“Hope Building is a women’s shelter. It was previously a run-down hotel until I took it and poured almost every last cent of my divorce settlement into it. I take in women and children who need a safe place. Some leave after a few days, some stay here for a long time.” Sali leaned back against the sofa and folded her hands in her lap. “Well, shelter might not be the best world. It’s more of a center. Everybody has their own small apartments, but the ground floor is communal. These ladies need the support of people who know how it feels, and that’s what we try to do. We celebrate holidays and birthdays together, we have childcare for the moms who want to work with kids not in school. We help them get back on their feet.”
“That’s incredible.” I fiddled with a loose thread on the hem of my skirt. “But what does Brett have to do with this place?”
Sali pauses with her eyes toward the door. After a few seconds she looks back at me. “Hon, I own this, but he may as well be the heart of it. If it weren’t for him, I don’t know if any of my kids would have hope. Or my ladies.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He keeps this place alive. And open.” She scratched the side of her nose. “I don’t like to charge my ladies rent. I have to, but I keep it as low as possible. When they go back to work, they pay a little more, depending on how many hours they work. If they bartend or are wait staff, they pay on their wages, not their tips. It means a lot of it comes out of my own pocket...and donors. Every Christmas, he donates fifty thousand dollars to me so I can keep it open.”
Oh my god.
“I own the building outright, but repairs and upkeep don’t pay for themselves. Neither do the things they need. Most of the time, people arrive with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and little to no money. The money Brett gives me helps me help them.”
“Oh my god,” I whispered.
“That’s so small in the grand scheme of it. It’s only money. It’s the other things he does that make a difference.”
“What...what does he do?”
“Let me tell you about birthdays.” She smiled. “Unless they’re working, it’s hard for these moms to afford the things their kids want, so we have a birthday rule in place. The week before their birthday, they have to write down the one thing they really want, but it can’t be more than fifty dollars. Then Brett takes that note and goes to buy it for them. It doesn’t matter what it is. He always gets it.”
Oh. My. God.
That note. Today. It all made sense.
“The older kids know what he does, but they hold our pretense for the younger kids who believe their moms are behind the gifts.”
“He’s a real life Santa Claus.” I touched my fingers to my lips and smiled.
“I suppose he is.” Sali smiled back. “Then Jake buys ridiculously large balloons, Brett buys the little things, and we have a party. Eliot, a nine-year-old boy who’s been here for eighteen months with his mom and sister, got a scooter for Christmas last year. Sy, who arrived with his mom eight weeks ago, has been enamored with it ever since he got here. Nobody was surprised when he asked for a scooter. Eliot will be glad to have his back.”
I was in in a parallel universe. It was the only explanation for this.
“He does Christmas too, doesn’t he?”
Sali swallowed, blinking back tears. “Every year. The one thing they want, he buys it. And I can’t tell anybody because he refuses to let me.”
“Because he doesn’t do it for the credit.” How many ‘oh my gods’ was too many? “I didn’t know. But why?”
“Ah.” She patted my knee. “That, hon, is his story to tell you.”
“Voila!” Brett burst into the room with the scooter in his hands.
“Where in the hell did you get a giant blue ribbon?” I asked, looking at the large bow tied around the handlebars.
He tapped the side of his nose with a wink.
I rolled my eyes.
He carried the scooter outside and set it against the porch railings. When he came back in, Jake was carrying four balloons with weights on the bottom. They were all superheroes, and I was tempted to put money on little Sy turning up dressed like one.
“Here.” Brett tossed a packet of multi-colored balloons at me. “Be useful and blow them up.”
“You could try ‘please’ once in a while, you know,” I replied, tearing open the packet. Balloons spilled out onto my lap.
Sali laughed and stood up. “She’s got your number, Brett.”
“I know,” he said wearily. “It’s exhausting.”
“It’s about time someone called you on your crap.”
“Well now you sound like my mother. And my grandmother. And my sister, actually.”
“And the rest of Whiskey Key,” I muttered and put a balloon between my lips.
“Good.” Sali smiled widely and kissed his cheek. “Is half an hour enough time?”
Brett nodded. “We’ll be done. Where’s the tape?”
Sali pointed to a tape dispenser on the table—which was right next to him—on her way out.
I shook my head and tied the balloon off. I batted it onto the coffee table in front of me and grabbed another. “So, you’re like the birthday fairy around here, huh?”
“Ah...she told you.”
“Well, that and I was there when you bought the scooter.” I raised an eyebrow and blew into the balloon. “Which was not under fifty dollars.”
“Shh.” He smiled, and it was mischievous. “It was only five bucks over.”
His smile was so infectious. Maybe it was the way his cheeks were a little pink or the way his eyes shone. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I had to smile back. This side of him...
He tore a bit of tape off of the dispenser and lifted a banner up. “Can you help me?”
I tied off a second balloon and put it down. “Sure.” I reached him and took the end he gave me. “Why do you do it?”
Brett taped one corner to the wall. “Banned question.”
“Boo.” I pouted.
He glanced at me. “Fine, I’ll give you the easy answer. But if you pout like that again, I’m kissing you.”
I covered my mouth with my hand.
A smirk appeared on his face. “I do it because somebody has to. These kids have seen enough hell, and in some cases, like Sy’s, they’ve been through it too. What’s fifty bucks on a birthday present for them if it makes them smile?”
I took the tape he offered me and stuck my side to the wall, then looked at him out of the corner of my eye as he tore off another bit of tape.
“These kids don’t have many people to believe in. Their moms are struggling and most of them don’t have a lot of money. I’m like...a walking happy place. I play soccer or baseball with them and their moms can take a breather or whatever. Hell, I’ve even baked cookies with them and one of the moms before.” He smiled and looked down. “I can make a difference in their lives. A difference they need, even if it only lasts for ten minutes.”
There he was. That was my Brett. The one I remembered—the one I’d loved.
That softness...that heart.
His heart.
His words sucker-punched me right in the gut.
Just like that, a piece of my hatred for him was stripped away. It fizzled out into nothing, and the worst part about it was that it was a piece I held close to my heart. It was a piece that guarded my heart. He’d exposed it in less than one hundred words.
“What?” Brett smiled and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I pressed my lips together and stepped toward him. I hesitated before I put my hand on his chest, right over his heart, and looked up at him, my own heart thumping hard. “You’re really ruining your reputation as an asshole, you know that?”
He laughed lightly, the sound rumbling across my skin. “Lani,” he said in a low voice. “Why do you think I haven’t told anyone?”