Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When Tate stepped through the front door to the shelter, a painful sense of déjà vu washed over him.
He shook his head to clear out the thought.
The boarded up window already had his anxiety cranked to max.
He’d been out since after lunch, dropping off paperwork with all their crowd-funding site pilot groups, and the shelter was last on his list. Because Lys’s shift didn’t start until later, of course. No other reason.
Sara’s smile looked forced when she glanced up from her computer. “You might not want to go back there.”
He nodded at the window. “Something I should know first?”
“That was a rock last night. Our friendly neighborhood picketers.” Her usually chipper tone was flat. “But that’s not the problem.”
“Okay?”
“She did a rebuttal piece with the news station last night. It aired about ten minutes ago.”
An invisible hand clenched around Tate’s chest. “Do I want details?”
Sara just shook her head. “I heard some kind of primal-scream-type yelling. She’s not answering her phone, and when I tried to check on her, she told me to go away. You should probably check on her.”
Tate was already moving toward Alyssia’s office, adrenaline pumping through him at a painful clip. She didn’t look up when he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Her attention was on her feet, as she traveled from one end of the office to the other, and then back.
Every impulse he’d struggled to suppress since Monday. The desire to protect her, to keep her safe, to wrap her up and never let go, flooded through him. “Lys.”
She jumped and whirled to face him. Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
Not the reception he’d expected, but it was fair, all things considered. “Are you all right?”
Her laugh was bitter and sharp. “Your powers of perception are slipping if you don’t already know the answer to that.” She shook her head and resumed pacing. “But since it’s not obvious, no. I’m not fucking all right.”
Anger. He could deal with that. It meant she’d talk, and he could find a solution. “Fill me in.”
“Is there something about me that screams stupid? Or gullible?”
“Absolutely not.”
She finally looked him the eye. “In that case, tell me something, and be honest.”
“Of course.” He was losing control of the conversation, and he didn’t like that. But he couldn’t think of any alternative but to go along with things until he uncovered more of the situation.
“Did Sara tell you what was going on?”
The question was too easy. That couldn’t be where things were going. “She gave me a brief run-down. I figured I’d get details from you.”
“How many times since you walked in the front door have you told yourself you’d fix this?” Her lips twisted in irritated amusement. “How many different ways are you thinking you’ll make this better?”
Tate didn’t know what bothered him more—that she’d crawled into his head and plucked the thoughts out so succinctly, or her irritation when she asked about it. “We’ll make it better.”
She shook her head, kicked out her office chair, and dropped into it. “I did what you told me not to. I talked to the news station. That crowd outside gets larger every day, and our numbers have slumped off noticeably in the last few days. I had to do something.”
Tate had to clench his jaw to keep from interrupting.
“And they slaughtered me. Took everything I said out of context. Almost all of their footage was of the people on the sidewalk. What little they showed of me was clipped to make it look like I only do this to make people suffer. I take their pets in, never give them back, and call the police on the people I don’t like. They spun it that way.”
It was Thompson’s TV station. What had she expected? “Call your lawyer. It’s slander.”
She slammed her hands on the desk hard enough to shake the floor. “I know it’s fucking slander. The damage is done. And so help me, if you’re thinking you need to rein me in, and make me calm down, I’ll have Ricco throw you out.”
Once again, he was bothered she’d read him so easily. “You’re not solving anything this way.” He struggled to keep his tone cool and calm.
“You think?” She breathed deep. Her chin quivered, and she clenched her hands into fists several times.
She scrubbed the back of her hand across her cheeks and eyes.
“None of this is solving anything.” The fire in her voice wilted, faded, and ended in a crack.
“Your ideas aren’t exactly batting one-thousand either.
If the site keeps taking donations at this rate, it’ll be twenty-fifty before I’ve raised enough for the shelter expansion. ”
The conversation with Vivian tickled his memory. “So let me write you a check. I can get that out of the way now, and then we can focus on the legal problems, and setting things right.”
“Let you. You can get. Do you hear yourself? I don’t want you to make this all vanish. Nothing gets better if you sweep your magic money wand over the entire situation.”
