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When he was finally done, Alanna walked him to the door.
“I’m sorry my mom talked your ear off,” she said. “Mom always dreamed of having a rose garden.” There it was again, the slip of her mask, a wisp of vulnerability glinting in her eyes. Sully wondered what he could do to pull that mask from Alanna’s face forever. Walk a thousand miles? Defeat an army? Kiss her? He’d do anything.
Damn. Now, he was staring at her ruby lips. “It was no trouble,” he said. “Your mother is an absolute joy. You know that, right?”
Alanna smiled. “Yeah, everyone says that about her and my sister.” The neck of her sweater slipped off her shoulder again, and without thinking, Sully reached out and pulled it back up. His fingers brushed Alanna’s smooth, porcelain skin. Their eyes met. Something flickered in her gaze, a spark of surprise… and heat.
Why had he done that? Did she think he was some weirdo creep? “I’ll be back in a few days with the pieces for the new banister,” he said quickly. “Let me know if you need any other fix-er-roos around the house.”
Fix-er-roos?Sully sent a small prayer for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.
Alanna gave him a teasing smile. “Fix-er-roos. Will do.”
She was probably used to men slobbering all over her. Maybe she even felt a little sorry for him. Sully cringed at the thought. Tightening his grip on his tool bag, he stepped through the doorway and walked to his car without looking back.
Fix-er-roos.Whelp, that ended any chance he had of sweeping the glorious Alanna Sandoval off her feet. Sully groaned as he started his drive back home. She probably had her professional soccer player/underwear model boyfriend on a video chat at this very moment relaying the whole awkward encounter.
The banister, focus on the banister,he told himself. He could get everything he needed at the nearest home improvement store, but something was nagging at him. He didn’t want to put up a plain old banister for Dede. That house deserved something special, something with as much character as its owner.
Inspiration struck. Hue! His hairy, swearing, beer-chugging fairy godmother might be able to grant him another wish.
As soon as he arrived home at The Ugly Duckling, Sully flipped open his laptop and started scrolling for images. Some time later—when had the sun gone down?—Sully finally had a hand-drawn sketch in his notebook he didn’t hate.
He called Hue.
“What?” his friend barked. “I’m watching the game, and I’m in my underwear, so if this involves me leaving my recliner it ain’t happening.”
“I want to commission a piece,” Sully said excitedly as he stared at his drawing.
“You want to what a what?” The red-headed giant would never admit it, but he was a master woodworker. He’d grudgingly showed Sully a few of his pieces and they were insanely good.
“I’m going to send you a pic.” Sully grinned. “We’re going to make something amazing.”
Ch. 19 Alanna
Sittingonherbed,Alanna stared at a calendar entry on her phone. On Friday, four days from now, just one word was stamped across the entire day—Arbitration.
“I’m going to win,” she said softly to herself. She looked up and met a pair of sky-blue eyes. “I’m going to win,” she insisted.
Petunia didn’t argue. In fact, the large cat seemed a tad bored by the high-stakes situation. Over the past few days, human and feline had reached a delicate détente. Alanna had ceased her attempts to affix the pink, rhinestone collar, and Petunia had begun to sit on the edge of Alanna’s bed more and more often. She knew better now than to try and reach out to pet Petunia. Any movement toward her, and the cat would respond with a cranky hiss, then slink under the bed for a few hours.
Still, it was a start. And—bonus—Alanna had discovered Petunia was a surprisingly good listener.
“Everything’s ready,” she said to the cat. Of course, no one knew this better than Petunia. Alanna had practiced her argument endlessly in front of the cat, laying down point after point proving she’d been voted out unfairly and whipping out the building evidence that Jordan Boon’s radioactive name was dragging Fresh Perspective down the toilet.
Petunia’s skeptical gaze had forced Alanna to continually refine her points until her argument was airtight.
“Four complaints so far against Jordan Boon,” she said now to Petunia. “Two in the last day.” She smiled smugly. “The Los Angeles DA is officially investigating that piece of shit, and Momentum Therapeutics’ board is convening an emergency meeting next week.”
Ifschadenfreudewas wrong, why did it feel so good?
“They’re going to send Boon packing,” Alanna assured her cat. “They’ll probably halt the company’s IPO until they can regroup.” She pulled her legs beneath her and shook her head in frustration. “But Fresh Perspective is still repping him!”
Chip’s denials were becoming vaguer with each new bombshell story.
“My inside sources tell me half the agency’s clients have already walked,” she reported to Petunia. The feline lay stretched on her side like a reclining Roman empress, the end of her fluffy tail twitching lazily.
“Chip and Raul chopped 10% of the workforce this week. It’s an epic shitshow.” Alanna sighed and grabbed a pillow to her chest. “It’s going to take some work, but I’ll rebuild the company. The clients will understand after I clean house.”
