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The cat yowled.
“Hey, shhhhhh,” Sully murmured as he tucked the trap under an arm and walked it across the street. “I’ll do everything I can to get you back to your home, okay? We’ll just need to find a way to get along until then. Can you do that?”
A paw shot out from the trap and raked again at his gloved hand.
Sully sighed. He just wasn’t making any friends today.
Ch. 25 Alanna
Noonecouldeversay Alanna Sandoval didn’t follow through on her intentions, whether that meant putting herself through college, starting her own PR agency from scratch, or searching for universal truths at the bottom of a wine bottle. Sure, she came up empty on cosmic insights, but at least the attempt blunted the sharpness of her pain… that is, until she cracked her eyes open the next morning.
When had the sun become such a sadistic prick?
Alanna groaned, wobbled onto her feet, and lurched toward the window, intent on unleashing the thick curtains to beat back the sunlight.
She stopped.
She squinted.
Her peace lily sat on the windowsill as always, but something was different about it. Working to unglue her tongue from the top of her bone-dry mouth, Alanna stared at the plant.
And stared.
And stared.
She raked her hands through her mussed hair.
The answer finally lurched into the train station.
The plant was nestled in a pale, ceramic blue pot that glowed softly in the sunlight. The new digs were larger than the simple clay pot that had served as the plant’s home since Layla had presented it to Alanna as a housewarming gift years ago.
The plant already looked healthier, its wilted leaves perking up, its color a few shades darker than yesterday’s sickly yellow. A thick white ribbon—the same kind her mother used on her birthday and Christmas gifts—wrapped snuggly around the new pot, sporting a crisp bow front and center.
Sully.
Alanna groaned and not-at-all-gracefully slid to the ground next to her bed. Sully had to be the monster behind this random act of kindness. Even in the short time she’d known him, he’d already proven to be ludicrously thoughtful. She also saw her mother’s hand in the plant’s housing upgrade. The pot. The ribbon. The rich dark soil peeking from below the lip of the pot. The two of them must have conspired together on the project before she got home yesterday.
“I screwed up,” she croaked to Petunia. The cat was making herself scarce, probably scrunched as far back as possible beneath the bed. Alanna didn’t mind. It was almost easier to talk to the cat without her in sight.
She let her head fall back against the edge of the mattress. Worst idea of her life. The movement sent drumbeats of pain ricocheting between her temples.
“I was such a bitch yesterday,” she admitted to Petunia. She’d known her behavior was appalling even as she’d watched Sully retreat from the house. Yet, somehow, the third or fourth glass of wine had turned her attention back to her own problems.
She’d had a right to be upset. They could have blown up the house, after all! But it was an accident. There’d been no need to go ballistic on them, to treat her mother like a troublesome child or banish Sully from the house.
Alanna Sandoval had 99 problems, and Sully Brooks made it 100. Count her mother as 101.
“I’ve got to apologize to him,” she admitted reluctantly to Petunia. “And to Mom.”
Apologies didn’t come easy to Alanna. In her world, they were often taken as a sign of weakness. But she’d have to risk looking weak in order to fix her mistakes. As for her other 99 problems…
Alanna swiped her tongue across gritty teeth. Shower first. Then apologies. And then she’d start working on her fierce and fearless comeback. She slowly turned her head to gaze into the darkness beneath her bed.
“Good pep talk,” she said to Petunia. As idiotic as it was, hashing out her feelings with the cat was fast becoming a comforting routine.
*
The shower was heaven. Alanna might have heard a choir of angles singing as the water washed away a night’s worth of wine sweat from her skin and cleared the sour breath from her mouth. She felt about as perky as raccoon roadkill when she stepped out of the shower, but that was still an improvement.
