“It’s only ten o’clock.”
Lily-Grace rolled her eyes. He’d be dead asleep on the couch in fifteen minutes. “Well, I’ll be in my room. I mean the guest room,” she teased. It was good to be home. Home was where she needed to be right now. Where she wanted to be, but it was still a shock to find that all of her NSYNC and Tyson Beckford posters had been replaced with artful black-and-whites of their desert valley. At least her glow-in-the-dark stars were still stuck to the ceiling, and in a feat of scientific achievement that could not be good for humans, some of them were still glowing.
“Your stuff is all packed up. I didn’t throw anything away.”
“I know. I’m just giving you a hard time. I’m not going to sleep, I’ll just be in bed. Let me know if you need anything. And don’t try to lift anything with that wrist. The doctor said be easy with it.”
“I had some late-night roof repairs I wanted to get to, but I guess it could wait.”
“Try it,” she said, pointing a finger at him.
He kissed her on the forehead again and made for the direction of his comfy chair. Lily-Grace let out a deep breath as she watched him walk down the hall. They’d been home from the hospital for a few hours, but she felt like she was still coming down from the adrenaline rush that had hit her when Miss Lovell called her from her father’s phone.
She made her way back upstairs, stopping in the doorway of her old room. She looked around at the freshly made bed and her suitcase that was still tucked in the corner, half unpacked.
She’d come back to Charming for some peace and calm, to get the hell away from her job that had imploded in her face and her ex, who turned out to be less than supportive. She thought she’d finally built a life for herself in the Bay Area. A home and career, and now she felt betrayed by her own decisions, even though absolutely none of it was her fault.
Seriously, what was it with some men? Bad tempers, controlling behavior, straight-up harassers. She knew all men weren’t like that. Her father was practically a saint. Loving and kind. To hear her aunt tell it, her mother had been so happy with him, their love was the stuff of legends. And even though they’d only spoken a few times, Miss Lovell had made it clear that her father was wonderful to her. Lily-Grace had made a few male friends over the years, but geez, was it fair to make them work triple time to compensate for the jackasses of the world, hell-bent on making her miserable? And now Jesse Pleasant was another name she could add to her list. She wasn’t sure a boxing class down at the Charming rec center would do the trick this time.
The moment she realized how naive she was? It was tough for Lily-Grace. She didn’t have any misgivings about the way the world looked at her. She was brash and outspoken, and her intelligence and skill at sharp, quick observations made some people uncomfortable. She was also a six-foot-two Black woman with vitiligo. People were already staring at her before she set foot in any interview or meeting and dazzled/scared the shit out of the whole room with her knowledge for numbers.
She was what most millennials dreamed they could be: somewhat rich as hell, thanks to being in the right place at the right time, in the early days of Clutch, a social media app that survived long enough to make its creators a lot of money. She’d been the only woman, the only Black person on that team. And she’d walked away with her own sackful of money before the first sexual harassment allegation trickled in from the first round of female new hires. Allegations which she absolutely believed because while he was intimidated by her, Tim Cross, their dev lead, had been a total pig.
She bounced around until she landed at Ulway, the rideshare app that was doing phenomenally well, but was struggling in its own ways. They’d brought her in because she was a Black woman. She wasn’t naive about that, but she’d been foolish to think that Ulway wanted to actually pay their drivers more. She’d found a way to make her proposed compensation structure work. The pay increase and a move to a small but essential benefits package. It was absolutely doable, and frankly it would be a good look for the company. Drivers would be happy and safer, users would be happy, putting their dollars in a company that cared about their people.
But that didn’t happen. And while she and her small team were trying to restructure her plan to convince the powers that be that this was the right move, their director of marketing decided she would be the next target of his foul mouth and grabby hands. She regretted not punching Aaron Genicks in the face, but all of her what-ifs and I-shouldas were drowned out by how poorly the company handled her formal complaint. She knew she had options, and all of them were unpleasant and none of them involved a time machine that would allow her to go back and convince Mr. and Mrs. Genicks to use protection.
And all of it, every single moment, was made ten thousand times worse by the way Dane reacted. There’s something so uniquely painful about being betrayed by the man she thought was her soulmate. Dane knew Aaron from their fraternity days, but Lily-Grace had never considered them friends. Which shouldn’t have mattered. When your partner comes to you and tells you she was harassed at work, the only response should be outrage immediately followed by comfort and assistance.
Dane’s words still burned inside her heart. Her own response had been swift and appropriate. She’d walked out of his apartment and left her copy of his key with the doorman. She’d also left the necklace he’d given her, the symbol of their arrangement and commitment, behind. It still hurt to think about them a few weeks later.
She lay down on her bed, staring at the plastic stars. Was there a planet free of men? What would it be like to go there? No. That wouldn’t solve her problems.
Her phone picked that perfect moment to vibrate in her hand. She looked at the screen, her heart jumping when she saw Dane’s name and a preview of a text. She knew she should delete it, but she unlocked her phone and read the whole thing instead.
I want you to come back.
She knew she definitely shouldn’t respond, but she did it anyway.
I wanted you to support me, but here we are.
Lily-Grace hit send, then she tossed her phone on the beige armchair that had replaced her bright blue papasan chair. She thought about turning off the lights just so she could look at the stars, but she didn’t feel like getting up. Her body was finally starting to crash. Her dad was okay. His wrist would heal. In a few days she’d figure out her next move and get her life back on track. Start something of her own, free of Aarons and Tims and Danes.
A fat tear ran down the side of her face. She didn’t brush it away until it started to cool in the shell of her ear. In the morning, she was gonna fight Jesse Pleasant.
* * *
Lily-Grace pulled her father’s red Buick up to the gates of Big Rock Ranch. She’d been there exactly once, back in the third grade. Jesse was supposed to bring something for show-and-tell, and somehow he’d convinced their teacher, Mrs. Lyons, to let him show the whole class the ranch. She remembered how warm it was that day and how she couldn’t stop smiling. She got to pet a beautiful brown horse named Hazelnut or something to that effect. It had been the best field trip of her young life. And she wasn’t going to let what she was about to do taint that memory.
She kept her eyes forward, focusing on the long, wide driveway that brought you up to the main visitor center. She saw a small group of people spilling out of a black SUV in front of the valet stand and some young kid with a plaid shirt pointed the driver off to where they were probably going to wait for their important people to be done with their important ranch-related business. She checked herself. They weren’t the issue right now. Plus she had been one of those important business people up until recently.
There was no question of whether or not her plan was good or bad. It was the plan she’d decided on and she was following through with it. She’d talked to her friend Jenny Yang before she’d finally gone to bed. Jenny had stayed local and ran into the Pleasants all over town. She had no issue telling Lily-Grace that Jesse and his younger brother Zach spent most of their days right there on the ranch. She also promised to be on standby with bail money if this blew up in her face. Which it wouldn’t. Lily-Grace had a few things she had to get off her chest and then she’d be on her way.
She slowed down and pulled up to the front of the lodge, lowering her window as that same young kid jogged around to open her door.
“Good morning. Welcome to Big Rock Ranch.”
“Good morning.”
