Free Coming Home by B.L. Mooney

that?”
    Ryan shrugged. “I told you it was a good sketch. I’d like to keep
a copy if you don’t mind.”
    “I don’t mind.” I hesitated and looked him in the eye. “Is it
weird that I drew you?”
    He immediately started shaking his head when the word weird came
out of my mouth. “I don’t think it’s weird at all. Actually, I’m flattered. It
might have been weird if it was one from the gym or something.” He shrugged.
“But just me sitting in a meeting. It’s okay.”
    “Thanks. I’ll tell Matt as soon as he gets in, but can we just
keep it between us? I don’t really need the whole team to know about this.”
    “Sure.” Ryan looked at his watch. “Matt should be in any minute.
Just go up and get it over with, and I’ll talk to him after you.”
    I checked my office and found the sketch back in its original
place as though it was never taken. I quickly looked through the other sketches,
and there wasn’t anything personal that anyone could use. It was mostly just
glimpses of what I could catch outside the windows during meetings.
    I sat for a minute, trying to think who would want to do that. I
knew Matt would ask, and I didn’t know who would do something so immature. The
only person who knew I had it was Stacy, and she certainly wasn’t talking to me
as if she were mad at me. I didn’t even show her the finished sketch. She had
only seen it that one time in the meeting.
    Could Wade have looked for the sketch since I wouldn’t show him?
He probably would have gotten the wrong idea about it, but would it have caused
him to plaster it all over the walls? I’d given him no indication that we were
anything other than friends, so he couldn’t be jealous. I wondered if I should
have sketched one of Wade to make him feel better.
    Matt’s secretary wasn’t in yet, but I could tell someone was in
the office. I took a deep breath and looked at the copy of the sketch one more
time. I lightly knocked on the door, but part of me wished he didn’t hear it or
was too busy to see anyone.
    “Come in.” Matt called out.
    I took another deep breath and opened the door. Matt was leaning
against his desk with his arms around Vicki’s waist. Vicki had her hands on his
chest and was smiling. I felt very uncomfortable and wished they had separated
before calling me into the office, but it was good to see Vicki smiling.
    “I’m sorry. I can come back.” I started to back out of the
doorway.
    “Nonsense.” Vicki hadn’t turned around to me yet and pressed
quick kiss to Matt. “I was just—” She turned and finally looked at me as she
stepped out of his embrace. “What’s wrong?”
    Matt’s gaze snapped to me and narrowed his eyes. “Rebecca, what
is it?”
    Vicki came over and pulled me through the door to shut it behind
me. I handed her the copy. “This is very good, but I don’t understand why this
should upset you. It’s yours, isn’t it?”
    I nodded as my phone beeped. It was a picture message from Ryan.
“Thought you might have trouble forming the words. Just show them this.” I
opened it, and it was a picture of what the walls looked like before we took the
pictures down. Looking closer, I saw that he had taken it while I was standing
there crying and trying to figure out how to clean it up. My eyes started
burning again, and I closed them to try to stop the tears from coming.
    Vicki took the phone from me and looked at the picture. “Is that
. . . here? Downstairs?” All I could do was nod. Vicki gave the phone to Matt
as she walked me to the chair.
    “What the fuck?” Matt stood straight up, glaring at the phone.
    “Matt, you’re lucky Ashley isn’t here.” Vicki turned back to me.
“So do you know what happened?”
    “Ryan sent this to you?” Matt interrupted and again all I could
do was nod. “Did he fucking do this?”
    “Matt, calm down and call him up here.” Vicki took the phone back
from him and gave it back to me.
    “He didn’t do it. He helped me clean it