“What about this one?” Teagan asked, spinning his laptop screen around toward Darcy.
Darcy flexed her stomach muscles to sit up and see it.
She was drinking her coffee at his desk while watching a movie on her phone, her boots resting on a stack of loose correspondence. He’d given her a mild look of reproof but said nothing, probably in consideration of the many improvements she’d made to his office that week.
Her first step had been to take out the big white dupioni silk curtains. They’d been ugly and collecting dust, and now the morning light streamed into Teagan’s office. Then she’d swapped the uncomfortable plastic seating for the pair of upholstered armchairs going unused in a corner by the women’s restroom. Finally, she’d put the bar cart out on the curb and requisitioned a mini-fridge to store sodas in.
It was harder than she’d imagined to keep busy. She’d been through the full backlist of Sober Sam episodes, and new ones only dropped once a week. She was caught up with her reading for class. She’d identified every alcohol-serving establishment north of 14th Street.
For the first time in her life, Darcy didn’t have anything to do. Or rather, she didn’t know what to do, specifically. She was supposed to be supporting Teagan in his sobriety, but she was at a loss for what else she might do on that account. She was beginning to wish she’d read the manual on this first, because as the days went by, the tight set of Teagan’s mouth only seemed to worsen.
She’d promised she’d help him, but she wasn’t sure that’s what she was doing anymore.
Darcy took out her earbuds to focus on his computer screen.
It was a job listing for the New York State Parks Department. She squinted at the title: park manager, bear mountain state park. She thought, anyway. Below it was an impenetrable block of text. She gritted her teeth and tried to parse it, hanging up on the second sentence.
“They want a bachelor’s degree,” she said, looking away from the screen.
“Or equivalent experience,” Teagan corrected her.
Teagan spun the computer back around and began to read out loud.
“Primary duties include managing operations of park facilities, communicating with other park branches, managing park maintenance, educating park visitors, reviewing reports of operations—”
“Are you actually working this morning, or are you just looking at jobs I’m not qualified for?” Darcy interrupted him. She expected him to back off at the suggestion he was slacking on the clock, but he dug in.
“Isn’t that the kind of job you want?” he asked.
“I wanted to be a park ranger.”
“I think the person in this job does everything a park ranger does, and look, it pays more—”
Darcy scoffed. “Yeah, because they also want you to do a bunch of other stuff.”
“So why couldn’t you do this one?” he asked.
“I can’t do a single one of those things you just read,” she said.
“What do you mean? Operations? Education? Maintenance? You could do all of that. You were doing all of that in Montana,” Teagan insisted.
“Not for that kind of job,” Darcy said. “There’s probably tons of paperwork. Admin. Fifty different monthly reports. No.”
Teagan frowned down at the screen.
Darcy put her headphones back in, hoping that was the end of it.
“Darcy . . .” Teagan unexpectedly spoke again, his voice very hesitant. “Even if you can’t read the reports, I bet they could—”
Darcy sat bolt upright, sliding her feet off Teagan’s desk and sending papers fluttering to the floor. She pulled out her earbuds and tossed them back in her purse.
“Of course I can read,” Darcy snapped. “When did I ever say I can’t read?”
Teagan didn’t respond, big hazel eyes wide and watchful.
She grimaced. She hadn’t realized that he’d noticed anything. But of course he wouldn’t have said anything at the time, because Teagan was unfailingly kind, and now she’d bitten his head off.
Of course he’d noticed. It wasn’t like Teagan wouldn’t notice the same issues that had caused her to fail half a dozen college courses, doomed her Navy career, and gotten her demoted from wilderness educator to handyman at Rachel’s wellness retreat.
Teagan’s face was nothing but concerned for her.
What a jerk—it made it impossible to argue with him when he just wouldn’t fight.
“It’s not that I can’t read.”
“Okay,” he said gently.
He didn’t even ask what the problem was. He’d sit there waiting all afternoon, and he’d never ask. How was she expected to stomp off if he didn’t give her an opening to do that?
Fuck. She was just going to have to talk about it.
She wrinkled her nose at her coffee.
“I can’t read very fast,” she amended in what she hoped was a calmer tone. “Writing’s a bigger problem, actually. I could probably handle reading the reports, if they were the same stuff every week. But I can’t write anything unless the software has spellcheck and will read it back to me.”
