportunity to pick up where I left off years ago, my second chance to purse something with my one-night lover?
    Maybe it would be neither of those things—or maybe it’d be something else entirely—but the point was, I didn’t know… How could I?

~ Chapter 6 ~
     
    Despite what I’d told J.R. about sleeping in, I still woke at 6 a.m. the next morning, like clockwork. My alarm hadn’t been set, and I arose simply out of habit. When you’re used to working every day, you’re used to working every day, and the fact that you know you no longer have a job doesn’t really alter your circadian rhythms. Your body still wants to get up when it knows it should get up, and one day off the clock doesn’t change that.
    Still, it sucked to be up so early without anything regimented to do, and I wished I could roll back over and sleep for a few more hours. But once I heard the birds chirping outside and heard my neighbors’ cars purring, I decided that I was already too much a part of the waking world to ignore it.
    I pulled myself up out of bed and elected to wear my sweats as my uniform. I’d changed into them before crawling into bed the night before and saw no reason to put on anything more formal.
    I did, however, see reason to put on the coffee—and, as soon as it brewed, I made myself a huge mug and went to my new office… aka, my living room. I hunkered down on the couch and opened up my laptop. J.R. was going to look into recent rEcore fires, and I was going to look into my old flame.