“Still working on it.”
Great. Alison looked at Ryan. “Can we talk a moment?”
“Talk or fight?”
She grabbed him by the hand. “Just come on.”
He let her drag him down the hallway. Let her, because he was a big guy with lots of yummy muscles that ensured he never went anywhere he didn’t want to go.
She tried to take comfort in that.
Alison took him past the large, open yard room where Khloe was presiding over their guests with an assist from Dale and shut them in her small office. “So.”
Ryan smiled. “So.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m going to start out with the fact that I’m not exactly ready for this moment. I mean, I’ve been practicing being a good enough friend and a good enough person to make you want to be a friend back. Practicing being the key word, so I’m not quite ready for prime time yet, but—”
“You’ve been practicing . . . what now?”
She refused to blush. Absolutely refused. “You heard me.”
“I’d like to hear it again.”
Because he said this without glee or amusement of any sort, but what sounded like genuine interest, she repeated it. “I’ve been practicing being a good friend—”
“No.” He shook his head. “That’s not what you said. You said you’ve been practicing being a ‘good enough’ friend. No one better have told you that you weren’t good enough for any damn thing, ever. That’s not why we broke up. Tell me you know that.”
She drew another deep breath. How was it that with so few words he could turn her upside down and inside out, not to mention melt all the bones in her entire body? Before she could respond, a sudden rustling sound came from beneath her desk. Ryan bent down and came face-to-face with Sammy the turtle, making his slow way out.
“Emma!” Alison yelled.
Emma came running. “Yeah?”
“Why is Sammy out of his crate?”
“He likes his freedom. Want me to take him?”
Sammy stopped in the sole sunny spot in the room thanks to the window and appeared to smile as his eyes slowly closed.
Alison sighed. “No. He’s fine.” She drew a deep breath when she was once again alone with Ryan.
And Sammy.
Past time. “I’m just going to say this fast,” she said. “So I don’t lose my nerve, but also before we get interrupted again.” She sucked in some air. “When we broke up, you said some things to me. Things that were hard to hear, so it took a while for it all to sink in. But you’re right. I shut people out. I shut people down. I don’t give second chances. I wear a suit of armor so thick that nothing can penetrate. Although . . .” She looked up and found his gaze on her, serious, warm, curious, which gave her the courage to go on. “You were wrong about that last one, because when we broke up, it penetrated, believe me.” It’d hurt like hell. “So I took a good long hard look in the mirror and came to some realizations. I’m . . . not a good friend, but I’m working on that.”
His eyes softened, and though he’d started with his arms crossed, they were loose at his sides now. “Go on.”
Khloe knocked on the open door with a small pie tin that held a cut-up strawberry. She set it in front of Sammy. “Lunchtime.”
Sammy opened his eyes and dug in, looking ecstatic.
Alison sighed and shut and locked the door. “I know I wasn’t a good friend, Ryan. And I know how important that is to you. I’m hoping for a second chance there.”
Sammy began to bang on his empty tin. They looked down to find it already empty and his entire wrinkly face covered in strawberries.
“I think he wants more,” Ryan said.
Dammit. “Hold, please.” She rushed from the room, hit up the staff room fridge, grabbed another strawberry and a knife, and made her way back to the office. She crouched next to Sammy, cut up the strawberry in the tin, and met Ryan’s amused eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s cute, you taking care of Sammy. And Killer. And your employees. And your business partner.” He smiled. “It’s a new look, watching you care. I like it.”
Alison was speechless, a rare condition for her. “You like seeing me as a total mess, slimed by Hog slobber and covered in fur, running around like a chicken without a head?”
“I like seeing you invested. Unguarded.”
All those dates they’d gone on, she’d spent so much time making sure her clothes and makeup and hair looked perfect. She’d been so careful to put forward her best-looking self. And yet Ryan liked how she looked right now, harried and swamped. “You’re a strange man.”
“True story.” He studied her for a long beat. “I’ve got a couple of people coming over tomorrow night for a barbecue. Interested?”
She opened her mouth to ask which people, but managed to stop herself. “What can I bring?”
Before he could answer, someone banged on the door. “Hey, hate to interrupt,” Emma said through the wood, “but we’ve got two new clients and I need help.”
Oh my God. Alison whipped open the door to kill someone, but Emma was holding a black-and-white fuzzy dog in her arms.
“This is Bandit,” Emma said. “I’m going to check her in. Can you handle the other one?”
“Yeah.” Alison gave Ryan an apologetic smile. “I’ll be quick!” She ran out front. There were two women at the front counter, one in her fifties, the other in her eighties. “Hi,” she said breathlessly. “My partner said you wanted to check in a pet. Dog or cat?”
The woman in her fifties jerked a thumb at the older woman. “Human. This is my mom, Phyllis.”
Phyllis crossed her bony arms. She was maybe five feet tall with gray corkscrew curls tight to her head, skin wrinkled and slack, and an unlit cigarette dangling out of her mouth that looked like it’d been there since 1960.
And that’s when Alison recognized her. Phyllis had been the supervisor at the women’s center where Alison had volunteered in high school for a scholarship she’d never received. Great. This was going to be just great.
“I should be back by five,” Phyllis’s daughter said, “but just in case, what’s your late policy?”
Alison held up a finger. “Excuse me a moment, I’ll be right back.” She went through the door to the back again and found Emma in the “sweet” yard with the dogs. “What the actual fuck?”
Emma, on her knees next to Bandit, introducing him to Hog, choked out a laugh and covered Bandit’s ears. “Watch the language in front of the impressionable ears.”
“Oh, well, excuse me,” Alison said. “What the actual hell?”
“Still a bad word. You owe the jar. Twice.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Since when do we take on geriatrics? Especially the mean-ass woman who was the supervisor at the women’s center?”
“Oh, we’re not charging for Phyllis. I don’t think that would be cool, not to mention possibly illegal. She’s just hanging out here today because her daughter, Cathy, has to work. She’s a librarian, and apparently she tried bringing her mom to the library, but she yelled at everyone and Cathy was asked to not bring her anymore.”