Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
It feels silly now that he’s sitting here on my couch, but I admit my fears anyway. If I speak them out loud, maybe I’ll purge them from my heart once and for all. “I was afraid that if things ended badly between Elle and me…I was afraid that you’d choose her. I didn’t want to lose you.”
“But after Willa died, you told me to choose her. You texted and asked me to put all my focus on Elle, even though you were grieving, too.” Xander shakes his head, but he doesn’t pull away.
Instead, he tugs me tighter to him. “I get why you two didn’t say anything at first. Yes, I was a mess about Barrett.
Fuck, I still am. But the thought of my two favorite people finding happiness together?
That’s a good thing, Pip. An incredible thing. ”
“Too bad it’s already ruined,” I mutter to myself, miserable and aching and hating all the lost moments Elle and I could have shared if only we’d been willing to tell Xander about us.
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“What am I supposed to think?” I ask, pulling back to study his face.
“I live here. She’s in Oak Spires. And she’s grieving.
How I feel about her doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want me, Xan.
I have to respect that.” I wipe the tears from my cheeks.
“It’s my fault for getting attached. People always leave me. ”
“I’m not leaving you. Not now. Not ever. You are always welcome at Midnight Manor. Any day. Every day.”
“But Elle—”
“I really think she feels the same, Pip.” Xander studies me a moment, worrying at his lower lip like he’s waging some internal battle over what to say next. Finally, he lets out a full-bodied sigh. “One of you needs to reach across this gap.”
Tightness grips my throat again. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Xander, but I can’t. I’ve been thrown away too many times. I can’t do it again.”
“What if I talk to her?”
“No. Absolutely not.” I grip tight to his hands, urgent and pleading. “You can’t say anything. Promise me you won’t. I don’t want a pity relationship.”
Xander looks like he wants to argue, but in the end, he presses his lips tight together and nods. “Fine. As long as you and I are good. I won’t lose you over this.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “You’re stuck with me for life.”
“To your last day!” I raise a plastic cup of champagne, true warmth eclipsing the last of the hurt over Dea leaving. “And your inevitable success in your new position!”
Dea clinks her drink against mine, and we cheers in the empty office.
I’ve already removed the bells above the door that were spelled to alert us to incoming customers.
I removed the magic that repelled dirt from the carpet and dust from the shelves.
The last of my personal belongings sit in a single box by the locked front door.
After her sip, she tips her cup toward me. “And to your successful mastery of the new computer systems.”
I nearly spit out the champagne as I stifle a laugh.
“Hey now! I got there eventually!” Sure, it took nearly the entire two weeks with Dea to figure out how to operate the new accounting and scheduling software, but now I’m, like, seventy percent confident in my ability to make sure I get paid properly.
“Give me a complicated hex to break over a new computer system any day.” I sigh, a lingering bit of nostalgia pulling at my heart. “Did you ever follow up with Callum? Did he manage to keep from getting hexed a second time?”
“Yup.” She tosses back another sip. “He hasn’t turned green again or sprouted scales.”
“Too bad,” I murmur, earning a laugh. “What? We did great work the past two weeks, but there aren’t any new clients on the calendar.”
“They’ll come.” Dea leans against the edge of the desk and surveys the empty, soulless office. “I’m going to miss this place.”
“Really?”
“Not the office.” Dea turns her deep brown gaze on me and offers a warm smile, her lips a vivid red today. “I’ll miss you, though.”
I squeeze her hand briefly in mine before swallowing the rest of my drink. I add Dea to the growing list of people I let get close who I won’t see regularly anymore. Why is it I always end up alone? No matter what I do, I end up either kicked out or abandoned.
“Have you heard from her?” Dea asks, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say she was psychic.
More likely, I’m just obvious in my brooding. “Who?”
Dea rolls her eyes. “You know who I mean. Elle. The woman you spent an entire month with before going no contact at the drop of a hat.”
The pleasant buzz of the champagne does nothing to dull the flash of frustration. “She told me not to call. She practically threw me out of her sister’s house. It’s not like I chose to go no contact. I’m respecting her boundaries.”
“I thought Xander said she misses you?” Dea asks, brows arching up her forehead.
I reach for the open bottle between us and pour myself another cup of the bright, bubbly liquid. “That doesn’t change anything. She’s the one who kicked me out of her life. If she wants me back in it, she knows how to reach me.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
Dea takes the tiniest sip of her drink. “Nothing. I’m surprised you let yourself get involved. You’ve been hesitant to date the whole time I’ve known you.” She studies me when I shrug. “And I think you fell harder than you expected. Harder than you’ve admitted.”
The burn of oncoming tears makes my eyes feel like they’re on fire. “Yeah, well, I should have known better. It was stupid to fall in love with her.”
“You love her?”
My own words echoed back at me break the dam on the tears. “Obviously, I was alone in that.”
Dea reaches for my hand and squeezes tight. “You don’t know that. The last time you talked was the worst moment of her life. She could feel bad about what she said and is too embarrassed to reach out. Maybe she thinks her feelings were one-sided.”
“But I told her I liked her. I told her I wanted to stay. I said I’d help with anything she needed.”
The help you were supposed to provide failed.
I shake my head, letting bitterness cover the hurt in an impenetrable shell. “She knows how I feel about her, Dea.”
“She knows how you felt. She doesn’t know you still feel that way.”
“That’s—” A ping on the computer cuts me off. “Please tell me that’s a new client.”
“Let me check. It’ll be my final act as your office manager.” Dea clicks the laptop’s track pad, the multiscreen setup I’d gotten her already packed away in her car, a parting gift for her next job.
“Holy shit.”
Her breathy tone shivers down my spine. “What is it? A new client? Please tell me they want something expensive.” I scramble to my feet.
“That was the accounting system, not the scheduler.” Dea turns the laptop so I can see the screen. “The bonus came through.”
“The—” My voice dies when my gaze lands on the top deposit on the screen. There it is. Every cent Elle promised if I successfully haunted the B&B. Well, happy Friday to me. “Is there anything else? A note or a…I don’t know, anything?”
Dea swivels the computer back around and clicks into the deposit. Her eyes scan across the screen, but ultimately, she shakes her head. “Did she text you?”
I scramble for my phone, and the rush of disappointment threatens to make me emotional all over again. “Nothing.”
“Give it time, boss.” Dea shuts the laptop and passes it over to me. I store it in my bag. “Do you regret not renewing the lease on this space? Now that you have the money, you could afford to stay another year.”
“No, it was time to let this go.” I put the cork in the champagne bottle and pass it to Dea. “To the end of an era.”
“And a better one to come.” She tucks the bottle under one arm and drains her glass, smirking at me over the rim. “I do have one final piece of business before you’re no longer my boss.”
“Yeah?” I shoulder my bag, ready to call it a day. “What’s that?”
“I set up your lunch date with Teagan from C3.”