Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
MILLER
Shit, why won’t this wrench grip the faucet properly? It feels like the fifteenth time I’ve tried to tighten it.
The other thing I need to tighten is my goddamn story. I nearly slipped up about the laptop thing. Thank God I managed to quickly concoct the idea that my assistant had sent it over to me.
What really happened is that I took a cab to my car to pick it up after Frankie went out.
Lying is shit.
I am being a shit.
And my skin crawled with guilt earlier when Frankie said most things are forgivable. I’m sure she’d change her mind if she found out what I’m doing here. Good one, Miller. Way to crush a perfectly nice woman’s forgiving spirit.
But I’m in so deep now I can’t back out.
Thankfully, one of our security guards is currently on the train to come get my car and drive it back to Boston. So that’s one less thing to worry about.
I can’t allow myself to relax around Frankie like that. It’s hard, though, because she sort of brings out the relaxation in me. I’ve never been one to kick back and chill, but I could have cheerfully hung out on that picnic table and talked with her all day.
And it was very nice of her to bring me breakfast.
Her talk of revenge being a life-ruining emotion is bullshit, though. For me, it’s a motivational emotion. It’s what put the fire in my belly and made me a billionaire.
I mean, would I ever in a million years be sitting on the floor of a donkey stable trying to fix a leaky faucet with a wrench if it weren’t for the desperate need to get back at Skinner? No, I wouldn’t. Not in any number of millions of years.
On top of what he did to my family, there’s also the fact that he snatched the piece of Boston land I was trying to buy for my first condo development out from under me at the last minute.
He almost ruined me just as I was stepping into the big league, told anyone who’s anyone in the city that I was an upstart kid who knew nothing, couldn’t be trusted, and no one should work with me.
Ah-ha, the wrench finally grips the band on the faucet and I’m able to turn it tight shut. I’m not much of a plumber, but the dripping immediately stops. If that doesn’t totally fix it, then it’s probably the washer and we’ll have to get a new one while we’re out picking up the hay.
Shuffling backward, I try to get up, but find my way blocked by a donkey. She has me virtually pinned between her body and the stable wall.
“Hey, what’re you—”
She moves closer in tiny sideways shuffles.
“What the hell?”
She keeps going until she’s standing right over me and I’m trapped between her belly and the floor.
I’m about to drop onto my hands and knees to crawl out when Frankie’s laughing voice says, “Stay right where you are.”
“What? Why?”
The donkey starts rocking back and forth, rubbing her belly against my head—or rather, thank God, the hat that’s on my head.
“Perfect,” Frankie says.
“No it fucking isn’t,” I protest. “Is this thing humping me?”
Now the donkey moves her belly in circles, first one way and then the other.
“Meet Doris,” Frankie says. “If ever she spots anyone crouching, she’ll race across the field to scratch her belly on their head.”
I hold my hat on tight to prevent the force of the action from dragging it off and putting my hair in direct contact with donkey undercarriage. “And how long does it usually last?”
“She’d probably do it for hours, but I’ll move her off you once I’ve got all the angles I need for this video.”
“Video?” My guts tighten.
“For my big social media push,” she says as I’m rocked back and forth by Doris.
Shit. I can most definitely not appear in any social media posts. What if someone happens to recognize me and tells her who I really am?
“I couldn’t have set it up better if I’d tried,” she adds with a laugh.
“Glad to be of service.” Doris bears down harder and does that thing that horses do where they blow out a breath that ripples their lips. “Is this donkey seriously getting off on me?”
“I just got a great close-up on her face exactly as she did that,” Frankie says with glee.
“How badly do you need a volunteer?” I brace one hand on the floor to prevent myself from being pushed over.
“Okay, okay. Think I have enough. Oh my God, this is so good.”
The sound of Frankie’s feet approaching on the hay-strewn concrete behind me brings some relief.
“Snack time, Doris,” she says.
And whatever she’s offering finally tempts the animal away from its affair with the top of my head.
I straighten, dust myself off, and take off my brand-new hat.
“Look at that.” I show Frankie the top of my hat that is now covered in a disgusting oily grime from Doris’s belly. “I’ll have to throw it out.”
“If you throw out an item of clothing every time it gets dirty, you’re going to go through clothes and money and your investment fortune pretty quickly.”
I sigh, shove the mucky hat into my largest pocket and return to the problem at hand.
“Can I see the video?” I ask, moving toward Frankie as I run my fingers through my hair.
“Sure.” She swipes her phone with the hand not feeding the donkey, and passes it to me.
Okay, this video isn’t such a disaster. Thank God I had my back to Frankie while she was filming it.
