Chapter Twenty-One
Every table in the new Grounded Coffee location down the block from Felicia’s apartment was taken up by someone with a laptop or a pair of moms with strollers parked nearby. It was loud, crowded, and the last place in the world she wanted to be. She’d been to work, wasn’t that enough peopling for one day?
“If you even try to make a run for it, I’m blocking the door,” Tyler said, taking a step between her and her escape route.
“That’s false imprisonment,” she said with one last wistful look toward the exit that would get her back to her apartment sooner.
He shook his head and corralled her into the line of caffeine addicts and muffin munchers. “Felicia, you can’t hide away another day. It’s either coffee with me, or I call in your brothers.”
Oh God. All the Hartigans crowded into her apartment was the last thing she needed. “You wouldn’t.”
“Not if you sit your butt down and have an espresso.”
The mention of coffee reminded her of the time Hudson had brought a cardboard tray of drinks to her house because he wasn’t sure what she liked. “Green tea.”
“Whatever.” Tyler shrugged. “Just order, and then we’ll go scare off some wifi freeloader to get a table.”
The simplicity of that plan—as devious as it was—made her laugh for the first time in days. “Blackmailing me isn’t nice.”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “But it gets the job done.”
They ordered and Tyler did, indeed, glare at a guy with a laptop and six empty disposable coffee cups scattered on his table. In the end, the woman next to him left her table and they snagged it. After they sat down, she grabbed the printouts she’d made for Tyler. Distraction? Her? Never.
“Here’s the information you wanted on that museum donor,” she said, handing them over. “What are you after anyway?”
He folded up the papers without looking at them and slid them underneath his phone on the table. “Nice try on swapping the subject.”
Well, it was worth a try. “We were talking about something?”
“Yeah. You hiding.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” It’s not like it would do any good anyway. Hudson was as good as his word. After she’d banished him from her apartment, he’d stayed away. “My love life is a topic best left buried with the salted earth.”
“Don’t blame yourself for falling for me,” Tyler said, teasing. “It’s hard not to love me when I’m hot, smart, and rich.”
But there was hard not to love and then there was impossible not to love. Everything with Tyler had been built on a teenage girl’s belief of what the perfect man would be like. Hot. Smart. Rich wasn’t necessary but it sure didn’t hurt things. It wasn’t a bad list, but she should have been smart enough to realize love needed more variables than just that. Instead, she’d put that down on her list and refused to budge on it, despite all the proof that her hypothesis was wrong—until falling for Hudson had forced her to reevaluate everything. Her gut told her she was on to something, but she had to test it out.
Cheeks burning with embarrassment, she took a drink of green tea for fortification. “Ask me what color underwear I’m wearing.”
Tyler blanched. “Please don’t make me do that. You’re like my sister and there are some things I don’t want to know.”
There were things she no longer wanted him to know, but that didn’t matter right now. “Just ask.”
He grimaced and closed his eyes. “Undies. What color?”
“None of your business.” She wasn’t even tempted to tell him that they were green.
He let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
Now for a question that was only slightly less embarrassing. “Call me Matches.”
“I think it’s time to call Fallon.” He reached for his phone.
She slapped her hand down over his, holding him down. “Do. It.”
His eyes went wide. “Matches.”
Nothing. Not even a blip in her heart rate. She grabbed her phone and scrolled through her texts. All she had to do was see Hudson’s name for her pulse to pick up, her palms to sweat, and her lungs to tighten. It had never been visceral reactions like that with Tyler. With him, it had all been about the thrill of checking something off her to-do-before-thirty list. Evidence. This was all observable fact and it meant only one possible conclusion. She hadn’t just wanted Hudson. She hadn’t just fallen for him. She was irrevocably in love with him.
“Oh God,” she said, taking another sip. “This is worse than I thought.”
“The tea?” he asked. “Of course it is. It’s crap. You should switch to coffee.”
Well, at least she wasn’t the only one who was totally clueless. “I’m in love with Hudson.”
“And this is a newsflash?” Tyler relaxed back against his chair and laughed.
Okay, maybe she was the only one. The words bubbled out of her, “I tried to use you to make him jealous. Like an immature asshole. I teased him, tried to seduce him, the whole time telling him it was because I wanted another lesson so I could catch you.”
