Page 80 of Do It With Me

CHAPTER 35

ELLORA

As I flipped the Closed sign on the door, it felt like I was lowering my mother into the ground all over again. There was a finality to it. The soft jingle of the bell as the door clicked shut behind me made my throat burn and my eyes sting.

After everything I’d been through, all I wanted now was to sleep for three weeks, but the staircase was lined with the last of my boxes, the rest of my inventory in a storage facility I couldn’t afford to pay for.

“You’ll be okay.” Bree gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze, sighing as she looked at the closed door in front of us. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but that empty space in there wasn’t the store. You’re the store, babe. The heart of it, anyway. Wherever you go from here, it’ll just get better.”

I inhaled a deep breath of air that no longer smelled like freshly baked goods and shook my head. “I don’t even know if I’m going anywhere at all. I’ll have to sell all the stock, but I might just try to do it online.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” She paused for a beat before she motioned at the boxes. “Can I help you carry those to the car?”

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine. You’re here for moral support, not physical labor.”

She chuckled. “I could use the workout. Studying for my exams has eaten away at my time for everything else, including exercise. Come on, let’s do this.”

I nodded, but I couldn’t get another word out. My chest ached like I’d been holding my breath for weeks, and maybe I had. It wasn’t even about the store anymore. It was what it stood for. The life I’d built with my mom, the laughter that used to fill this place, and all the dreams we’d had for it.

Now it was gone, just like her, and I was barely able to stop myself from coming apart at the seams. Deep down, I knew I would get through this, even if only because I had to, but right now, I felt completely and utterly defeated.

I had nothing left. No mom. No business. No boyfriend.

If I could afford to, I would have hopped on the first flight out of the city and go wherever the plane was flying. Preferably a tropical island where I could live out the rest of my days sleeping on the beach and drinking cocktails out of overripe fruit.

“I’m proud of you, you know,” Bree said softly, sliding an arm around my shoulders and giving me a squeeze. “You made something beautiful here. Even if this chapter is over, it mattered. It will matter again when you rebuild, and you will rebuild. I know it.”

That did me in. Tears welled on my eyelids and I pressed my palms against them like that might hold them back. “I just wish I didn’t feel like I failed her.”

“You didn’t,” she said, her voice suddenly fierce and sure. “You did not fail her, Ellora Kinney. You kept the store alive as long as you could. It’s not your fault that your landlord sold the building or that it’s being torn down.”

“Maybe not, but I can’t help but feel like this wouldn’t have been happening if I’d just worked harder.”

“That’s bulldust and you know it,” she said firmly. “This development has been in the works since before you even met Holden. Nothing you could’ve done would’ve stopped it. You could’ve been the most successful business on this block and he still would’ve earmarked it for his project.”

A harsh scoff came out of me, completely unintended. “I still can’t believe it’s him. I’ve never felt so stupid in my life. How did I miss it? How did he blindside me so completely?”

I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window at the end of the hall and it startled me. I looked like hell, my eyes puffy, my hair a mess, and that gaunt, hollowed-out kind of tired skin that no nap could fix.

Bree took my face in her hands and turned me toward her, those bright blue eyes strict and filled with a confidence I no longer felt. “Everyone missed it. Hell, even Holden fucking missed it. You’re not stupid. You just got caught off guard. It happens to all of us sometimes. Now let’s go. Things aren’t going to change just because we’re standing here, moping about it.”

A short bark of laughter escaped me. “Yes, ma’am. You’re not wrong.”

I didn’t feel any better, but somewhere within, her words had sparked something to life. I just had to figure out what it was.

As we turned toward the stairs, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t even want to check it. It was probably another legal notice, another reminder of everything I was losing. I pulled it out of my pocket anyway, refusing to hide from reality just to stress myself out even more while I wondered what it was about.

When I saw the text on my screen, my breath caught. It wasn’t another notice, but it was a reminder of something I’d lost, alright. Although I wasn’t sure I could’ve lost it when I wasn’t convinced I had it in the first place. Even so, I clicked into the text and quickly scanned it.

Holden: Please come to tonight’s class. You’ll want to see this lesson.

For a second, I just stared at it. What the hell does that mean?

I didn’t owe him anything. Not after what he’d done, but my thumb hovered over the screen longer than I wanted to admit. No matter how much I hated it, how much I wanted to hate him, my heart still skipped at the sight of his name. I still wanted to believe that somehow, some way, he was the man I’d thought he was.

In the absence of that certainty, however, I became angrier and angrier the longer I stared at my phone. How dare he text me like this?

As if he hadn’t wrecked my life and walked away with an oops and a shrug. I wanted to tell him to go to hell, to lose my number, and to choke on his own charm, but I’d paid a lot of money for that course and the curiosity was worse than the anger.