“Stop!” Jenny’s voice cut through my assault once again. When I blinked up she just looked at me with sympathetic eyes before she pointed to the floor beyond. “Hike. Double this time.”
Chapter Forty-two
CECI
My pride was officially being swallowed.
It had taken me a few weeks, but after settling back into my own apartment and my own life and realizing that Connor was seriously not going to contact me, not even to text me that he’d landed in fucking England, I realized that I still had things to take care of here. Alone.
Coming to terms with the fact that I would be taking care of them without my best friend was the real hard pill to swallow. But I’d swallowed it and now I was here. “Here” being outside my brother’s office, not knowing who on earth else to turn to.
I knocked, and the door unlatched on its own, swinging open and slowly revealing Ox standing at his desk with his office phone pressed to his ear. He wasn't expecting it to be me. If the notch between his thick black eyebrows didn’t give that much away, the cautious way he told the person on the other line, “I’m going to have to call you back,” did.
“I need help,” I said, getting right to it.
Ox’s dark eyes moved over me, inspecting me for injury and then clouding with confusion when he found none. But just like my brother, he didn't ask any questions before opening an arm and waving me forward. “Shut the door behind you.”
I didn’t even sit. I barely had my bag set down in one of his office chairs before I was launching into the story of the shelter and how it was being shut down and my missing donations and our plan to fundraise for its rescue. I told him about the decline of supplies and resources, and staffing going on there and the mix of fear and helplessness we had about the whole situation. I told him everything I knew and everything I thought to be relative. Only leaving out just how devastated I would be if I lost this place. If this would be the next thing to leave me, too.
When I was done speaking, I realized I had been pacing a hole into the carpet before Ox’s desk. At some point he had pressed a bottle of water into my hands, and I sipped from it occasionally but was now gripping it so tight that it was distorted under the pressure of my fingers. Ox wasn’t behind his desk anymore, but instead right in front of me, leaning against it with his hand around the bottom of his face thoughtfully. When I stopped pacing, he stared at me in that glaring X-ray vision kind of way that only Ox could.
“You identified the problem and found the solution. Aside from the money, what exactly do you need help with?” he asked.
Oh yeah.
Rushing over to my bag, I pulled out the thick file that was delivered to my apartment the day Con left for England. Inside was all the information he had been working on digging up about the shelter, the funds, and the dirty politicians that managed them both. There was so much data. He must have stayed up the entire day and night compiling it all. He must have really wanted to be rid of me before he left for Oxford. I wouldn’t be surprised if the things I left at his house were all on the street or sold off by now. He was apparentlythatdone with me.
But I knew that wasn't true. If the way he hugged me on the beach was any indication—so tight that my ribs ached afterward—he’d been just as broken as me at his decision to leave. So why did he?
“Ceci?” Ox’s voice betrayed him, being cautious and almost soft.
I shook my head and turned to him with the file. I was leaking my problems out again. I needed to stop doing that and finish my job helping the shelter.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“The shelter isn’t city or state owned. It’s private. Which means successful or bust, no matter how much money our fundraiser makes, they can keep siphoning off the money to cover whatever made up costs they’ve been paying all year—maybe longer,” I said. “With this information, there’s enough evidence for a convincing case of fraud. But if they’re convicted, the shelter gets condemned for God knows how long. The women can’t afford that. Seaside has nowhere else for them to go. The homeless shelter is small and already overrun, and the women they need—deservea place to themselves. It’s not perfect, but Waterways is a specialized care facility in its own right. They have counseling, a career center, a daycare and security for sheltering trauma victims. If it’s destroyed, they are destroyed. They’ll either have to go back to whatever circumstances sent them running in the first place or have no place to go at all.”
As I talked, Ox alternated between looking at me and flipping through the information in the file. I don't know which triggered him, but his mood seemed to be souring with every passing second. I swallowed a rough gulp and took a ragged breath. “I have all this information, but no idea what to do with any of it.That’swhy I need help.”
“Hmm,” he said as he flipped through the pages. I must have been fidgeting in front of him because his black eyes cut up to me and narrowed before he pointed to the chair my bag was in. “Go drink your water, Ceci.”
I was feeling sick, so I did. Sitting down in the chair and taking four huge gulps before regretting it instantly. Now it felt like I would throw it all up.
“How did you find all of this?” he asked.
“I, uh, had some help,” I admitted.
“And where is that help now?”
“Gone.”
He stared at me. I stared back. I hated when he looked at us like this, like he was calculating every word spoken and weighing it against what lesson he was going to shove down our throats next. But underneath Ox’s base instinct to scold there was something else there.Pride. It confused me.
Snapping the folder closed, Ox turned slightly and set it on his desk. When he came back around, his arms were folded over his chest. I didn't know what any of these looks meant, but every one of them gave me anxiety. This was maybe the first full hour I hadn’t thought about Connor and the absolute destruction he was causing me since he left. But compared to the feeling of anxiety from waiting to hear the fate of the shelter, I almost wished he was my biggest problem right now. At least that misery was familiar. This was new and terrifying.
I slipped to the edge of my seat, looking up at my brother. I couldn’t even imagine my own expression. If it was as sick as I felt, it was probably not pretty. “Are we fucked?”
Ox’s laugh caught me off guard. “Ceci Fernandez, everyone. The patron saint of women’s safety in Seaside, Rhode Island.”
