13. Thea
THIRTEEN
THEA
The morning after the kiss, I made coffee without speaking. The following morning, we greeted each other and moved around the kitchen in silence.
By the third morning, we had it down to a choreography.
I was at the counter, Lena in her swing chair beside me, drumming her hands on the table. I spooned baby oatmeal into her mouth. She spat half of it onto her bib. I wiped it and spooned again. She grabbed the spoon, examined it, and put it in her ear.
"That's not where it goes, sweetheart."
She looked at me like I was the one who didn't understand.
Declan walked in. I heard him before I saw him. He was in a white T-shirt and gray joggers, his brown hair still damp from the shower. He moved to the coffee machine without looking at me.
I shifted left so he could reach the cabinet. He opened it. His arm passed behind my head to retrieve a mug. I remained still until he closed the cabinet.
I was aware of exactly where he was. Three feet to my right. Then two, when he reached past me for the sugar. Then four, when he moved to the island.
"Good morning," he said, finally.
"Good morning."
Lena slammed both palms into the oatmeal and shrieked with delight. Mrs. Parrish appeared, cloth in hand, and wiped it without breaking stride. She moved through the kitchen between us.
The only honest person in the room was a baby covered in oatmeal.
I hadn't slept properly in three days. Every night, I lay on my side in the guest room and replayed the kiss. I wondered how I could have been so weak. How I let myself fall into his charm, his trap, or his lips.
Now Declan leaned against the island, drinking his coffee, scrolling through his phone. His thumb moved across the screen. I remembered that thumb. That part of him was exceptionally talented. It knew how to tease and flick and…
My phone rang. I looked down to see Margot’s name. Declan nodded at me before walking down the hallway.
My eyes followed his retreating back as I answered the call. "Thea, I need you here."
I set the spoon down. "What happened?"
She sighed. "It’s the usual. We have a mother of two here. She has nowhere to stay. Her boyfriend kicked her out, and she has a very suspicious black eye.”
"Did you call the shelters?"
"I called four. They're full. Every single one. The Hale funding is for the placement model — it can't touch emergency housing. And our emergency housing fund is…" She stopped. "It's empty, Thea. We have nothing."
I was on my feet. "I'm coming."
I carried Lena to the nursery and settled her in the crib with a toy. Mrs. Parrish was in the hallway.
"I need to go out. Can you watch her for a couple of hours?"
"Of course, Ms. Calloway."
I went looking for Declan. I checked his office. Empty. He wasn’t in his bedroom either. I walked deeper into the penthouse, past the living room, past the second bathroom, and heard the rhythmic thud of impact coming from behind a closed door at the end of the hall.
I opened the door.
The gym was small — a converted room with rubber flooring and a heavy bag hanging from a ceiling mount.
Declan was beside the boxing bag. Shirtless.
His back was to me, and the muscles across his shoulders contracted and released with each hit, the skin sheened with sweat.
His boxing tape was dark with moisture. His joggers hung low on his hips.
I stopped in the doorway.
I knew this body. I'd touched every inch of it in the dark of his bedroom, my palms flat against his chest, my fingers tracing the line from his shoulder to his hip. The memory was so vivid I could feel the warmth of his skin under my hands. His back. The ridge of his spine.
I gripped the doorframe. My knuckles went white.
Focus.
He turned, saw me, and stopped mid-swing. He wiped his face. He was breathing hard. A bead of sweat ran from his collarbone down the center of his chest. "What's wrong?"
"I have to go out. There's a situation at the nonprofit that needs my attention." I kept my eyes on his face. On his face. "Mrs. Parrish can handle Lena. I'll be back in a few hours."
He was already pulling a shirt from the bench. "I'll come."
"You don't need to."
He tugged the shirt over his head. "I'm coming, Thea."
I didn't have time to argue.
I watched Declan take it in at the nonprofit as we walked through the front door — the stacks of case files on the reception desk, the donated coffee maker with the cracked carafe, the waiting room with mismatched chairs and a water-stained ceiling tile.
He didn't say anything.
Diane was in Margot's office. I went straight to her.
The first thing I saw was the black eye. It was purple, fading to green at the edges, her left eye swollen half-shut. My heart broke.
She was sitting in the chair by Margot's desk, her hands folded in her lap, her posture very straight. Mid-thirties. Dark hair pulled back. She was wearing a clean sweatshirt and jeans.
Her kids were in the waiting room, where Declan was. I could hear them through the wall — a boy's voice, a girl's giggle, the scribble of crayons on paper.