Rachel had demanded a written agenda for Darcy’s proposed educational hikes. On fancy paper, so it could be pinned to the corkboard at breakfast and fit with the desired aesthetic. Darcy’s big mistake had been trying to do it by hand. But all her spelling mistakes had convinced Rachel that Darcy couldn’t possibly be an authority on the actual content she’d planned to deliver, and her exciting job opportunity in wilderness therapy had turned into nothing but manual labor.
“You’re dyslexic?” Teagan asked.
“Yeah, I mean, I assume so,” Darcy said uncomfortably. She’d never said that out loud before. Mostly because nobody had asked, and she’d kept her own conclusions to herself.
“You never got tested for it?”
She shook her head. “My mom kept moving us all up and down the West Coast, a new school every time she broke up with a boyfriend or got evicted, so I was never in any one school long enough for anyone to notice.”
By the time she’d made it to high school, she’d figured out how to cope. There had been audio versions of all the textbooks in the library for the students with low vision. Her English scores were never great, but she’d kept up her GPA with math and science electives.
Her grades had been good enough to get into college, but when her professors stopped working from textbooks and started assigning handouts and journal articles, she just hadn’t been able to work fast enough.
“But lots of people are dyslexic, in any job you can think of. And especially for a government job, you’d think they’d accommodate you, get you whatever software you need—”
Darcy forced herself to remain calm. He meant well. He had no idea what the real world was like, having never lived there.
In the real world, nobody helps you. If you can’t pass the test, you fail. If you’re bad at your job, you get fired.
“I’d rather just have a job I’m good at to start with,” she said.
“You’d be good at this job, Darcy. Someone else can handle the paperwork,” he insisted.
“It’s all theoretical, isn’t it? Because I don’t have equivalent experience, and I don’t have a degree,” she said.
“How many hours do you still need?” Teagan asked. “Maybe you could just say degree expected.”
“Twenty-eight.”
Teagan blinked a few times, no doubt doing the math about how long Darcy had been enrolled in college. She could have been a doctor after twelve years. Doctors went to school for less time than she had.
“Okay, but that’s—you could do that in one year, if you went full time,” he said.
Darcy twisted in her seat, feeling itchy and exposed. They were really playing the greatest hits of all her life’s failures this morning, weren’t they? Maybe he’d like to talk about her dating history next or ask why she hadn’t been promoted to petty officer second class.
“I’m only taking four hours right now,” she said. “I tried to take eight this summer, but I failed one of my classes, and if I fail another one, I can’t graduate in my major.”
A wrinkle formed between Teagan’s eyebrows.
“You should take more than four hours. You could take a full course load right now. What can I do? I could take dictation. Or record your course materials for you.”
Darcy laughed and looked down at the ground. He sounded so sincere. He probably meant it, even. He would probably make her all sorts of promises if she let him. She couldn’t let him, she reminded herself.
When this inevitably ended, one of the things she wanted to remember about this was that Teagan hadn’t ever broken any promises to her. Or it could get even worse, if he kept them, and he didn’t want to. It was going to hurt like a shipwreck when she had to leave anyway, she could see that already, but she never wanted to be one more thing Teagan felt trapped into taking care of. He had too many of those things in his life already, and she didn’t want to be here when he stopped looking at her like she had all the answers and started seeing her for the trash fire she usually was.
“Thanks. But exams are in December, and I probably won’t be here,” she said.
Teagan did that little jerk backward that he did whenever Darcy mentioned her departure date, like she’d called him a name. Whatever progress they’d made in the month she’d been in New York, it hadn’t convinced him that he’d be just fine without Darcy here to help him.
His mouth flexed as he worked on a response.
“But you might be,” he said slowly. “If you had a job here.”
Darcy scrunched up her nose in reluctant assent. “I haven’t applied to any jobs here. I haven’t even heard from anywhere in Yellowstone yet.”
“I’m working on that,” he immediately said.
That was too close to a promise for her liking, and Darcy instinctively tightened her shoulders.
“You can’t pimp me out to your drinking buddies as a sober companion,” she warned him.
“My . . . okay, sure. No drinking buddies.”
“And I’m not working at an art camp. I can’t draw.”
“Okay,” he agreed again. “Only things in your field, I promise.”
Even though she’d done all but bite his head off this morning, Teagan gave her a slow smile, sweet and encouraging.
Darcy felt her face suffusing with blood, and she put her feet back on his desk so that he couldn’t see her expression.
