Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LOTTIE
“Are you going to be able to keep your voice down in here?”
Thane rolls his eyes and then trips up the last of the library stairs. “I thought we were getting coffee?”
“We are. I always come here to get coffee—even though it’s terrible—to take some of the financial strain off Sharky.”
“I said I would take care of that.” He’s cute when he’s tipsy, even if he does sound like he’s pouting.
“This way.” I tug on his arm and lead him to the corner and gently nudge him into a chair before turning toward the small kitchenette.
I pop a pod into the machine, and it whirs to life, while I stick another twenty in the cash box.
“Won’t someone steal that?”
He’s sitting in the chair with his legs splayed wide and his hands clasped in his lap, but his gaze tracks my movements with hunter-like intent.
“Not usually. And honestly, if they do, it probably means they’re really struggling. The thing I learned early on in Sweetbriar is that everyone gives back when they’re able. If Sharky were truly worried about theft, she wouldn’t leave the cash box right next to a sign that says ‘if you’re struggling, help yourself.’”
“That’s no way to run a business.” The lines reappear between his brows, and I can almost hear the gears working in his head.
“This isn’t about business, Thane. It’s about community. If you haven’t noticed, there’s not a lot of young people in Sweetbriar. Did you ever stop to ask yourself why?”
I hand him the cup of coffee, but he remains silent.
“In order to entice younger generations, there have to be jobs in the area, but the world has changed. Sweetbriar was a working community. The paper factory employed nearly everyone in town, but the factory couldn’t survive the digital age. Over time, more and more families have been forced to relocate, so the residents who have remained really have learned to lean on each other.”
“The Scuttlebutts.” His throat works as he takes a sip of coffee. At least his eyes appear to be focused now.
“Yeah. They take care of each other. It’s what I love the most about this town. I’ve never had that before. Sure, it’s annoying that they take over my office every Tuesday, but also, I get it. Mrs. Perez, the Carvers, they’ve been around long enough to know the cyclical nature of small towns. They latched on to me because they know that without new blood, their town and their ways, even the Scuttlebutts, can’t survive.”
“So, I need to bring jobs to the area.” He reaches into his back pocket and procures his notebook, causing my heart to pitter-patter a little.
He wants to help so badly, and he has no idea how good of a man he really is. He’s been living in the shadows his father created for far too long.
“No, Thane. Not every problem is a problem for you to solve.”
His head is down as he writes in that little notebook, reminding me of the piano player from Charlie Brown.
“But I can.”
I peer across the table at what he’s writing. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Words like paper factory, next generation, and financial infusion are written with arrows pointing one way or another.
His mind is truly a fascinating thing to watch in action.
“Thane.” I place my hand over his, snapping him out of his thought spiral. “This isn’t a problem for you to solve.”
“Every problem has a solution,” he mumbles. “Sometimes people don’t get creative enough to find them, but I always do. Bringing jobs to a hometown is a problem that requires an invested businessman. I’m invested. Hackers at your company require a Whac-A-Mole. Problems are simply equations to be solved, and I can solve them.”
Hackers? Ice cools the overheated blood that Thane generally evokes in me. How he knows about my hacker problem has been needling me since he first said it.
“Thane?”
He scribbles something else in his notebook.
“Thane.”
He nods, flips his notebook to a new page, and stares at it.
“How do you know about the hackers?”
The tiny pencil he’s holding stops moving, and his fingers turn white around the base. But it’s his lashes that flutter across his cheeks before he looks at me that makes unease slither into my gut.
“You said it.”
Did I?
When I remain silent, he nods again. “You were upset about me reading the letter from your father’s attorney, which I hadn’t intended to read, by the way, I simply required scrap paper, then saw the law firm logo. That’s when I decided to read it.”
The conversation replays in my mind, but I can’t recall all the details.
“I told you that my company and my roadblocks were not problems for you to solve.”
“Yes. You don’t want to partner with me in business. I heard you.”
He’s unnaturally still. With all my heart, I want to believe that he hasn’t gone behind my back. I want to believe that he isn’t like my father or his. But he’s also very passionate about the future of my company.
“Thane.”
He lifts his chin, and the intensity of his stare cuts me to the quick.
“You—you wouldn’t betray me, right? You wouldn’t work side deals or try to—to take my company from me. Would you?”
“Never.” The vehemence behind that one word has the muscles in my shoulders unlocking.
He’s shown me what a good and trustworthy person he is over these past few weeks.
But the sense of dread, like I’m missing something, still rests heavily on my chest.
“I would never betray you, Charlotte. I want what’s best for you, and I’ll always act to ensure you get everything you want and deserve.”
Those words feel like a Band-Aid for a bullet hole, but I have no idea where I was shot or who pulled the trigger.
He sips his coffee, then closes his notebook with a snap as the cover flips to the front again before he places it on the table between us.
Thane is not like our fathers.
