Page 23 of Mr. Not Nice Guy

“Of course. We’ll see you soon, honey.”

“Thanks.”

Ending the call, I stow the phone in my purse and go back to the living room.

The sight of Maw-Maw causes my stomach to sink like a brick. The tremor is so violent that it’s causing her to forcefully rock back and forth in her chair. She looks like she could rock herself right out of it and onto the floor, and I dart from the hallway to crouch in front of her.

“Hey, Maw-Maw,” I say soothingly, holding her shoulders to steady her, “let me help you sit—”

Her hand flies toward me so quickly I don’t have time to duck, and a hot sting electrifies the left side of my face. It’s so startling that I topple backward and land on my ass on the floor in front of her.

“Keep your damn hands off me!” she screeches. “I’m calling the police!”

Lifting my hand to my face, I recoil at the searing sensation of what I know is a significant scratch either from her nails or the collection of rings she always wears.

“Maw-Maw,” I say with a quavering whimper in my throat. “It’s Scarlett. I’m your granddaughter. I love you, and everything’s okay.”

“My granddaughter ain’t no damn redhead!” she hollers, the words spitting through the air toward me. “She got purple hair, so you ain’t fooling me! I’m calling the police!”

“Okay,” I relent, inching away while still on the floor. “That’s okay. Everything’s okay, Maw-Maw. It’s all going to be okay.”

Lies.

This isn’t going to be okay, because she’s never going to get better.

My sweet little Maw-Maw will snap out of this momentarily—but that’ll be momentary, too. This is an unstoppable descent that’s going to continue to snowball until it takes her away from me forever. And then I’ll be alone—and I need to accept that.

7

August

“Hey, August,” Liza says, poking her head out of her office just as I approach my desk to sit down and deal with bumping the whole schedule for the week since Scarlett decided to blow off her task for the day. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Her tone isodd, and I curb the urge to make a bewildered expression. “Sure.”

Stepping away from the desk, I approach her office, and she holds open the door as I enter, then closes it behind us, which isweird. I’ve never had a closed-door meeting with her before, and I don’t know if this is work-related or not.

Liza takes her seat behind the desk, and I sit in the chair in front of it.

“Um,” she begins, drumming her fingertips on her chin, her eyes drifting like she’s apprehensive, and I’ve seen her take on this posture before.

It was ten years ago, and we’d been dating for a year and a half. I was ready to propose to her, but needed to test the waters of her emotional state before I went out on a limb like that.

“So, when did you say your lease was up?”I’d asked her while we sat snuggled up on my couch one Saturday night. Her head was nestled against the side of my neck, and the scent of summer flowers and citrus was so potent in her hair that I couldn’t quell the urge to kiss her temple.

“Sometime in April,”she’d answered, slipping her hand under my thigh like she always did to warm her hands, which had a tendency to get cold often.“I think mid-month or so.”

“You think you’ll renew it, or are you going to try to find a new place?”

She gave a subtle shift of her shoulder against my chest in a partial shrug.“It’s a decent enough place. The location’s all right. I might as well stay put.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, then paused cautiously.“Mine’s actually up in March. And I’ve been here for a few years already, so I was thinking about upgrading.”I paused again.“And I was thinking maybe you and I could look into getting a place together.”

“Oh.”Then she went silent for an awkward stretch of seconds.“Um.” She pushed away from me to sit up straight and put a little distance between us on the small couch. Andthen, she drummed her fingers on her chin and drifted her eyes.“I don’t know, August. I’m not sure it would be a good idea to lock us both into a lease together. I’m not sure how long I’m planning to stay in the City, and I’d hate to leave you with a huge rent.”

I nodded sagely, and she wouldn’t look at me, and that was such a blatant shut-down that I couldn’t really look at her either. “Yeah,that might be a challenge.”Another awkward pause.“So, you still think you want to go back to Austin eventually?”

She offered a haphazard nod.“Yeah, I never planned to stay in New York forever.”

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