Page 57 of Come A Little Closer

I was having the best night of my life and it was all because of him. We danced, and drank, and laughed, the volume of the music making it hard to speak too much, but we had a blast together all the same.

Later on, Niall pulled me close and moved his lips to my ear. “What do you say we get out of here?”

I nodded against his cheek and stole a playful kiss. “Let’s do it.”

He drained what was left of his drink and I did the same. Then he took my hand and we walked back to his house, enjoying the relative silence of the streets after the thumping music in the bar. I stroked my thumb along the side of his hand.

“How was your day?” I asked. “Tonight has been such a whirlwind that I only just realized I don’t know anything about your week.”

He chuckled. “It was nowhere near as exciting as yours, that’s for sure. I did get an interesting call this afternoon, though. I don’t want you to worry about it. I took care of it, but I thought you should know.”

My footsteps slowed as I frowned, my heart suddenly sinking. “Who was it from?”

“Brookside Collections Agency,” he said nonchalantly.

Nausea swirled through me at hearing those words in that order coming out of his mouth. My blood turned to ice in my veins, the bubbles of happiness instantly popping as they froze over. “What did they want?”

“They called me looking for you,” he said on a soft sigh, glancing at me as he tightened his grip on my hand. “It seems they somehow found out you’d accepted a permanent position with the company.”

Panic infused my senses, confusion clouding my mind. I shook my head. “I don’t understand why they would’ve called you. I’ve been trying to pay down the debt and I haven’t skipped a payment recently.”

Using his grip on my hand, he tugged me closer to his side and stopped walking. Turning to face me, he caught my cheek in his free palm. “Don’t worry about it, Tallulah. Like I said, I took care of it. They wanted to talk to me about the garnishing laws of Louisiana or some shit, but I told the guy not to bother and just paid it off.”

I blinked up at him. Shocked speechless, I tried going for words but they wouldn’t come at first. My mouth dried up, my head spinning. I tried to process the implications of what he’d just said.

“Why?” I finally managed to ask. “I was paying it off. I didn’t need your help.”

“I know, but it shouldn’t have been your responsibility in the first place,” he said calmly, those sparkling blue eyes warm on mine. “You’ve got a clean slate now, baby. I realize that you didn’t ask for my help and that you didn’t need it, but it’s done. You don’t have to worry about any of that anymore. You can finally start your own life for real now.”

I stared into those eyes, guilt shooting through me like poison. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I know I didn’t have to, but realistically, you shouldn’t have had to either,” he said. “It was a dick move by an asshole who was trying to force your hand. You shouldn’t have to spend years paying off debt with your own hard-earned money just because some low-life prick didn’t want to relinquish his control over you.”

“It wasn’t your problem,” I said quietly, the guilt quickly turning into anger. I let go of his hands and took a step away from him. “I took on that debt as the price I would have to pay for my freedom, and once I’d paid it off, that freedom would’ve been my own, Niall. Don’t you see? You’ve taken that from me.”

“Excuse me?” He frowned, shaking his head over and over again. “No. That’s not it at all. I knew you were going to be upset with me for interfering, but don’t turn this into something it’s not. You don’t owe me anything, Tallulah. You still have your freedom. I didn’t pay off your debt as some way to gain control over you.”

“Didn’t you?” I shot back at him. “Surely, you knew this would make me feel indebted to you instead of the credit card company. You’re not stupid, Niall. I know you knew exactly how this would make me feel.”

“Honestly? I didn’t think it would make you feel like I’d somehow stolen your freedom,” he argued gently. “That wasn’t my intention at all. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to make a clean break.”

“From Carter, yes. By becoming indebted to you. Another man who now has a hold over me I didn’t want and didn’t ask for.”

He scoffed. “No. Nope. I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”

“What do you want from me, Niall?” I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering not for the first time what his motives really were. “Why are you even interested in me? I’m poor. I’m struggling with being an adult even though I’m in my mid-twenties, and again, I have nothing to offer you.”

“Why do you think so little of yourself?” he asked softly. Dragging in a deep breath, he ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Why shouldn’t I be interested in you for exactly who you are? I don’t care that you’re poor or that you’re struggling. I like you for your creativity, and your work ethic, and your weird and crazy love of all things creepy. I don’t give a shit about how much money you have.”

“Why not?” I threw back at him. “Because you’re so insanely wealthy that you have the luxury not to care about money? Way to make a girl feel valued, Niall.”

“Tallulah.”

“No,” I said tearfully, my expression crumbling as I shook my head at him. “Just leave me alone. You can fire me if you want, but I worked too hard to stand on my own two feet to let anyone have that kind of claim to me.”

“I don’t want to have some kind of claim on you,” he argued vehemently.

As tears started spilling down my cheeks, I turned and stormed away from him, the shock of the revelation still rattling my bones.