Love Shack (Tiny Houses, Big Hearts) (21 page)

“They want you back, trust me.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“My boss spoke with them.”

Felicity didn’t want to hear this. She was free. She’d finally gotten free of it all, and because of a name, she couldn’t run far enough away to escape her family’s money. Then she realized exactly what was going on here.

Felicity grabbed the other chair off the wall and sat just millimeters from Brandon. “What did they offer you?”

“They didn’t offer me anything. I didn’t speak with them.”

Which meant they offered something to his company. Because it always was a bargaining tool. This was something they could give him without even speaking with him, so it had to be through his business. And business was the most important thing, after all.

“How much money are they giving the bank?”

His silence told her it was a whole hell of a lot.

“What do you have to do to get this money?”

His self-righteous posture deflated a bit as he said, “I have to convince you to go back home to your family.”

Felicity laughed. She laughed as she pulled out his suitcase she’d packed for him. She laughed as she put it outside. She laughed as she got in her truck and backed it up to the trailer. She was still laughing when Brandon finally came out to see what she was doing. But when she went to hook up the hitch, the laughter turned to tears. She couldn’t do it.

She stood at the bed of the truck and stared at the hitch. She could crank down the jack just six inches, pull her house away and be gone in minutes. She touched the black metal and realized she couldn’t pull away from all the people who wanted to support this community as much as she did.

Wiping her eyes she went back around to the front of the house and expected to see Brandon standing there. She expected to hop up on her hay bale and yell at him for planning her future like everyone else in her life wanted to do, but the hay bale had been kicked aside, and Tom was putting the completed steps he and Brandon had been working on in its place.

“You look like shit when you cry. You should do that less.” Tom pulled down some metal flaps he’d installed on her siding and slid the steps into a track to keep them stable. They matched her style perfectly.

“I thought we agreed you’d use these for one of the new houses we’d planned.” Felicity was a little miffed at not having the hay bale to poke her feet anymore.

“You’re the one who needs the stability most, right now.” Tom stretched and hitched a thumb toward his own F-250. “I’ve got Bob the Builder in my truck there. Said you kicked him out.”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now, Tom.”

He stared her down. She didn’t have the energy to tell him he was being rude.

“You’ll be here when I get back?”

“When are you coming back?” she asked.

“I start construction on the first house tomorrow. I was going to move the trailer I bought tonight.”

“But…where’d you get the money?” Felicity had to wrack her brain. The GoFundMe account was still being processed. There was a significant amount of cash from donations sent into the station, but it was all in the business account.

“Brandon put me on the bank account. We were going to surprise you. Something tells me you surprised him first. But I still want to do this. I still think this is a great idea.”

Felicity did too. “What if you find out something about me that might change your mind about who I am?”

“I know you.” Tom pointed to the truck. “That guy…he cares about you, but sometimes that romantic crap gets in the way of knowing a person. Have you killed anyone?”

“No!”

“Do you have a stash of fetish porn?”

“No!”

“Damn. I was kind of hoping that one would be a yes.” Tom smiled and trotted off toward the truck. When he opened the door to hop inside, he looked back. “You are the same person who hired me because I wanted to help people just as much as you did. We’re going to do something great. That trumps a past in my book.”

Felicity smiled. She’d spent the whole last year telling herself she didn’t care about who she used to be, but in reality, she’d cared so much she’d gone into hiding.

After driving her truck back where it belonged—far away from the trailer hitch—she went inside and evaluated the contents of her closet.

Then she pulled her hanging clothes aside, and light from the window glistened off the blue sequins at the back of the bar. Grabbing the top of the wooden hanger, she listened to the beads and sequins clink together. The dress was heavy. It wasn’t as light and airy as the cotton she wore most of the time. Taking off every piece of clothing left her cold in more ways than one, but she didn’t stop. She slid the Versace dress back over her head for the first time since she’d left.

When she’d run from her old life, this dress had felt like a weight on her shoulders that she’d never be able to get rid of.

Now that she stood in her tiny house, very over dressed for the life she had now, it didn’t feel as oppressive. The dress felt like it could block off all the emotional turmoil she’d gone through tonight. Her old life had been all about appearances, and she could glimpse her old self when she touched the fabric. She went to the pocket door by her bathroom and looked in the mirror.

Before, her shoulders had slumped under the weight of the dress. It was a symbol of what she was supposed to do. Now when she wore it, she could see the countertops she’d picked out on her own behind her. She could see the dishrack she’d broken in a moment of passion and had no desire to fix. The slight glint from her Nan’s thimble on top reminded her it was still home, no matter what she was wearing.

Felicity pulled her mass of curly hair up and held it off her neck. It had taken over two hours to straighten her hair for the awards show where she’d last worn this dress. Felicity had sat in a chair for so long her ass had fallen asleep, only to be woken up after walking in high heels she didn’t even like.

The calendar notification beep made her jump. Her feet had to do a bit of a shuffle, because this dress wasn’t one you could take full elegant strides in. The bottom flared around her ankles, and it took the length of the kitchen to get the hang of swishing the tail of the garment forward as she walked to keep herself from planting face first on her floor.

Her tablet was on the charging stand, and she saw the event before she even reached the small end table it was on. It had been a yearly reminder she’d programmed in over two years ago, and kept forgetting to take off.

Usually she avoided the world this time of year and went traveling to get as far from the spectacle as possible. She’d forgotten all about it because of Brandon.

