Chapter 7
SEVEN
DANIELLE
TURNING THE CORNER AND IGNORING a passing car with a driver laying on the horn, I make my way down the cobbled sidewalk and into the Smitten Kitten. Pepper looks up as the chimes alert her of my arrival.
“I hope you want soup,” she says, sitting a paper bag on the counter. “I had this dream last night about clam chowder. Weird, I know, but I woke up and had to try it, and it is delish. I can’t even lie.”
Plopping my bag on the floor in front of the counter, I fork over my credit card. “I bet it is.”
“No, this one is it, Danielle. The flavors married so well. I hope you love it.”
“I’ve never met a Pepper soup I didn’t like.”
She runs my card through the machine then zooms off to refill a customer’s coffee cup. Sorting through my bag, I find my wallet . . . right next to Lincoln Landry’s. My hand stills over them side-by-side beneath my car keys.
His luxe brown leather lies next to my pink and yellow floral print. They touch barely on one corner and I can’t help but think of all the metaphors that could be made out of that.
I slide my card into mine, feeling the buttery texture of Lincoln’s as I do. It’s smooth against my skin, the rich material oozing opulence. It’s the best leather. My father had one similar.
“See you tomorrow,” I tell Pepper as I pull the front door open, my mind still on the baseball player.
I tried to run him down as soon as I saw his wallet perched discreetly behind a picture frame on my desk, but he was gone.
Considerations were made about leaving it with security, but all it would take would be for someone to realize exactly who it belongs to and who knows what would happen.
I also couldn’t leave it in my desk for fear of it getting stolen.
So into my purse it went. Now it feels both like a responsibility and an opportunity as I lug it through the parking lot and into the back seat of my car.
Pulling out onto the road, a call rings through the car. I press the button on the steering wheel to answer.
“Hello?” I ask.
“Hey, you!” Macie’s voice sings. “How are you?”
“Good. Just grabbed dinner and heading home.”
“Smitten Kitten?”
“Yeah,” I laugh.
Macie scoffs through the line. “Seriously, Danielle. Expand your horizons a little bit.”
“I like it,” I pout. “It fits into my routine. I know Pepper. I like her food.”
“You’re comfortable there,” Macie cuts in.
“That too.”
“Well, I have something to break you out of your comfort zone.” The tone of her voice pulls at a knot in my stomach. “My friend, Jules, is starting a nonprofit here in Boston. I told her about you and your experience with management and kids and scheduling and stuff.”
Piloting my car into my driveway, I pull into the garage and cut the engine. “How is she?” I think back to the stories Macie has relayed about Julia Gentry and her family. It’s crazy what they’ve been through, yet she seems to march on. I wish I had half her strength.
“She’s good. She’s always good. Strongest woman ever. I told her you might be interested in working for her.”
“Maybe. We have a budget hearing coming up, so that might work out great,” I wince. “I think we’re going to lose some funding and no one is safe when that happens.”
“I’ll let her know I asked.”
“So,” I say, moving the conversation along, “I had something interesting happen to me today, and I need your advice.”
“Go on.”
Envisioning her getting comfy in her chair, waiting to spill her thoughts on my life, I laugh. The kitchen lights are bright as I drop my bag on the counter.
“Okay, so Lincoln came back in today.”
“See this face? Well, you can’t, obviously, but if you could, you’d see I’m so freaking green with envy!
I’d never tell Will this because he’d go all alpha-crazy if I brought up a thing such as a Hall Pass, but Lincoln would be mine.
I can’t help it. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours looking at his pics online. ”
The chair squeaks against the floor as I pull it out from the table and collapse into it. I picture her boyfriend, Will Gentry, a man I’ve met once before, being told that Macie wanted a Hall Pass. I laugh before I can stop myself.
“What?” Macie asks.
“I’m imagining Will’s face if he overheard this conversation.”
“I’d be bent over this chair. Come to think of it, maybe I should let him hear . . .”
“Anyway, so Lincoln was back today to paint with a boy named Rocky.”
If a pin dropped on the other side, I could’ve heard it. “Macie? Are you there?”