If anything, he’s always been brutally honest with me. In this moment, I have a decision to make—trust Thane with my heart or allow my past to sully my future.
My past is always fucking up my life, but I can’t think with Thane sitting so close, so I force my unsettled emotions to the back of my mind and focus on the here and now. I’ll worry about what my gut is telling me when his presence isn’t commanding all my attention.
“What did you think of Riley’s?” I ask, steering us back to safer ground.
He scratches behind his ear without an ounce of recognition. His reaction is so perfectly Thane.
“The bar you went to with Boone.” I lift my brow, and the corner of my lip wants to follow, but I suppress my grin.
“Oh. I didn’t know it had a name.” He shrugs. “There was no sign out front.”
“Riley likes it better that way. He says it keeps the riffraff out.”
His fingers twitch against the small pencil that’s now tucked into the spiral of his notebook as if he wants to write something down. “That’s not a way to run a business either.”
“Maybe not in New York, but it works here.”
“Everything works here.” He’s intentional with his words as he stares deeply into my eyes, and his meaning hits me dead center in the chest. He sighs and pushes the notebook around the table. “Sitting with Rafe and Boone at the bar wasn’t entirely unpleasant. While they talked about their feelings, I was able to think.”
“Yeah?” My stomach tightens as I wait for more because my brain is fighting my heart. Hackers versus his declaration that I can’t get out of my head. Even if he was a little tipsy, he said he loved me with such conviction, it nearly knocked me over.
And that is why I should choose to believe that he’s on my side.
At the bar, I had forced myself to overlook his words. To ignore the entire fiancée comment too, because in every rule book of dating, this is too soon for that kind of talk.
But I’ve also learned that Thane plays by his own rules.
His gaze zeros in on my left hand, and I quickly slip it beneath my thighs. He’s been infatuated with my ring finger since I removed my grandmother’s ring.
I’ve never been a woman who relies on a man, but Thane is the first one to make me even consider it, and it’s scaring the hell out of me. Trusting blindly has ruined so many of my peers’ relationships. Marriages are weaponized, and women lose control of their own destiny.
That must be why I jumped to conclusions about his hacker comment .
And yet, sitting here, with a slightly tipsy Thane Wilder, I can’t help but acknowledge that my heart is already toeing the line of independence and dependency.
Depending on anyone else terrifies me into silence.
When he said he loved me, I felt it, all the way down to the soles of my feet. His words wrapped me in a hug so tight there was no room for my fears, and that’s how I know we need to put on the brakes here.
Battles of the heart and mind generally lead to destruction, and I can’t be the one lost to the wildfires of our infatuation.
Without fear, I have no compass. My fear is what has gotten me to where I am today. It’s why my trust fund sits untouched and my company was built with sweat equity. It’s why my father can’t control me or bend me to his will. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done alone. I know how to function in the tracks I’ve created.
Thane wants to straddle those lines, blur them and make them ours, while I’m a runaway train with no brakes.
We have to step back, even if it hurts.
“Charlotte.”
I suck in an audible breath. Thane’s staring at me as though he’s said my name a few times, and my cheeks heat in embarrassment.
“Are you okay?” He reaches forward and rests his large palm on my knee.
“Yes, sorry. What were you saying?”
“I’ll need to stay in Rafe’s room after tonight. I can’t leave Kara alone over there.”
Space. My heart accelerates even as my stomach drops.
“Of course. Yes. That makes total sense. Things have moved at warp speed anyway.”
He frowns as though he doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
“I’m not…I’m not pressing pause on us, Charlotte. I’m simply saying?—”
“Did the coffee help? You’re clearer-headed now.”
“What’s happening here, sweetheart?”
My ears ring. I’m panicking, that’s what’s happening. Perhaps it’s a slightly delayed reaction, but it is what it is.
How dare he say he loves me?
All the conflicting feelings in my head stab blankly in the dark for a target and land on slowing us down. We’re moving too fast, and it doesn’t faze him at all.
My phone pings, and I flinch, but I’m so thankful for the distraction that I race to pull it from my pocket.
Kara: Where are you guys?
Kara: I thought we were making dinner.
Kara: Should I start cutting the vegetables?
“It’s Kara.” Gratefulness seeps into my words at being graced with such an easy out. “I promised we’d make dinner together, remember?”
Me: We’re on our way now. I’ll be home in ten minutes.
Clutching my phone until my knuckles turn white, I place a practiced smile on my face. “Ready?”
Thane sits across from me, studying, analyzing, memorizing whatever the hell is happening with my expression.
When he stands, I breathe a little easier. Then he bends into my space, so we’re face-to-face.
“I will always do my best to be honest with you, Lottie, and I’ll be as open as I’m able about what I’m feeling. I’m a work in progress, but I’m trying. Give me the decency of the same in return.”
I stand on shaky legs as he examines the cash box, then slips in a roll of money. I have no idea how much, but I know it’s a hell of a lot more than my measly twenty bucks.
