“I asked her to talk to Mrs. Park about a job in Beacon—well, I asked her to stay here with me. Instead of leaving in December. But I think I said too much.”
“Oh yeah?” Sloane said sympathetically. “You told her the whole alcoholism thing is bullshit?”
“What? No.” Teagan hadn’t planned to ever tell her that. God, if she knew that too, he’d never see her again.
Sloane laughed. “Then what did you say that could be that bad?”
“I accidentally asked her to marry me, I think.”
“And what did she say?”
“She needed to think about it.”
“Oh my God, and you’re just sitting in here freaking out?” Sloane cried.
This was a failure of due preparation. He should have asked Mrs. Park to write—no, record—a job description, so that Darcy wouldn’t worry about her qualifications. He shouldhave put together a budget so that Darcy could see that she could afford to live here. If he ever proposed, he should have had a damn ring—Darcy’d probably want something low profile, just a recycled gold band, or—
He shouldn’t have said anything at the zoo. She hated the zoo.
After he gave the speech, he’d find Mrs. Park and ask her to put together a formal job listing. No, he’d offer to draft the job listing, save her the time.
Maybe he should offer to stay down at his condo for a few days to give Darcy her space.
He could hire an independent appraiser for his mother’s art to know whether Nora’s valuations were legitimate. How would he find an appraiser?
His thoughts tumbled like socks in the dryer, and he didn’t immediately realize Sloane was speaking. She had both hands on his arm, leaning in to him with her big blue eyes wide and excited.
“You need to go unfuck the situation. Find her and take her home. No, take her out some place she’d actually like, like, um, a boat or something. Maybe a forest? I’ll cover for you.”
“No, I’ve got it,” he said. He couldn’t throw Sloane to the wolves like that.
“I can chat up all the donors,” Sloane insisted. “I’ve gotten a lot of pledges this week, and this guy over here said his firm could commit ten thousand dollars.” She nodded at the lawyer, whose gaze skittered away from Teagan’s suspicious frown.
Of course he’d talked about a pledge. He probably wanted Sloane to talk about it more over dinner at the Lower East Side crash pad where he lured his other barely legal girlfriends.
“I’ve got it,” Teagan repeated. “In fact, maybe you should just go home now.”
Sloane scoffed. “It’s not even eight o’clock yet. I have like, ten other people Rose said I should talk to left on my list.”
“Don’t do that,” Teagan said. “Don’t talk to anyone. They’re all going to ask about the art sale, and I need to keep the messaging consistent.”
“What am I even doing here if you don’t want me to talk to anyone?” Sloane asked, waving her hands in the air.
Teagan checked his phone for the fiftieth time, just to see whether he’d missed any messages from Darcy, even though he had the volume turned on. Nothing.
“I don’t know what you’re doing here, when you should be back in Claremont finishing college in something, in anything! Any major. Just pick one,” he snapped at Sloane when he realized that she was waiting for a response. “But instead, you’re here at the zoo, because I worry about you passed out in the alley behind some bar orworseif I don’t know exactly where you are.”
Sloane sharply inhaled. “You know exactly why I’m here,” she said, shooting her eyes at Nora, who wasn’t paying any attention to them. “And I amtryingto help.”
“There’s nothing you can do for me,” Teagan gritted out. He’d gotten to this position by not thinking things through, but how could he think when his brain was misfiring like a 1980s BMW with a hundred thousand miles on it? “Go home.Why don’t you just get your own act together so that I don’t have to worry about you on top of everything else for once? I can barely handle my own bullshit tonight,” he said, using the sharpest tone of voice he’d ever employed with his sister.
Her face crumpled.
He felt it like a punch in the gut, the immediate regret. Here he was stone-cold sober, and he’d said more things he wished he could take back tonight than his mother had ever done while drinking.
Sloane scraped herself to her feet, moving with jerky dignity.
“You’re so stupid, Teagan, you don’t even know you need the help. No wonder she said no,” she said, voice watery.