It was her parents’ yearly fundraising dinner. It was also the second anniversary of the night she stopped being Felicity Newowski. It appeared she’d dressed up just in time.

Another notification dinged. Debbie got back to her. The exit interview was on, and Debbie wanted an exclusive. She wouldn’t get it tonight. Felicity had one more stop to make before she wore this dress in public for the last time. Looking in the mirror, she tugged on a curl. Maybe a couple of stops.

Behind the dress in her closet was a small purse. Inside was all the paperwork she’d have to take to the bank. She needed to do this now. Her old ID expired next month.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Brandon guzzled another cup of coffee before he sat down at his desk. This was why people shouldn’t fall prey to others’ dares. Over five hundred emails stared back at him, and they all started running together, even after the caffeine boost.

He had to shut the computer off for a minute. If he were still in the tiny house, Brandon would have gone a few steps and he’d have been in the kitchen. He would have warmed his legs on the wood burning stove, and smelled the apple spice of the woodwick candle Felicity would have had burning.

Instead, he smelled cleaners. A chemical bouquet hit his nose. He’d never noticed it before because he never spent that much time in his apartment. And the only other place he spent any significant period of time was the bank. They used the same cleaning service.

Felicity used all natural biodegradable cleaners and shampoos, so she could use the gray water for her planter boxes. He hadn’t even known what gray water was a couple weeks ago.

He looked at the super clean counters and the neon orange dish soap. There was no way it could be used for anything but contaminating ground water.

Brandon shook his head. He didn’t need to think about this at all. He was out of that house, and he was done with the whole thing.

His boss hadn’t been thrilled when he’d told him he had no intention of trying to convince Felicity to do anything. It was the one part of the situation he was grateful for.

He’d quit. He wasn’t going to leave his company in a lurch, so he told his boss he was happy to stay on until a suitable replacement could be trained. But it had to be done within ninety days.

Brandon was done with lying to people. That left out any future employment in customer service. You can’t work face to face with a customer and not choke down a spoonful of shit on a daily basis.

He could have used his anger at Felicity keeping her real name from him as an excuse to beef up his own walls and realize everyone was a fucking liar, but even though she hadn’t told him the truth, she’d still changed him.

He realized in those few glorious days that he wanted someone as genuine as he’d thought Felicity was.

Brandon looked at the big empty apartment around him. Before the tiny house, it had felt spacious and extravagant. Now…it felt lonely. It felt like a waste, and it didn’t feel like him.

He could almost see Felicity’s lip curling at the chemicals he used to clean it. He could hear her voice telling him he didn’t need this robotic sweeper when a broom would work just fine. She’d tell him everything here was a waste.

But she had kept her dress in case she needed to run back. He was sure of it now. It was her way in. She never did cut her ties completely. He wouldn’t be as chicken as she was.

Brandon sat back down at the computer, but instead of scrolling his way through even more of the emails, he pulled up the information for his local real estate office. He knew the agent whose face he clicked on. Bethany coordinated with the bank all the time trying to set up loans, and she sold off a lot of foreclosures for the bank as well.

He dropped her an email about selling his place. She replied within seconds with a phone call. They were going to meet for lunch the next day. No, she didn’t care that it was Saturday. Bethany was always working. Brandon admired her tenacity. Perhaps she’d rub off on him a little bit. He needed to figure out what he could be excited about besides money.

He’d never really thought about it before.

Chapter Thirty-Three

She didn’t have access to all the styling tools she used to, or the people who would have used them for her in the past. But with a flat iron from the local drug store and hours of frustration, she came close to her old look. Minus the hair dye. She wasn’t attempting that nonsense on her own.

The fabric of the dress fit her like a second skin. And it was a good thing too, because she didn’t have a large supply of fabric tape anymore, and the little see through cutaways of the dress didn’t allow for anything underneath.

Felicity rented a limo. It was the only way to get even close to the door of these places.

It was funny how after only twenty-four months, she could feel like such an outsider. But she did. She felt like this was the life of another person. It sure wasn’t hers anymore. And while some people looked at the pictures in the magazines and felt envy, she felt sick to her stomach at the very thought of returning.

Her entire digestive tract was in knots as she ascended the marble steps she’d busted her ass on so many times as a kid.

When she was thirteen, her parents hadn’t cared that she’d gone to the hospital for a sprained ankle—they just had to make sure their entryway was grand and well suited for their station in life. Nan had been the one to stay by her side as the nurse stuck a needle of numbing medicine in her leg. Her mom had had a charity meeting. Felicity wasn’t as important as appearances.

Now, with all the black tie attire and high heels ascending the same steps, there was a luxurious red carpet provided. The paparazzi were held back by security officers who looked like they should be taking care of a president, but her parents drew a bigger crowd, and their pictures sold for more money than the president’s. So the security was probably even more highly trained.

Felicity watched one of the men touch his ear piece and talk into his wrist as she walked by. They still recognized her. Or they recognized the dress, at any rate. It was supposed to have been returned to the boutique after the awards show two years prior, but Felicity hadn’t been able to bring herself to step back into the shop. It meant she had more of this life to live. Instead, she’d sent a check with some of the money she’d pulled from her account.

She didn’t want any ties or bills, so she spent the twenty-two thousand and bought the garment outright. Unlike everyone else at the charity gala, she was wearing something for the second time.