Tyler leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table and holding up a single finger. “One. TMI.” A second finger joined the first. “Two. You’re not the first person in the world to do something idiotic because they were in love.”
“You don’t understand.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “We fought. I said horrible things to him, and he did to me.”
“So write him off.” Tyler shrugged. “You’ll find someone else. Lots of fish in the sea. Look at how fast you got over me.”
“I was never in love with you, not really.” The truth her body had known faster than her thick head.
Tyler smacked his hand over his heart in a teasing gesture. “Looks like I’ll need to find the first available hot chick to help me build up my fragile male ego to recover from that blow.” Then he dropped his hand and got a serious look that usually meant he was in mid-scheme planning. “So you know what you need to do now.”
Her brain when blank. “What?”
“What happened the first time you presented your dissertation?” he asked.
Okay, that was a total left turn—although an equally humiliating one. “They sent me home. They thought it lacked in creativity.”
Tyler nodded and took a drink of his coffee. “So you just gave up?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I revised and reworked it and re-presented it.”
“You fought for it,” he said like a lawyer leading a witness.
“Well, yeah…” The rest of the words died on her lips because the Eureka lightbulb went off again, this time with enough power to blind her to everything except what needed to happen next. “Just like I’m going to fight for Hudson, but this time I’m going to need a solid from you.”
“Anything.”
“We have to go see your upstairs neighbor.”
His face fell. “Anything but that.”
Faster than he could blink, she snatched the information she’d printed out from the museum donor database. “Help me, or I’ll shred this.”
He groaned and gave her a sour look. She’d just wait him out.
“Fine,” he said with a snarl. “She’s usually home practicing her marching drills on the day before a new show opens up at her gallery.”
“You seem to know a lot about her for someone who can’t stand her.”
“She lives above me and her gallery takes up a good chunk of the street level part of the building,” he argued, becoming suddenly fascinated with the sugar packets on the table. “Of course I know her patterns.”
“And that’s all there is to it?” she asked, enjoying being on the other side of the needling for once.
“Stop trying to change the subject again,” he said, standing up. “Come on, let’s go get our meeting with the shrew over and done with.”
Fine with Felicia. The sooner she got this plan in motion, the better.
…
Everly had just popped the last two Tums tablets when the knock at her door sounded. Great. Only shitty news came on the day before a show opening. Kind of like how all you had to do was come into a little bit of extra money for something expensive to break—or at least that’s how it always seemed. But she hadn’t made her way up from the free and reduced lunch line in grade school to graduating college in four years despite working two jobs to pay for it to owning her own art gallery by hiding in her kitchen and giving into the nerves gnawing a hole in her stomach. She strode to the door in her bare feet—thank you bitching-downstairs-asshole Tyler Jacobson—and peeked through the peephole.
Think of the conceited jerk of a neighbor and he appeared.
“Great,” she mumbled to herself.
Since she didn’t back down—ever—Everly slipped on the four-inch heels next to the door and opened it. “What do you want?”
The small brunette who’d wrecked Hudson—Felicia—spoke up first. “Your help.”
“Sorry, I gave at the office.” She started to shut the door, but Tyler’s hand on the doorframe stopped her.
He thought she wouldn’t smash his fingers? He was optimistic. Okay, he was also right, but she didn’t need him to know that so she started to push the door shut anyway.
Tyler’s size twelve foot blocked her progress. “Pretend I’m not here, and just listen to Felicia.”
“Why should I?” she asked.
His sharp blue eyes narrowed like he could see right into the center of her and divine exactly what she wanted most out of life—and it wasn’t a pony. “Because I can get the building owner to stop delaying and re-sign your gallery lease without the ten percent rent increase he wants.”
He shoots. He scores.
“How can you swing that?”
The cocky grin on his face did a number on her panties—despite her better judgement’s protests.
“Don’t ask me any questions, and I won’t tell you any lies,” he said.
Everly had grown up in a part of Harbor City where TVs that had fallen off trucks were sold in neighborhood stores and every third kid had an uncle who knew people. A little funny business that could keep her gallery in the black and no one got hurt or ended up in jail? Yeah, she wasn’t going to lose a minute of sleep over it.
“She comes in,” she said. “You stay out.”