“Yeah,” she draws out. “I’m trying to figure out why a man like him was painting with a kid today. On a day’s notice.”
“I questioned it too,” I sigh. “But seriously . . . Macie, he was so fantastic with him. With all the kids, really.”
My heart swells as I remember seeing him sitting his tall frame in those little kid’s chairs. I peeked in from across the hall a couple of times and nearly melted into a puddle on the floor.
“There’s nothing like a man with a kid,” Macie sings.
“It wasn’t just that,” I say, trying to find the words to say what I mean.
“Yes, seeing him with these little boys was super cute. But it was more than that. It was the way he was with them. With me, he’s funny and sexy and kind of full of himself.
But when he’s sitting at this little table, covered in paint, flanked by two kids talking his ear off, you’d have no idea he was a big deal. None at all.”
I’m grinning and I can’t stop it. It was one of the most endearing things I’ve seen in my career.
Usually celebrities come in and go through the motions, but Lincoln was more than that.
He stayed a long time. He didn’t ask for help.
He didn’t look bored or get mad when they had accidents. He seemed to actually enjoy it.
“Is he coming back?” she asks.
I gulp. “Maybe. He left his wallet on my desk.”
“And his wallet was out why?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he thought he was going to need his ID for the paperwork he was filling out? I don’t know.”
Her tongue clicks against the roof of her mouth. “Where was it?”
“Behind a picture frame.”
“Huh.” She’s quiet again, which is fine by me because the more I think about it, the harder I find it to breathe. “So he left it for you to find.”
“You think?”
“Of course. A man like him with an unlimited credit card isn’t going to whip it out and leave it sit. I don’t care who he is, Danielle. It’s not going to happen.”
A long sigh escapes my lips.
“What are you sighing about?” she laughs. “You’re going to have to meet Mr. Sexy and give him his wallet back. Poor you.”
“I think I’ll just leave it at the front desk.”
An exasperated breath rumbles through the phone and I brace for the onslaught that’s coming.
“Ryan Danielle,” she starts, using my given name for emphasis, “the one thing I don’t like about you, besides your ability to eat shit and not gain a pound, is the way you lump people together. It’s not fair.”
“It may not be fair, but it’s logic.”
“So every guy I dated before Will with green eyes was a monster. What would’ve happened had I not dated him?”
“You would’ve found someone else?” I offer just to irritate her. She groans.
“Look, Macie. No one knows athletes, baseball players specifically, better than me. They’re a unique bunch full of superstitions and a love of—”
“Baseball before everything else,” she says, finishing my sentence for me. “I’ve heard.”
“This would be so easy if he weren’t so fucking hot,” I groan, picking at a napkin on the table. “It’s like the devil sends me these men just to torture me. What do you think I did in a past life to deserve this?”
“Whatever it was, let’s hope I figure it out and do it in this one.”
***
LINCOLN
IS THIS HOW THE REST of the world lives?
Sitting on the counter in my kitchen, an apple in my hand, I toss it into the air and catch it. Once, twice, three times. On the fourth catch, I whip it around and throw it at the trash can. Instead of landing in the liner, it hits the wall above. A spray of juice and pulp splatter everywhere.
“And that’s why I don’t play basketball.”
I listen to the clock over the sink tick. How have I just noticed how annoying this is? Hopping off the grey marble, I leap onto the counter and pull it down. The batteries come out with a loud pop.
Silence. It’s a relief for about fifty seconds.
“Fuck,” I say, getting back to the floor again.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Humming a tune from the radio just so it doesn’t seem so empty in here, I pad into the living room.
I’m not sure why. There’s nothing to do in there, either.
I gave up video games a long time ago. There’s no one I want to hang out with, no party I want to attend.
I’d just go to Savannah if I didn’t have therapy.
Testing the rotation in my shoulder, I feel it pull deep inside. The cringe that usually accompanies the movement doesn’t come, but still, it doesn’t feel good.
“Is this what I have to look forward to? Being lame?” There’s no one to answer my questions but me, and I sure as shit don’t have answers.
