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The hint of playfulness should make this easier.
It didn’t.
“Hey.” I dragged in a deep, silent breath.This is for the kids. “I… um… I-need-a-favor.”
Silence.
Was this where he’d tease me? Give me grief about coming groveling, when I swore I’d never be one of those people who used their connections?
“Anything. What’s wrong?” Damn him, for sounding concerned.
“I’m at the shelter. A city inspector just left.” I’d keep this clinical and factual. More for my sake than his, since I was the one dreading this conversation. “He’s condemning the building. I know you can’t fix unsafe construction, but… I don’t know what to do.” It hurt to admit that. This callwasmy plan, and it was the best I had.
“I’ve got you covered. Give me the night, and I’ll call you back tomorrow morning.”
This would be okay. He’d help me figure things out. “Thank you.”
Six
Iwoke up to a string of alerts on my phone, all with the shelter’s name, as well as messages from another of the shelter volunteers.There are cameras outside. A news van. What do I do?
What?
I clicked through to the first alert. Local news, running a story about the shelter. About it shutting down. About all of these kids becoming homeless for a second time.
Every story was a flavor of the same.
This wasn’t what I had in mind when I asked Ramsey for help.
I replied to the text.Remind them the kids can’t be on camera.The last thing we needed was to get in trouble for exploiting minors.Otherwise be polite. I’ll let you know as soon as I have answers.
I dialed Ramsey next. I was going to be cool, icy even, while I got to the bottom of why he thought this was the way to go.
“Taffy.” He was chipper when he answered.
“What the fuck did you do?”
“Good morning, Ramsey,” he said in a falsetto supposed to be me. “How did you sleep?Goddess, that one night we had together reminded me how much I love your cock.”
I growled. The teasing used to be fun, but not now. “I have you on speaker. The cameraman wants to know if you’re really that well hung.” My words came out with more of an edge than Ramsey’s had.
“Hmm. Be honest with him.”
Fucker wasn’t supposed to call my bluff. “You don’t want that,” I said.
“I’m not any more insecure about my dick size than you are likely to be talking to the press while you bitch me out.”
I clenched my teeth. “You knew it would piss me off, and yet you called them anyway. What happened to talking in the morning? Making a plan together?” I pulled on clothes. Thankfully, I’d showered last night, to get rid of the swamp-water smell that permeated me.
“We’re talking. I assume we’ll be planning soon. I didn’t ask you, because you would have saidno.”
I put him on speaker and set the phone on my bathroom counter, so I could yank a brush through my hair. “If you knew I wasn’t going to like it, you shouldn’t have done it.”
Hetsked. “You and I both know putting something in the public eye, exposing it, is what gets it attention. If you didn’t think that, you wouldn’t hold the fundraisers.”
“So you couldn’t have said this to me when we spoke last night,beforeyou arranged it? I’m not unreasonable.” I didn’t have time for much makeup. A touch of lip gloss, a feather of mascara, and I was good.
“Time was critical, and I had to make a decision or miss the opportunity.”
