“No, don’t be crazy.” Daniella laughed.
Her voice was deep and husky. Sensual even. I hated the sound of it.
“I’m not suggesting anything crazy. Just that if you were interested, it could be a good thing. Get back on the horse, so to speak.”
I could hear the hint of a smile in Nolan’s voice, and I held my breath, wondering what she might say next.
“No, I have everything I need right here.” She let out a contented little sigh that made my stomach hurt.
Nolan merely chuckled, sounding calm and jovial.
“Things have been weird lately, but . . . we’re good, right?” she asked him.
“Of course we are,” he said.
I couldn’t stand to listen anymore. My insides felt like they were being pulled out with a fork.
I pushed my way through the group lingering at the hostess station and out into the night air. Dinner forgotten, I got in my car and drove home to my empty little apartment.
? ? ?
When Nolan called that night, I was still feeling shaken and vulnerable. I picked up with a listless, “Hello?”
“Are you okay?”
Apparently, he understood that seeing him out with Daniella was a big deal to me. I sensed now that he’d been deliberately keeping us apart. We would probably never meet face-to-face. And that was fine by me.
I curled up into a warm nest on my bed, my purple quilt around my shoulders. “It was honestly . . . tough.” Much tougher than I’d ever imagined.
He was quiet for a moment, just the sound of his deep, steady breaths on the other end of the phone. “I figured.”
So he was calling to check on me, but not to end what had hurt me in the first place. He still wasn’t ready to become a one-woman kind of man. Tears stung my eyes.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said, his voice softer than I expected.
“There’s this whole other side to your life that I’m not involved in. Tuxedos and work banquets with coworkers. It was just . . . hard to take in.”
“If it makes you feel any better, the tuxedo was uncomfortable as hell, and I couldn’t wait to get out of it. I’m in my bedroom stripping down now.”
“Are you alone?”
“No.”
A single tear slipped down my cheek. “Oh.”
“Sutton’s here. He’s giving me a dirty look.”
And then I was laughing.
“I just need you to . . .” He didn’t finish. But he didn’t have to.
“I know.”
Nolan needed me to accept him as he was—broken and all. And I did.
That’s what scared me.
Chapter Twelve
Lacey
Scoop, then dump. Scoop, then dump.
I tried to hold my breath while cleaning the cat’s litter box of clumps. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but somebody had to do it. Thank God Mr. Wiggles had been declawed, because he was an angry son of a bitch.
Moving on to the small rodent cages, I threw away the old, dirty bedding and wiped down the floors with diluted bleach. Even the lowliest of rats deserved cozy nesting material, fresh water, and maybe a couple of extra pellets of food. I lost myself in my work, humming as I moved from cage to cage.
As hurt and confused as I’d been last night, seeing Nolan out with Daniella, an hour-long phone call had soothed me tremendously. He’d chatted with me while I lay in bed and he removed his tuxedo piece by piece. I heard the mattress creak as he lay down, heard Sutton softly snoring by his side.
Knowing that I was the one on his mind after his date didn’t make everything better; bitter jealousy still lingered. But it had helped. We talked, laughed, and made plans to see each other again.
As I worked, I slipped back into daydreams of Nolan. The last few weeks had gone better than I’d ever imagined. With the exception of Daniella . . . but maybe, with some creativity, I could solve that problem too.
“You have all the signs of a woman in love,” an old man’s voice said.
“Excuse me?” I rose to my feet, securing the latch to the cage I’d just finished with, and turned to see Horace. He was one of the senior citizens who volunteered at the shelter on weekdays. I’d barely heard him come in.
“Your cheeks are rosy, your eyes are bright and happy, and you were humming a love song—Marvin Gaye, I think—while you scraped hamster shit from the bottom of that cage.” He chuckled.
Panic hit me like a smack to the face. “No, it’s nothing like that.” Of course not . . . right?
My palms started to sweat. I was never supposed to give Nolan my heart. But somewhere between the moonlit walks, drinks, waltzing, and kissing, I had fallen for him. Completely. Overhearing him with Daniella last night only confirmed what I already knew. My heart wasn’t just a little involved; it beat only for him.
Followed by that realization was the crushing guilt that slammed into me over everything I’d been hiding from him.
Drawing a shaky breath, I met Horace’s eyes.
“Been in love a time or two myself.” He nodded. “I know the look.”