CHAPTER TWO LILLAH
CHAPTER TWO
LILLAH
I'd been staring at my curtains for the past twenty minutes, standing in my living room with a glass of pinot noir in one hand and my phone in the other.
I was trying to figure out exactly what it was about these curtains that bothered me.
The fabric was fine. The hardware was brushed nickel, which matched the light fixtures I'd put in the week I moved in.
The length couldn't have been more perfect; they were kissing the floor the way they were supposed to.
Yet, something about them was wrong. Most people wouldn't notice.
They'd walk through rooms never noticing the undertone of a fabric was fighting with the undertone of the floor, creating a visual argument that would make an entire space feel off.
Most people didn't lie awake at night thinking about the difference between warm and cool ivory.
I wasn't most people; I was an interior designer, and I was using my personal home as part of my portfolio.
These curtains, however, were going to drive me out of my mind until I replaced them or figured out what the problem was.
I took a sip of wine and opened the Pottery Barn app and scrolled through drapery panels. Maybe this room needs something warmer, perhaps a soft wheat tone, or a Belgian flax in natural that might pull the room together with the white oak floors.
Cooper lifted his head from the couch and looked at me.
He was a Great Dane, a hundred and forty pounds of muscle who took up more than half the couch and didn't care.
His ears perked up as if he were waiting for me to explain myself.
He had this way of watching me that made it feel like he understood exactly what I was saying, even when I was talking about curtain fabric.
"Don't look at me like that," I said. "The curtains are wrong, and you know it."
He set his head back down, his tail thumping against the cushion.
I closed the app and set my phone on the side table.
It was almost ten. I should have been watching television and relaxing, but I was analyzing window treatments instead because that was what my life was like now.
I was twenty-eight years old, single, living in a gated community in the suburbs of Boston with a dog the size of a small horse, running my interior design business, and spending my Tuesday nights critiquing drapery fabric undertones.
My life had changed so much in a year. A year ago, I'd lived in Dallas, in a condo that I didn't own, cooking dinner for a man who would come home and tell me the seasoning was wrong without tasting anything I'd made.
I stopped myself. Not tonight.
I'd gotten better at not obsessing with my past. Therapist-approved compartmentalization, Mila called it one afternoon, half joking, half worried about me.
Mila was my best friend, and she'd been the one who'd helped me get away while Brett slept.
She told me to go to her parents' house an hour away from Dallas and wait there.
She told me she'd call ahead and let her parents know so they would be waiting.
That night I'd packed my car and at two in the morning I slipped away from everything I knew.
The next day she flew all the way to her parent's house and stayed there with me for three days, both of us crying on their guest bed while coming up with a plan. She talked me into moving to Boston.
"Okay, this is enough, Lillah. You know you can't stay here so we're finding you a place in Boston, far away from here, far away from Brett, close to me, where you can start over."
It had been one of the scariest things I'd ever done, but one of the best.
I finished my wine and set the glass on the coffee table.
Cooper was watching me again, his head tilted, his brown eyes soft and patient.
He was the first thing I'd gotten for myself after moving to Boston after this house.
I'd needed a friend, so I'd driven to a Great Dane rescue in New Hampshire, and Cooper had walked up to me in the yard and pressed his head against my thigh, and that had been that.
"Come on," I said, standing up and stretching. "One more trip outside and then we're done for the night. Time for bed."
He followed me to the back door, his nails clicking against the hardwood.
I opened the sliding glass door, and he padded out into the fenced backyard, the motion-sensor light clicking on as he crossed the patio.
The whole reason I'd chosen this house was this yard.
It was private, fully fenced, and big enough for whatever breed of dog I wanted.
Cooper did what he needed to do by the far corner near the hydrangeas, the same spot he always chose, and came back inside like the well-trained gentleman he was.
I locked the back door, scratched behind his ears, and was about to head upstairs when someone pounded on my front door causing me to jump.