His hand reaches out, indicating I should go in front of him, and we exit the library in silence. I have no idea how this day spiraled so quickly.
* * *
“Lottie?” Rowan’s face enters the frame, but everything else is dark around her.
“Hey, Row. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
She peers over her shoulder, then back at me. “No, just give me a minute.”
It’s only ten, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I woke her up—and that she wasn’t alone.
A moment later, her phone jostles as she moves through the house, then she flips on a light, illuminating kitchen cabinets behind her.
“Are you okay?”
I must look worse than I thought if Rowan’s asking me if I’m okay. She’s not really a girly girl.
“Yeah, it’s just…life. You know?”
“Your dad again?”
Rowan’s been in my life long enough to know that every bad thing in my life usually points back to my father.
“Yeah.” Sort of.
“Why haven’t you cut him out already, Lottie? You know he doesn’t deserve you.”
“Peach?” My friend’s eyes grow comically wide when the male voice calls for her in the background.
“Hold on, Lottie.”
She puts the phone face down so the screen falls black while a hushed conversation carries on in the background. When she returns to the phone, her cheeks are flushed and she’s doing everything she can not to stare straight at me through the screen.
“Anything you want to tell me?” I’m teasing, but her flush deepens to an even darker shade of red.
“We’ve got a lot to catch up on when you come back to Sailport Bay.” She’s always been masterful in her evasion techniques. “What about you? How’s the South treating you?”
“It’s…”
She brings the phone so close to her face I’m practically staring straight up her nose. “What’s changed?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. Do you ever wonder…what life would be like if you made other choices? If you, if it had been easier to let people in and to trust them?”
She’s silent long enough that if I hadn’t seen her lashes blink, I would be convinced the phone froze on me. It isn’t a fair question, not after everything she went through in college, but I don’t take it back.
We bonded over our shitty childhoods, even if we never shared all the gory details. If there’s anyone who gets me, it’s Rowan.
“I don’t know, Lottie. Sometimes I’m tired of running, if that’s what you mean. There’s been a lot of people in my life who have taken my choices away from me, and I’ve worked damn hard to make sure no one can ever do that again. But I think that maybe by running, I’m also evading something potentially really stinking amazing, you know?” She’s nodding her head as she speaks, her gaze far away from our phone conversation.
“Yeah. I do.”
“What’s making you ask all these illuminating questions in the middle of the night?”
“I—I might be tired too.” The admission triggers my fears of allowing anyone in, but I tamp them down. “I’ve been spinning my wheels for so long, working so hard to do everything myself, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m making the biggest mistake of my life by not taking a hand when it’s offered. But then, trust. How do you trust blindly after a lifetime of being let down? Does that make any sense at all?”
“More than you could possibly understand. But if this is about the hotline, you know your brother has been trying to get involved for years. He’s someone you can trust, and he only wants to help you. Me too. I’m always here for you.”
I swallow hard.
“This is about the hotline, right?” She cocks her head to the side as she stares at me.
“Mostly, yeah.” The last thing I want to do is tell my brother that my father is suing me. Elijah wouldn’t be able to help himself—he’d rush in like a white knight and get himself all twisted up in our father’s business again, and I’d never forgive myself for it. He’s spent his entire adult life building a career for himself, independent of our father. I can’t ask him to meddle because I’m not able to make the same clean break.
“Mostly?” Rowan waggles her brows at me. She’s completely ridiculous.
“Yes.” It comes out the way I imagine an eye roll would sound. “Mostly. Do you…do you think I’ll ever be capable of putting my trust into someone else? Or will my current world view always be tainted by what I know of my father?”
She puffs out her cheeks. “I didn’t know this was gonna be a bottle of wine kind of conversation, Lottie.”
I laugh at her attempt to keep things light, but my belly twists with an uncomfortable pang.
“I think…” Her voice takes on a contemplative edge to it. “That if you meet someone who makes you even want to consider letting them into your world, then you should take it. You’ve spent so long building your walls and proving to the world that you can do anything you set your mind to on your own, that you’ve landed on a tiny island with no way off. If someone circles your shore with a white flag, then maybe you should take the risk. You have so much more to offer than living life as a castaway.”
“What if I get hurt?” I sniffle, and Rowan softens her gaze.
“What if you don’t?”
What if I don’t?
“Are you sure you’re okay, Lottie?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll be fine.”
“That’s not what I asked, and you know it.”
“Rowan?” A child’s voice sounds far away.
“Lottie? I’ve got to go. One of the kids has been pretty sick. Talk to you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Sounds good.” I hang up, knowing that we won’t. Rowan is a wanderer. She never stays in one place too long. She doesn’t want to get attached, even in friendship.
It’s the only kind of friendship either of us has ever allowed. We always support, but we never dig very deep beneath the surface either.
And suddenly, that kind of relationship makes me feel worse than empty. It makes me feel lost.