“Where’s this coming from?” He’d been cold at the party on Monday, and he owed her an apology for that, but this didn’t seem even remotely related.
“You can’t bail me out for the rest of my life, Tate. What happens when we grow apart?”
The question burrowed under his skin and drilled a hole into his thoughts. A wave of cold passed over him. “Why would we grow apart?” It was a stupid question. Of course they would. He’d just never thought about it before. Not seriously.
She tugged on her hair. “You keep talking about this mysterious Mister Right that I’m going to end up with. Do you think things are going to stay the same between us when he comes along? That we’ll all be best buds, and our relationship won’t change?”
She was just spitting his own words back at him. Reiterating the future he’d always seen for her. The one that didn’t include him. But hearing her acknowledge it sank into his feet like concrete. He’d never hated an idea more.
“I’m not like you.” She continued. “I don’t like the idea of growing old alone.
My life plan has never included not getting attached.
I want kids, and a happy marriage, and a house with a big enough yard for dogs and cats.
Maybe that does mean I’m stupid or gullible, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping. ”
He couldn’t think about her entire statement. Taking it in its entirety jumbled his thoughts. He zeroed in on the bits he could grasp. “I won’t be alone. I’ll have my friends.”
“That’s all fine and good. But it’s not the same.” She stared at him, gaze driving into his soul, as if she searched for something he was certain didn’t exist. “Friends are great. But I want more.”
How had this gone from being a conversation about the shelter, to the rest of their lives?
He wanted to switch the conversation back to something more neutral.
Bring it back to a place he understood and that didn’t make him ill.
Something told him that wasn’t an option.
Even though he’d always known her future was somewhere else, even though he’d been repeating it in his head and out loud for the last week, hearing her say it felt like betrayal.
It wasn’t fair to tell her that, though.
Because she was right, and any other answer was selfish.
“You’re right. You deserve that. You deserve more. ”
She clenched her jaw, and her entire frame shook. Her eyes grew watery, and she sniffled. “You need to leave.”
He couldn’t. If he walked out now, this would never be better. But his own thoughts didn’t make sense to him. He was contradicting himself, and he didn’t have a response.
“Please. Leave. Have a different project manager contact me.”
She was right, so why did he want to argue? He should be grateful she finally got it. This was the best solution for her, and staying was just him being selfish.
* * *
Alyssia dropped her face in her hands after Tate walked out the door.
She wanted to be pissed at him for just going along with what she’d said—because it was best for her.
She wanted to be furious at him for making her think about it in the first place.
Most of all, she wanted to get rid of the feeling it would have been smarter of her to hack off her own arm with a butter knife than to pick that fight.
But blame had bounced back and forth in her head all night. Since the news story aired. It was her fault for not listening to Tate. It was his fault for always trying to do what was best for her. It was Jared’s fault for treating her like a baby for so long.
Everyone was to blame, the world sucked, and she didn’t even know if happily ever after really existed. She hated Tate most of all for putting that thought in her head.
If she was going to insist on doing this on her own, she’d better get started.
At least it would give her a distraction.
Tate’s idea hadn’t worked—a glance at her crowd-funding site told her she wasn’t even five percent to her goal.
Her idea hadn’t worked—the news story that night was proof she couldn’t compete with the Thompson’s connections, and he’d put her entire shelter at risk because of it.
Or she had. It was time she started taking credit for her own fuck ups.
It was time to explore other options. She should have done this months ago, but it was too easy to let Tate step in.
Too easy to convince herself that even though she wouldn’t take his money, she was being self-sufficient by letting him do the work.
She’d find an investor group, or wherever money came from when banks didn’t loan it. Where to start?
Search engines were her best friend, and it was time to dig her heels in and either fund her shelter, or make sure she had contacts in other places to send the pets she wouldn’t be able to take in if she couldn’t expand.
Armed with a plan, she banished thoughts of Tate to the back of her mind. Just thinking his name hurt in every inch of her body, but that would lessen with time.
She didn’t have a choice. She’d get over him.