Page 23 of Heart Strings & Hotlines
“What is ‘tone’ supposed to mean?” Thane is staring directly at me, and guilt settles on my shoulders.
“Well, we had a meeting—I mean, I was delivering the mail, and they all, uh, came for coffee, you see.” Mr. Abboud walks to Thane with his hand outstretched. “I’m Leroy Abboud, you’ll see a lot of me ’cause I deliver your mail. Anyway, we were just talking about that real sad event of yesterday and how worried we were.”
“Mr. Abboud, please,” I plead, but he talks right over me as Boone walks in. My office was built for one person, and the old air conditioner in the corner can’t keep up with this many bodies.
“Thane, nice to meet you. I’m ready to walk through your property whenever you are.” Boone holds his hand out to Thane, but Thane isn’t paying attention, and the group talks as though Boone isn’t standing in the middle of the room with his hand out.
I toss him an apologetic shrug, and he lowers his arm to his side.
“Then Tanner mentioned you were real grumpy this morning, and Lottie told us ya weren’t rude, you just don’t hear tone same as us.”
Thane tugs on the collar of his white button-down.
“Oh, boy,” Rafe chuckles.
Thane turns on him and points at his face. “What? What’s going on here?”
“I’m laughing, Thane. That generally means something’s funny. I know you understand that one.” Rafe is wearing a giant grin.
“We thought a trigger word would be good for you.” Mrs. Carver is so proud of herself, she’s nearly doubled in size. “We’ve already alerted the town that if you’re behaving rudely, to kindly remind you by saying the word tone.”
“Okay.” Rafe finally wipes the smile from his face and commands everyone’s attention. “I can see the intentions here were kindhearted, and it is a wonderful idea, but it’s also problematic for a number of reasons. You can’t assign therapies such as this without understanding the underlying issues.”
“Are you some sort of head shrinker?” Mr. Carver asks.
Rafe takes it in stride. “I’m an occupational therapist.”
“And you’re here helping Thane. We heard that from that little girl next door.” Mrs. Perez nods matter-of-factly. “She answered the door when I went to pick up Hercules.”
“Kara is Thane’s little sister,” I say.
Through all of this, I don’t take my gaze off Thane. He’s watching this madness unfold as the town gossip council discusses him, but he never inserts himself into the conversation.
For some reason, that pisses me off.
“Okay, time out. We do not need to stand here talking about Thane as if he’s a science experiment. He’s a normal man, with normal thoughts, and it’s actually incredibly rude of all of us to speak about him when he’s standing right here. Perhaps I should be the one shoutingtone.”
Thane’s green eyes become laser-focused…on me.
“Why did you do that?” His rich, husky voice wraps me in warmth.
“Because that’s what friends do. We stand up for one another.”
“Are we?” His lips curl at the corners, and I blink feverishly at what I’m seeing. Almost-smiling Thane is a sight to behold.
“Are we what?” I swear every head in this room zooms back and forth, watching our interaction as though we’re in the finals of the ping-pong Olympics.
“Friends.” He rumbles with the word.
“Yes, sort of. We’re…complicated.”
His smile broadens. Twice in one day might be a record, or so I’ve heard.
“Let’s get back on track, shall we?” Rafe takes control of the room. “Going around shouting ‘tone’ at Thane wouldn’t be helpful unless someone also explained why the tone was problematic. That’s why we do this kind of work in a clinic.”
“Won’t I learn faster in real-time?” Thane asks, shocking at least me, but maybe Rafe too.
“Possibly.” Rafe conveys mountains full of skepticism in that one word.