Three hard hits, the kind that rattled the frame and made the deadbolt vibrate in its housing. Cooper's ears shot up, and he let out a low growl. His body shifted in front of mine, and I put my hand on his head to calm him, but tension ran through him, the muscles along his neck tight.
I checked the time on my phone.
Who the hell knocked on someone's door at almost ten thirty on a Tuesday night?
My chest tightened. I hated that feeling, the one that still hadn't gone away even after all this time of being in a new state and seeing a therapist every other week. The sound of a fist hitting a door, the weight behind it, moved me into panic.
I took a deep breath.
"Lillah stop. You're in your house. You're in Boston. Cooper is right here, and he won’t let anyone hurt you." I muttered to myself.
I steadied myself and then walked over to the front door and looked through the peephole.
There was a man I didn’t recognize standing on my porch.
Six two, maybe six three, with dark hair that looked slightly damp.
He was wearing shorts, and a t-shirt that was tight across his chest and shoulders, and he looked furious and disgusted.
I'd lived here for eight months, and I'd attempted to get to know most of my neighbors.
Dr. Peterson lived two doors down with his lovely golden retriever, Mable.
He had a crazy obsession with his lawn, the Garcias lived across the street; they had three kids under seven and waved at everyone.
There was a retired couple on the corner who walked every evening at six thirty and occasionally stopped by to bring homemade cookies. This guy was new.
I took a breath. Straightened my shoulders. Opened the door halfway, keeping my hand on the edge. Cooper came up behind me, his big gray head appearing at my hip, his ears still forward.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
He looked at me for a second, his gaze dropping to Cooper and then back to me, and his expression changed.
"Your dog," he said. His voice was deep, flat and irritated, with a slight roughness that might've been anger or could’ve been how he always sounded. "Your dog shit in my yard."
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I just moved in next door." He pointed behind him, toward the house to my left, the one that had been empty for the past three months since the McKay’s had moved to Florida. "I walked out my front door tonight and slipped in a pile of dog shit your dog left in my yard."
I looked down at Cooper, who was sitting next to me with his tongue out, looking as menacing as a throw pillow. Then I looked back at the man on my porch.
"I'm sorry that happened," I said, keeping my voice even. The way my therapist had taught me when we'd been working on the don't escalate, don't shrink exercise. "But my dog didn't do that."
"You have a massive dog." He pointed at Cooper as if he were presenting evidence in a courtroom. "That's a massive dog. He's the size of a truck. And there's a massive pile of shit, multiple actually, in my front yard. Do the math."
Brett had often talked to me like that. Something in my chest tightened. The same feeling that came with being talked to as if I were stupid, something I'd had enough of to last several lifetimes. The words were different, but the tone was the same.
"First," I said, straightening up, my voice steady, "His name is Cooper, not 'massive dog.
' Second, Cooper goes out in my fenced backyard.
Every single time. I don't walk him out in the front unless he is on a leash, and he never leaves the yard.
" I crossed my arms. "And third, there are at least four other large dogs in this community.
Mrs. Calloway on Briar Lane has a German Shepherd who gets out constantly.
Dr. Peterson has a golden retriever. And Mrs. Rhodes around the corner has a Rottweiler that she doesn't even leash half the time because she thinks her voice command is enough, which it isn't. So, before you come pounding on my door at ten o'clock at night accusing my dog of something you didn't witness, you might consider that it could be any of them. "
He stared at me. I could see the muscles in his jaw tighten.
I didn't back up. I didn't soften my expression, and I didn't add a smile.
"Cooper," I said, and my dog sat up straighter. I snapped my fingers once and pointed at the ground. Cooper lay down immediately, his chin resting on his front paws, his eyes on me. A hundred and forty pounds of perfect obedience. "He's trained. He listens."
The man on my porch didn't seem impressed. Or if he was, he wasn't going to admit it.
"I stepped in it," he said, as if his personal experience of stepping in dog shit was evidence enough to convict Cooper.
"And I'm sorry about that. I truly am." I put my hand on the door. "But it wasn't Cooper. Now, it's after ten, and I have to work in the morning, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't come banging on my door again unless you have actual proof."