Page 11 of Off the Mark
“Nothing, we’re all good,” I lied. I scooped up my phone and notebook and hoped the expression on my face wasn’t something likeoh shit, we’re fucked. “I’ve got a meeting anyway—”
A loud pounding on the office window had both of us jumping.
It was Eddie, banging away and pointing at the tree in the front of our building. Dean cursed under his breath, then pulled the window open. Eddie grew up across the street from us—he was in his seventies, Italian-American like so many folks in this neighborhood, and basically my and Dean’s shared adoptive uncle.
I’d hired him as a consultant to help Dean with the food program—the same one that was going to get cut thanks to the email sitting like a bomb in my inbox.
“Jesus, Eddie,” Dean said, “how many times we gotta tell you to use the front door when you want to get our attention?”
Eddie shrugged, drawing on his cigarette. “Not my fault I was walking in and spotted a kitten in the tree.”
“A…a what?” I strode over to the window and peered out, only to see a tiny bundle of orange, fluffy fur, shaking and crying. “Well, you don’t see that every day. Looks like we’ve got a kitten trapped in a tree, fellas.”
“Yeah, you wanna save it or what?” Eddie asked.
“I don’t know, is Pam in need of a sibling?”
I was mostly joking, but Eddie’s smile was too sincere. Two years ago, he’d started feeding a feral cat he’d named Pam, building her an elaborate housing contraption on his sidewalk. But she finally moved inside, and the times I’d been over there she was never not in his lap.
“She does need a sibling,” he said, stubbing his cigarette out beneath his foot. “How’d ya know?”
I shot a look over at Dean, who was trying not to smile.
“You heard the man,” he said. “Are we saving Pam’s sibling or not?”
The day was already veering off course. Might as well give in and accept it.
I clapped my hands together. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last forty-eight hours, it’s that an interim executive director’s job is never done. Let’s go rescue a kitten from the only tree on this block.”
5
CHARLIE
Iparked my truck and shut off the engine, gazing through the front window at the narrow street. According to my phone, I was two blocks from where Rowan had mentioned he was working the last time we’d exchanged casual text messages. I’d just won my first X Games and he’d sent a goofy picture of himself raising a drink:I just saw you kick major ass on ESPN. Congrats—I knew you could do it, Maddox.
From the look of it, he’d been at some crowded neighborhood bar—a baseball game on the mounted TV, people on barstools with empty glasses nearby. It had been so like the bar where I’d worked—and he’d swaggered in most nights—that I’d fired back my usual sarcasm.
Sorry, that must have been another smokin’ hot blonde with incredible riding skills.
To which he’d replied:But I only know one smokin’ hot blonde with incredible riding skills. That’s you.
Two years had gone by since then. Which made this harebrained scheme of mine evenmorestupid. He could be working someplace else now. He could have moved out of Philly.
Rowan could be dating someone for real.Seriouslydating them.
I climbed out of my truck, striding confidently toward the rec center. I didn’tactuallycare if Rowan O’Callaghan was dating.
But my morning had started with a terse call from Dempsey. Her attempts at getting in to meet with the Bettencourt reps had all failed. The last formal communication we’d received had been the email in her inbox, threatening to terminate my contract due to my “public image.”
I picked up my pace, passing connected brick row homes, a corner store, and a tiny park.Image, my ass. I was an extreme athlete by training and fearless by birth. That made me damn sure I could ask an old friend for a big favor, even if it was a little…on the awkward side.
And entirely out of the blue.
For as many times as I’d been the sole witness to Rowan’s smooth flirting while I was mixing drinks, I’d also seen plenty of women openly hit on him with about as much social grace as a newborn giraffe.
He’d never been anything but kind in response, so why I was hyper-focusing on his reaction I had no idea—
My phone jangled in my pocket, stopping me in my tracks. A video call from my dad.
