I’d found my Mate, fallen in love with her, and she didn’t believe me.
How could I convince her?
Chapter Fourteen
Jocelyn
When the helldid my suitcase get this heavy?
It’s not your suitcase, it’s your heart.
Huffing in irritation, I told myself to quit being so maudlin, and I slammed the trunk of my sedan. The parking garage was dimly lit, and I figured that was a good thing; I didn’t need anyone to see my tear tracks and stop to try to help.
The engine turned over on the first try, and I started getting weepy again, remembering how Brakkor had stepped in to fix it. He’d done so many nice things for me in the last few weeks…
Just trying to get into your pants.
Right. Well, it had worked. I was going to miss him being in my pants most of all.
No, that wasn’t true. I was going to miss his blunt sense of humor, which always caught me off guard, and the way he seemed to know what I needed before I needed it, or the way he helped me understand new ways of looking at problems?—
Then why did you leave him?
I squinted against the sunlight as I turned onto Main Street, telling myself I’d done the right thing in making the decision to leave. If I’d waited around, falling more and more in love with him, it would have hurt all that much worse when Brakkor decided he was bored with me.
Right.
And I wasn’t ever, ever going to let myself be hurt like that again. Even if walking out of his door had been the toughest thing I’d ever done, I was in a better place now, right?
Right. I pulled into a parking spot in front of Town Hall, deciding this was as good abetter placeas any I could be in, and reached for my laptop. The council meeting began in ninety minutes, so I needed to focus on my speech and my arguments.
I owed it to Mr. Frapp, and to the people of Eastshore, who had been so welcoming these last two weeks.
Part of me wondered if I would have stayed these last two weeks without Mr. Frapp’s offer. Or would I have headed back home to try to find a new dead-end job? I might not have any future here on Eastshore, but I’d done somethinggood, somethingright. I could visit Kesha and Milo and know I’d made their town a little nicer.
Assuming I could ace this presentation and convince the town council.
Of course, if not, if the Eastshore Lighthousedidn’thave a place to be moved to, it was possible Mr. Frapp would need me for longer?—
Don’t even think about it.
Yeah. I couldn’t purposefully torpedo this presentation on the tiny chance Mr. Frapp might continue to pay me until next month’s meeting…I still had to look at myself in the mirror each day, after all. And I couldn’t do that without trying my absolute best.
Heaving a huge sigh, I clicked through my presentation again.
Twenty minutes before the meeting, the parking lot began to fill up, but I sat in my car and tried to calm my nerves by seeing who I recognized. It was easier to be nervous about this presentation than sad about the long drive home I had ahead of me and the empty, stale apartment waiting back on the mainland.
And Brakkor.
Oh, there was Kesha and the boys! And Zoe from the library, and her Mate, carrying a little dog. I recognized Sakkara, and that must be his Mate and daughter walking beside him. There was Mr. Wilson from the hardware store, and Mrs. Edith, who made the best waffles, and two of the servers from Debbie’s Diner.
I resisted the urge to wave to everyone and instead just sat in my car, hands on my lap, thinking about this special community and how, just for a little time, I’d made myself a part of it.
Ten minutes before the meeting was supposed to start, a group of six or so orc males arrived, talking and laughing amongst themselves. I wondered if this was a group who worked together at the same construction company Brakkor?—
Then they parted, and I saw him. Brakkor walked with his head down, his hands in his pockets, looking…thoughtful? The other males clearly tried to include him, but he didn’t seem interested in joining their boisterous behavior.
You hurt him.
