I had a lot to be thankful for.
Even if I had much more to be pissed off or depressed about. But since there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that right now—save for the hours of searching online at night—I had to try to focus on the good.
That was practically a mantra from my grandmother growing up:You’ve gotta focus on the good stuff, Lu. It makes the bad more tolerable.
I wasn’t sure I ever appreciated while she was alive just how right she was about everything. If she was around right now, she’d be reminding me that this motel room was nicer than her first apartment, that she survived living there with three young kids for years with no air conditioning and a husband who was never around because he worked nearly around the clock to raise them out of that life. And that, after a few years, they finally bought themselves a sweet little home that was all theirs. She would tell me how every morning she woke up in a home that belonged to her, she was thankful for the struggle that got her there.
I hoped I could be thankful for the struggle one day. When I was on the other side of this whole situation.
Because of the hard work of my grandparents, I hadn’t known any kind of real poverty in my life. They’d lifted up our family for generations. I’d also been on an upward path myself until a month or so ago. I fully planned to get myself back there again.
“It’s a temporary setback,” I said, glancing at my reflection in the window as I moved to sit down at my desk and opened my laptop.
I didn’t really even know what I was looking for anymore, but I refused to sit around and drive myself crazy with my own thoughts. I had to do something.
The last club I had was back on the outskirts of Golden Glades. The trail had gone cold by the time I got there. I was hoping that maybe looking at things with fresh eyes might help me find something I’d missed when I was in the thick of it, when I was full of hope and rage.
But a few hours later, I hadn’t made any kind of meaningful progress.
“Ugh,” I grumbled, slamming my laptop lid, then wincing and carefully placing my hand on it. I had to be gentler with my things. It wasn’t like I could easily replace them now.
It was also why I packed up my laptop, tablet, and phone and shoved them in my largest purse.
As a whole, I trusted that no one was going to break into my room. But I wasn’t taking chances with my electronics.
I carefully applied my makeup, slicked back my hair, and slid into a simple beige wrap dress and heels.
I had precious little of my signature scent left, with no ability to buy it again, so I’d sprayed some of it into unscented lotion that I carefully placed at my pulse points.
Feeling at least somewhat like myself, I made my way out of the hotel and drove back down the dirt road toward the main drag, where I parked and acted like I hadn’t just come from a motel, but my nice old apartment.
I liked working nights at the pub. Because I lived alone and didn’t have much of a friend group, it felt good to be around people at work.
Typically, I spent hours poring over the receipts from the night before and the income from Cillian’s other ventures, then worked to mesh them all together in a way that no forensic audit from the government could ever pull apart.
It was painstaking, exacting work, and just what my mind and spirit needed to distract me from everything else for a few hours.
It was amazing how loose my shoulders and jaw felt when I finally looked up from the books from the night before.
I dropped them off in Cillian’s office, then grabbed a to-go coffee cup from the kitchen and filled it to the brim from the pot to store in my fridge to make myself some iced coffee in the morning.
One little thing to be grateful for: great, free coffee to start my next day with.
For the first time since coming back to Shady Valley, I was breathing a little easier as I made my way back to the motel.
I was even humming a little as I unlocked my door, thinking of how nice it was going to be to take a little walk, sipping my iced coffee, enjoying some free exercise before the town heated up too much.
Another thing to be grateful for.
But I stepped into my room and flicked on the light.
Then nearly leapt out of my skin.
Because I wasn’t alone.
Oh, no.
Raff was sitting on the desk chair, legs out, ankles crossed, fingers laced and placed on his stomach, looking perfectly at ease. And like he’d been there for a good, long while.
