Page 32 of The Scent of Happiness

Stephen pocketed his phone. “What’s done is done. You got yourself into this, so you’re going to have to see it through. But don’t let this happen again. If any more of your mom’s friends have legal trouble…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Theo said. “I get it.”

“Good.” Stephen clapped him on the back. “Let’s get back inside. It’s cold out here.”

“You go ahead. I don’t have any more appointments today and I’m getting a headache, so I’m going to take off a few minutes early.”

“Don’t make a habit of that.” Stephen gave him one last warning glare, then walked through the office doors. The building happily swallowed him up.

Theo trudged to his car. He sat in the driver’s seat without starting the engine, collecting his thoughts. If he hadn’t gone to that craft show, if he hadn’t seen Dixie with his own eyes, watched her trying to take Brooke down a peg—no, it was before that. When he’d hung back, scoping out the show, before Brooke knew he was there.

He’d stood in a corner, leaning on the wall, arms folded, observing the way Brooke shared her art with the world. She’d talked to the customers, answered questions, and seemed delighted to talk about soap. She had a connection to things she’d made with her own hands, and the pride that came with offering something of quality.

What did Theo offer the world? He told himself he was all about justice, fairness, helping people who’d gotten a raw deal. But at the end of the day, he had nothing to show for it. He couldn’t point to something and say, I made that. A lawyer’s job was to monetize arguments.

Theo drummed the steering wheel. This kind of thinking would lead him nowhere. It didn’t matter how he felt about things, it mattered what he could do about them. He could help Brooke. He’d already drafted the email and attached the contract, so he sent it from his phone.

He needed to get out. To clear his head. Where should he go? Not the gym. He’d lifted enough heavy things today. Home was too quiet.

Maybe a walk. Moving his feet might loosen something in his brain. There were some nice walking trails along the Scobal River that separated Cannondale University from the town of Cannondale. But it had rained all morning, and he didn’t want to get his dress shoes muddy.

Then he remembered the flowers on Brooke’s Instagram. The botanical gardens had greenhouses with lush plants blooming year-round. He could go there and pretend it was still summer. He could pretend he was in the tropics. He could pretend he and Brooke were friends.

As he twisted in his seat to back out of his parking space, Theo checked to see if it was even possible to bite your own shoulder, but he couldn’t quite reach it.

Chapter Eleven

Brooke started work Monday morning by cleaning up three shelves of children’s books that had been scattered in a toddler’s meltdown. Someone had mistaken the return bin for a recycling bin and filled it with empty wine bottles. An elderly woman suffered a severe nosebleed that didn’t stop until there was blood on a table, two chairs, the floor, and several books. While Brooke was cleaning it up, a man tried to get her to stop what she was doing to help him find the book he saw on the news, and yelled at her when she asked him to wait. A baby cried when Brooke smiled at her.

She tried to take a stack of business books into the breakroom at lunchtime, but her boss stopped her because she hadn’t checked them out. When Brooke reminded Otis that she was the one who ultimately had to put them back on the shelf, he told her that no unchecked items could leave the library floor, period.

She wasted a few minutes of her lunch break checking the books out, knowing she’d check them right back in again thirty minutes later, and spent the rest of her break complaining to Lauren.

“Is there a full moon or something?” Brooke asked when she’d recounted her morning.

“I think there is,” Lauren said. “You wouldn’t believe some of the questions I got at the information desk today. My favorite was the guy who wanted to use a computer, but didn’t want to go on the internet. He just needed Google. He called it the Google.”

“Did you tell him ‘the Google’ was on the internet?”

“I tried.”

“I could handle the crying babies and blood,” Brooke said. “It’s part of my job. But I don’t understand why Otis pretended these books were too precious to go into the breakroom with me for a few minutes. Like these books haven’t been in half the bathrooms in Cannondale.”

Lauren tilted her nose upward and bucked out her front teeth to imitate Otis’ rat-like appearance. “Bosses gotta boss.”

Brooke pushed the stack away. “I checked them out, and now I don’t even want to read them.”

Lauren turned the books so the spines faced her. “You should. These look good.”

“Nah. I’m going to return them.” Brooke bit into her sandwich. Who was she kidding? She didn’t have a head for business. She wasn’t organized like Emma, or good with numbers like her dad, or a super saleswoman like her mom. Brooke made very nice soap, but that didn’t mean she could make a living off it.

“We’re both done at five today,” Lauren said. “Do you want a ride home?”

“No thanks. I’m going to catch the bus to the botanical gardens.”

“Good idea. That always cheers you up.” Lauren looked through the stack of books and pulled The Creative Business Professional from the bottom. “And keep this one.”

“Why that one?” Brooke had taken out books on entrepreneurship, cash flow, taxes, and how to apply for a business loan.