I sat down across from Diane. "Hello, Diane. My name is Thea Calloway." I didn’t touch her even though I wanted to offer comfort. I had a feeling she’d flinch away. “Can you tell me what happened?”
She nodded slowly. "I…I took the kids to school this morning. When I came back, the locks were different. My key didn't work. I called him. He said I should find somewhere else to stay."
"How long were you with him?"
"Three years." She looked at her hands. "The apartment is in his name. I'm not on the lease."
"And the eviction notice?"
"He filed it last week. I didn't know until this morning." She pulled a folded piece of paper from her bag and handed it to me. "I don't have anywhere to go. My sister's in Delaware. My mother's…she can't take me in. She doesn't have the room."
I read the notice. Thirty days. I set it on the desk.
"Diane, I'm going to help you. We're going to find you a place tonight." I leaned forward. "But I need you to tell me something. Are you safe? Right now, today, are you and your children safe from him?"
Her eyes met mine. The swollen one glistened. She nodded.
"Okay." I pulled my phone from my back pocket and opened my banking app. I transferred $300 to the emergency account and wrote a check on the spot. Enough for a week at the extended-stay motel on Ninth. I handed it to Diane.
"This will cover a week. I'll have a caseworker call you tomorrow about permanent placement."
Diane looked at the check. Her mouth trembled. "I can't…"
"You can, and you will."
Margot was waiting in the hallway with the children. She watched Diane walk past with the check in her hand. She retrieved her children, and they left.
When the front door closed, Margot took my arm and pulled me into the supply closet.
"How much did you give her?"
"Enough for a week at the motel on Ninth."
"Thea, we can't keep doing this. I have kids. I have a mortgage. We don't have the funding. Every time someone walks through that door, you reach into your own pocket, and one day, there's going to be nothing left in it."
"I'll figure it out."
"You always say that."
"Because I always do."
"No, you always bleed." Her eyes were serious. "This place runs on your willingness to give until you're empty, and I'm the only person who will say out loud that the giving has to stop before it kills you."
I looked at the shelf behind her. A bottle of bleach. A roll of paper towels. The box of children's books, their spines cracked and faded.
"I'll figure it out," I said again.
Margot looked at me for a long time. Then she stepped aside and opened the closet door.
Declan was standing right outside. I knew he’d heard every single word.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The car was quiet on the drive back. Thomas drove. I sat in the back seat and looked out the window. The city scrolled past — storefronts, crosswalks, a woman pushing a stroller through the crosswalk at Sixty-Third.
Declan was beside me. I could feel him thinking. I knew what was coming before he opened his mouth.
"Why didn’t you tell me you needed money?"
I didn’t look at him. "Because it doesn’t concern you."
"I’ve donated before. So, if you asked me, it does concern me."
I kept my eyes on the window. A taxi changed lanes. A cyclist swerved.
"I know people," he continued. "I have resources. I can connect you with funders who specialize in exactly this kind of work. It wouldn't be charity. It would be an investment in a model that's already working."
The silence stretched. The car moved through traffic. My jaw ached from clenching it.
"I didn't build this so a billionaire could write a check and feel good about himself."
He turned to look at me. "That's not what I'm…"
I turned to face him. "You don't get to walk into my office, see what I've spent almost a decade building, and decide you can fix it because you have a checkbook. Buy a building and put your name on it. But stay out of what I built."
"Thea…you can’t keep paying out of pocket. Let me help you."
"No. I know what happens when someone with money offers to make it easier. The price is always the same."
"You're being unfair," he said quietly.
"Maybe I am." I turned back to the window. "But this is mine. The nonprofit is the one thing I built that no one gave me and no one can take away."
The car pulled up to the building. Thomas opened the door. I got out. Declan got out. We rode the elevator in silence.
The penthouse was dim. The night nurse — Dominique — was in the nursery with Lena. Mrs. Parrish was gone. The kitchen was clean and empty and smelled like the lemon solution she used on the counters.
I walked to the sink, poured a glass of water, and drank it standing up. Declan was behind me. I could hear him breathing.
"Thea."
I set the glass down and turned.
He was standing in the kitchen doorway. His hands were at his sides. His jaw was tight. His eyes were on me.
"I'm just trying to help you," he said. "That's all I'm doing."
"I didn't ask for your help."
"No. You never do. That's the problem."
"Stay out of my personal life, Declan." My voice was quiet. "It doesn't involve you."