Page 81 of Neat
“Are you deaf, son? Did you not just hear me?”
“I did,” I assured him, shaking my head — because it didn’t make sense. Patrick Scooter didn’t go back on his decisions, especially once he’d announced them to the entire town. “I’m sorry, sir. I guess I’m just a little confused.”
“Yes, well, that makes two of us,” he murmured, standing. Apparently, the conversation was done. “Anyway, we’ve got about a month before I’m trading in this name tag for a life of golfing and fishing. So, we have work to do. Have Joseph take your tours today. I want you to figure out a transition plan, and then set up time for us to train.”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded, but before he could make his way out the door, I called after him.
“Mac?”
“Hmm?”
I swallowed. “What does this mean for Mallory? I mean… is she… is she taking my spot, or?”
Mac shrugged. “Apparently, she’s not working here at all anymore. Once she found out we were giving you the position, Patrick said she quit. And is selling her studio, too, I guess. Said she’s done with this town, that she’s leaving and never coming back.” He shook his head. “I’ll never understand that niece of mine. Go through all that trouble to buy and build a studio, have a grand opening, just to shut it down a week later?” He scoffed. “This is why women shouldn’t run businesses. Too emotional, you know?”
I kept my mouth shut, offering him an awkward smile and a nod before he let himself out of my office. When I was alone again, I blew out a breath, mind racing as I tried to piece it all together.
Patrick Scooter would never go back on a decision he’d made. Never. Not without there being averygood reason.
And Mallory wouldn’t give up her studio — not after all she’d done to bring that dream to life.
Something was off. Something was wrong.
I put anout of officeemail up before I stood, swiping my jacket off the back of my chair and practically running back out to my truck. Mac wouldn’t miss me for a day, not if this really was the new direction we were going. Hell, I could make a transition and training plan in an hour.
And I needed to find out what the hell was going on.
I needed to findher.
If what Mac said was true, and the studio was being sold, I didn’t have a clue where to find her. That was her place — her home, her getaway, her sanctuary. I didn’t know where to even start, aside from hunting down her best friend, Chris. Maybe he’d tell me where she was.
Then again, maybe he’d spit in my face. After the way I’d talked to Mallory, I deserved it.
My stomach twisted into a tight knot as I threw my truck in drive and peeled out of the parking lot, wondering what had happened, what Mallory’s father had done.
Suddenly, the only thing that mattered was making sure she was safe.
And finding her before she left Stratford — andme— forever.
Mallory
Crying was disgusting.
I remembered now why I had avoided it at all costs during my adult life. I was snotting all over myself, my eyes were red and puffy, lashes wet and clouding my vision as I added in the final details to the painting I’d been working on all day. I kept wiping my nose on the back of my wrist because I was too engrossed in what I was creating to get up and get a tissue, and besides, what did it matter? I was alone in the half-empty studio that would soon be completely bare again, just like I’d found it, and then auctioned off to the highest bidder.
I knew I looked like a complete wreck in my baggy black sweatpants and oversized Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, my hair piled on top of my head, and now, an ugly cry face, too. At least I hadn’t bothered to put on makeup, so there was no scary mascara streaking down my face.
Again, not that it mattered, since I was very,veryalone.
It was, perhaps, the loneliest I’d felt in my entire life, sitting in that studio with my hands creating art in an attempt to remind myself there was something worth breathing for. And as another wave of tears hit me, my face twisting with the gut-wrenching arrival of them, I tried to pinpoint what had set them into motion — but I couldn’t.
It had all hit me at once.
I’d been holed up in my room upstairs all morning,notpacking — though I should have been, and reading the end ofAll the Light We Cannot See, instead. Maybe it was because I wanted to escape my new reality. Or maybe it was because I wanted to feel some sort of tie to Logan again — no matter how small.
Regardless, when I finished, I closed the book, stared at the wall, blinked several times, and then, I sobbed.