“What?” he asked, looking every bit like a bad idea she’d end up regretting. “I don’t get to see the parade grounds where you march around?”
Yep. That’s right. Asshole.
She rolled her eyes. “Good one. I’m laughing on the inside.”
“Really? I always figured your sense of humor was as nonexistent as your heart.”
“Ouch. I might cry.” If she wasn’t having so much fun fighting, damn her snarly Harbor City soul.
“If you two are done flirting,” Felicia said with a huff. “I’d like to get this settled. Tyler, I’ll meet you down in your apartment in a little bit.”
The other woman ducked under Tyler’s arm and strode into the apartment, swinging the door shut behind her. Tyler got his fingers out of the way just in time. Everly would have liked her if it wasn’t for the fact that Hudson was obviously in love with her and she’d stomped all over his heart to the point that he insisted on changing out the paintings for an entire show days before it was set to go on. Hudson was one of her oldest friends and—truth be told—one of only a few, which was why she’d been eating Tums like candy since he’d called with an update on the show tomorrow and asked for a favor that she definitely did not want to fulfill.
She eyeballed Felicia, giving her all the attitude she deserved. “Spit it out and leave.”
“I need you to make sure Hudson shows up for his show tomorrow,” Felicia said.
Now that was a record scratch moment. “His show?”
Felicia crossed her arms and gave as good a glare as she got. “I don’t have time to pretend. Just make sure he’s there.”
“Why should I?” Besides the fact that Hudson’s favor had been to make sure Felicia was there.
“Because I need to talk to him.”
“So go to his penthouse.” Like a normal person.
Her cheeks turned pink. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” Everly asked, actually curious.
The short brunette didn’t say anything at first, then let out a deep breath. “This is bigger than just showing up at his front door.”
“What, are you going to lay prostrate in front of him and beg his forgiveness for being a total bitch?” Because that is what she’d been. Hudson hadn’t told her everything Felicia had said, but he’d told her enough. The fact that the other woman hadn’t been totally wrong was the only reason Everly hadn’t told Hudson to check his head when he’d asked her to make sure Felicia was at the show.
“Something like that.” Felicia turned away, glancing out the windows overlooking the park before turning back with tears in her eyes. “Because I love him and I was too dumb to tell him when I should have.”
It wasn’t an exact replica of what Hudson had told Everly, but it was close. “And if he doesn’t want to see you?”
“I can’t give up without a fight,” she said, sounding every bit as fierce as a woman in love needed to be to survive it.
“He’s worth fighting for?” Everly pushed, letting her voice soften just the slightest bit.
Felicia pushed up her glasses, set her shoulders, and looked her straight in the eye. “Without a doubt.”
Everly had enough experience being on the receiving end of some serious lies to know the difference. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.” She nodded and turned for the door.
Oh no, she wasn’t getting out of here that easily. “Hey, Felicia?”
“Yeah?” she asked, pivoting to face Everly.
She didn’t have brothers. Or sisters. Or very many friends. But she knew about loyalty and commitment. She knew the importance of people having your back—and she had Hudson’s. “Break his heart again, and I’ll break your face.”
Felicia grinned. “I’d expect nothing less.”
Then she walked out, still five-feet-nothing tall but looking a lot bigger.
Everly stared at her closed door for a minute, contemplating what was going to happen tomorrow night. If she were a nicer person, she would have told Felicia that Hudson had a surprise planned for her at the gallery and had begged her to make sure Felicia showed up. Of course, she’d probably still be living in that shithole apartment she’d grown up in if she’d been a nicer person. Plus, as one of Hudson’s closest friends, she wanted to see the woman who’d put him through the wringer dangled out there in uncertainty a while longer. What could she say, she was a bitch when it came to people who hurt those she loved.
She started back toward the kitchen, and her heels clicked on the wood floor. Stopping immediately, she started to take her shoes off, but then an image of Tyler’s cocky smirk flashed in her mind. Jerk. Hot jerk, but still a jerk. And a slow one. If he’d been faster on the uptake, he would have thought to include no more walking around in shoes as part of his little pot sweetener to talk to Felicia.
“Score one for me.”
She strutted across to the kitchen, letting her feet fall a little heavier than necessary. The answering thunk thunk of a broom handle banging against his ceiling did nothing but result in a satisfied smile curling her lips.