There’s no chance that even my own mother would recognize me as the person sitting under a donkey wearing muddy cargo pants, a work jacket and a brown baseball cap.
There are few places they’d think it less likely to find me.
As the panic gives way to relief, I hand back her phone, pointing it at what she’s feeding Doris. “Thank God you always have a carrot in every pocket.”
“I’ll refrain from the obvious joke,” she says with a playful raise of her eyebrows. “But yes, you never know when there might be a carrot-requiring emergency.”
“An emergency like a donkey wanting to make love to a stranger’s head.”
A laugh shoots from her, sending her partially bent over. “Make love?”
“What’s so funny about that?” I ask.
“You don’t strike me as someone who would say make love.” She laughs again as if the thought of me being romantic is too ridiculous to contemplate.
Doris wanders away from us since the carrot supply seems to have dried up and there’s no longer anyone at belly-scratching height.
“And, pray tell, exactly what kind of someone do I strike you as?” I ask.
My main priority here is to find out how close I’m getting to her trusting my advice, so I can gauge when to bring up the subject of the two offers.
But, as soon as I ask the question, I realize there is a part of me that would want to know anyway—want to know what this whip-smart, ambitious, big-city marketing executive who can also single-handedly run a donkey sanctuary thinks of me.
She shoves her hands into her pockets and tips her head to one side, giving the question careful consideration, as if running me through an assessment program in her head.
“Someone who leaves no footprint.” Her words come out slow and considered as if she’s thought each of them through and chosen them carefully.
I move toward her, drawn to close the gap. “What on earth does that mean?”
“It means that if I woke up tomorrow and found you gone, I’d have literally no way of finding you,” she says. “You leave no trace. Don’t touch the sides.”
I can’t help but chuckle to myself since every condo building I’ve constructed all over Boston definitely has a footprint, definitely impacts people’s lives, and definitely makes me traceable.
As does every TV interview I’ve done alongside the other three owners of the Boston Commoners.
Media outlets get a kick out of the odd combo of me, a Hollywood heartthrob, a billionaire lion from the Lions’ Den entrepreneur investor show, and a British prince being friends and joint owners of what was the losingest club in Major League Soccer.
They also find our larger-than-life English head coach pretty entertaining.
Anyway, if Frankie finds it hard to trust people, she’s never going to have faith in me if she thinks I’m a ghostlike creature who leaves no shadow and could vanish at any moment.
I mean, why would anyone take advice on who to sell their beloved grandpa’s land to from someone they think is an untraceable flight risk?
I need to give her something.
“What’s your number?” I ask, pulling my phone from my back pocket.
“Why?”
“So I can text you and you have mine.”
“Is that a burner?” She gestures to the device in my hand.
“No. It’s my actual phone. That I run my business and my entire life from. You have no idea the hassle it would cause if I changed my number.”
She digs her teeth into her lower lip for a moment before telling me hers.
I send her a text and she takes her phone from her pocket and snickers at it.
“What’s funny?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes. “A donkey emoji?”
“What else did you expect?”
“You don’t strike me as an emoji kind of guy either.”
“I’m not.” And I really am not. I just couldn’t think of anything to write.
And also I thought it might make her laugh.
Not because making her laugh fills me with pride and the sound of it is finding a home under my skin, but because the more she likes me, the more she’ll trust me.
“You’re obviously an excellent judge of character.
And now you’re holding my footprint in your hand. ”
Her fingers twitch around her phone as if they really are holding on to a part of me. And my brain can’t help but wonder what it would feel like if they were.
“Anyway, I actually just came to get you to come pick up the hay with me,” Frankie says. “Are you free to go?”
What I really need to do is to reply to our Commoners’ owners’ group text where the other three guys are talking about another club’s offer to buy our captain, and I need to check with Brooke that the toilet supplier for the Pinnacle Residences isn’t still giving us the runaround.
But those things, which would normally be at the top of my list, will have to wait.
“Of course, yes. Let me clean up first.” I hold out my hands that are grimy from the faucet because I couldn’t get any purchase on it in my new stiff and bulky work gloves.
“Help yourself to the bathroom.” She points toward the house. “Just shut the front door behind you when you’re done. I’ll meet you at the truck.”
And she heads off toward the decrepit old two-tone brown and tan F150 that looks like it’s from about 1984.
My God, just look at how those jeans hug her ass, and the pride in those shoulders, and determination in her stride. That is one tenacious woman, with a will of steel to hold onto this place and make it work.
What’s that they say about keeping your enemies closer?
Not that she’s my enemy. She’s more of an obstacle.
And I need to keep that obstacle close.