I don’t know anything—what the future holds, what my friends are doing, who in the fuck decided an almost orange colored blanket was my style, or what Danielle Ashley is wearing under that red shirt. I know nothing anymore.
My phone starts to ring. I consider not answering it, but I’m too bored not to. “Hello?”
“Hi, Lincoln. It’s Danielle Ashley.”
Her voice is sweeter on the phone than in person, and it catches me off guard.
Even though I’d hoped she’d call, I really hadn’t expected her to, even though I bolded my phone number on the form she had me fill out.
She’s too unpredictable. The fact that I’m listening to her faint breathing on the other end of the line is, to put it mildly, a nice surprise.
“Well, look who it is,” I kid. “How are you?”
“Good,” she replies. “I had to hear about how awesome you are all afternoon from Rocky.”
“Glad to know I made a good impression,” I laugh. “It was a lot of fun. Thank you for letting me stay.”
She waits a moment before responding. “Thanks for coming by. It was really nice of you.”
“Maybe you’ll let me come by again,” I suggest. “I have a lot of time on my hands these days.”
“We’ll see.”
I take that for what it’s worth and dig in. “So, did you call to thank me for coming today?”
“I’ll humor you and tell you that you left your wallet on my desk.”
“Did I? How irresponsible of me.”
“Uh-huh,” she laughs. “I love how your phone number had a big black box around it. Super subtle.”
“Hey, it got you to call, didn’t it?”
She laughs, but doesn’t answer. I know she knows I did it on purpose and find a little gratification that she isn’t pissed about it.
“I guess now we need to negotiate how to get it back,” I suggest.
“It will be at the front desk for you tomorrow.”
Walking over to the large window in the living room, I look out across Memphis. It’s beautiful this time of the evening, the buildings lit up by the early evening sun behind them. Something about the scene makes me want to watch it, breathe it in. Maybe that’s what I need.
“I was afraid to leave it there overnight,” she continues, “so I just brought it home with me. I’ll drop it off on the first floor when I go in tomorrow.”
Ding! Ding!
“Ah, that’s nice of you, Dani—”
“It’s Danielle.”
“—but I have plans tonight so I really need my wallet.”
There’s no response, no witty comeback or snort that I’m crazy. I take it as a good sign.
“Should I just come over and get it?” I prod.
“No,” she says hurriedly. “I’m sorry you have plans. I guess you’ll have to cancel them.”
Wincing at her taking my comment the wrong way, I try to backtrack. “Maybe I can change them.”
“Do what you want. I’ll have it at the front desk tomorrow.”
“Do you mean that?” I grin.
“What?”
“For me to do what I want?”
She laughs, knowing where I’m headed with this. “No, no, I don’t. I get in at eight thirty. You can pick it up any time after that.”
“I’ll see you around eight thirty then. I’ll bring you coffee. How do you like it?”
“I don’t.”
“Oh, I promise you will.”
The little intake of breath brushes through the phone, and every cell in my body feels it.
I can see her face, the pink of her cheeks matching the shirt she wore yesterday.
Her long lashes widening as she unmistakably reads the innuendo I threw in there.
Before I know it, my breath is as ragged as hers. “Lincoln . . .”
“Meet me tonight. If you don’t want me going to your house, that’s fine. But meet me somewhere.”
“Where?” she nearly whispers.
“Riffle Steakhouse.”
“We aren’t having dinner. It’s me giving you the wallet back.”
“It’s me thanking you.”
“If you want it tonight, no dinner.”
“Oh, I want it tonight,” I smirk, choosing to just lay it out there. “I’ve wanted it since I saw you, and I’m fairly certain you do too. I will say, I like the way you negotiate,” I crack.
“What do you mean?”
“They always want dinner first.”
She scoffs. “You are too much, Landry.”
“Have you heard of Freeman Park? It’s on 57th,” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Be there in an hour.”
“Okay.”
I start to click off my phone, my body on high alert, when I hear her try to speak.
“Hey—” she starts to say, but I hang up before she can change her mind.