Claire’s hands balled into fists. “You know how important this proposal is to me. And you know we only have two weeks left to get everything perfect. If I can’t pull this off, the West Coast branch of Happily Ever Afters will be dead. It’ll be almost impossible for me to support the shelter. Failure is not an option, Luke. The stakes are too high.”
A glass door swung open, and then they were back in the blinding sunshine. He set her down on her feet and stared at her, eyes stormy.
“You always think your work is more important than mine.” She sniped before he could say anything. “I would never pull you out of a meeting with a client.”
“That’s not true. And there’s more to life than work.”
Her face burned as she ripped her purse out of his hand and flung it over her shoulder. She opened her mouth, but Luke put up a hand to stop her. He cupped her cheek in his hand and stared into her eyes.
“You’re using work as a distraction. That’s your thing. But if you keep going at this pace, you’re going to kill yourself with stress. You need to make time in your life for other things. You’ve barely slept in days. I wake up six times a night expecting to find you rollerblading on the 405 with a burger from In-N-Out.”
Okay, so maybe she hadn’t considered the impact her stress had on him. Her face still burned, but it wasn’t from anger.
“And stop worrying so much. If something goes wrong, we’ll face it together. If you go bankrupt, we’ll deal with it. If the shelter goes under, we’ll adopt all the dogs and make our own. If ESA kidnaps you while you’re out at a top secret meeting at six in the morning, I’ll burn their headquarters down and save you myself. You’re not alone in this world. You have me, even when you’re being kind of an asshole. Do you understand?”
Claire’s lip quivered. She put her arms out, and he pulled her in.
“Also, stop fucking going places alone. We talked about this.”
“Mmph,” she mumbled into the crook of his arm. Enveloped by his arms and the steady thrum of his heartbeat, the ever-present storm in her mind quieted. But just a little.
CHAPTER THIRTY
To Do:
- Follow-up email to B
- Practice mindfulness
- Quote on LED rentals
“I can’t believehow bad you are at bowling,” Luke teased as they traipsed across the parking lot of Kingpin Bowling Alley.
“Hey!” Claire reached over and shoved him. He bounced off a rusty pickup truck. “I’m good at a lot of things. Sticking my fingers in dirty holes and hurling a ten-pound ball at some pins doesn’t happen to be one of them.”
“But you were like, sensationally bad. That might have been the worst game I’ve ever seen. I think they wanted to put you on the wall.”
“Good thing you got tons of footage of it.” She glared at him. He had barely put his camera down all day, from their trip to Griffith Observatory to Olvera Street to the bowling alley.
“I’m just documenting our trip.”
“Document this.” She flashed her middle finger at him.
He cracked a smile and turned the camera off. “One more stop, then I promise I’ll let you get back to work.”
“All right.” Claire slid into the passenger seat. As nice as this date day had been, Brad’s proposal hovered incessantly in the back of her mind like her own personal black cloud. There was so much to do. She still hadn’t heard back from two of the light vendors and?—
“Shit.” The seatbelt snapped back. She popped the door open and dropped to her knees.
Luke’s face appeared on the other side of the undercarriage. His smile faded. “Get in. I’ll do it.”
“I appreciate you.” She sat back in her seat and took thirty seconds to check her emails. Aha, one of the other vendors had come in lower and said she could pick up the supplies tomorrow. One thing could be crossed off the mile-long checklist.
Luke, apparently satisfied that the car was not boobytrapped, dropped heavily into his seat. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black silk eye mask.
“What’s this for?”
“I don’t want you to see where I’m taking you. I don’t want you to be able to find it alone.”