It was like a whole spoonful of sugar sliding into her cup, his confidence that she’d finish her degree and land the kind of job she’d wanted since she was eighteen, repeated failures to do that notwithstanding. It hit her right in her feelings, when she should have dodged.
Darcy bent over her phone to hide more, tempted to wrap her arms around the emotion and catch it for later study.
She knew better than this. Disappointment always hurt worse than brutal honesty would have.
Darcy heard him start typing.
“If you get an interview with the New York parks department, I’ll help you practice questions about what you’d actually be doing day-to-day,” he said.
“You’re seriously putting in an application with the bear place?” she asked.
“Yes?”
He looked at her with mild challenge over the rim of the computer. Darcy had that teetering-on-the-edge sensation again. Experience counseled that this was a trap, and she’d end up mopping staterooms on the way to Diego Garcia.
It was a nice daydream though. Being in charge of some little state park. Coming out of her own office to meet school buses full of cabin-feverish kids who’d listen to ten minutes of bear facts before sprinting for the rocks.
Was Teagan imagining it too? Was he able to imagine a life where he was sober and unafraid, with Darcy still in it? If so, could he please tell her how that worked? Could he read the manual to her?
“Suit yourself,” she said, trying to play it off like it wasn’t something she wanted, because wanting things very rarely had anything to do with having them.
“I will,” Teagan said, undeterred.
Darcy braced her feet on the floor, wishing she ever knew what was happening in her life more than a few days in advance. He didn’t say anything else though, and the reeling sensation had faded by the time that someone knocked a few minutes later.
Rose opened the cracked door and peered into the room.
Darcy eyed her clothing with interest: a jewel-toned sheath dress, small pearl earrings, high block heels. Rose had one of those figures that was as hard as Darcy’s to dress professionally—lots of chest, lots of hips and stomach—yet she always looked like she was ready to present the nightly news, not a hair out of place. It was easier for Darcy to imagine herself dressed like that than poufy and feminine like Sloane.
“Nora’s here,” Rose said, one accusatory eyebrow delicately arched. “With a guy from Sotheby’s. She said they want to inventory the whole collection, everything not out on loan.”
“What?” Teagan said, face stating that this was an unpleasant surprise.
“Was this on your calendar?” Rose asked.
“No. Was it on yours?” Teagan said.
“No.”
Teagan gave her a stern look.
“No!” Rose reiterated, tossing her small pink hands in the air. “No, Teagan, I am not scheduling meetings with our directors behind your back.”
“I didn’t say you were,” Teagan said, and the two of them stared off like rival alley cats.
“Do you want me to come to the meeting?” Rose asked.
“No, I’ll handle it,” Teagan said, standing up and pulling his jacket off the back of his chair. He took a red tie out of his desk drawer and began rolling it on.
Rose made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat and spun on her heel, stalking off.
“You know, if you think she’s out to get you, you probably need to fire her before she starts setting leg traps in the hall,” Darcy said. She wasn’t sure the other woman really was out to get Teagan though. It seemed like Rose might consider that beneath her dignity.
“I can’t fire her. Nora likes her. Besides, she’s not required to like me,” Teagan said.
He paused in the doorway on his way out of his office, visibly gathering his courage. Darcy didn’t know what could really go terribly wrong in a high-rise conference room, but Teagan’s face said that he was contemplating several different disaster scenarios.
“Hey,” Darcy said. “Do you want me to come to the meeting?” Her hands itched to wrap themselves around Teagan’s chest, but this was the middle of the workplace, and she thought he might consider that inappropriate.
He shook his head. “I’ll handle it,” he said again. Then he left.
Darcy waited alone in Teagan’s office for a few minutes afterward, but she found that she was unable to concentrate on her movie. So she got up and wandered out to the lobby.
She wasn’t surprised to see Rose pacing there, nor Adrian, Nora’s redheaded artist fiancé. But she was surprised to see them speaking with each other—she supposed they knew each other through the foundation. Adrian was pretending to leaf through a glossy home design magazine as Rose vented to him.
“I will get with the strategy—I don’t even care what the strategy is, just let’s have a strategy, you know?” Rose said, arms animated. Her high heels clicked on the tile as she turned in place.
Adrian grunted without much interest, but they both turned to look at Darcy as she entered the room. The receptionist was off bringing refreshments to the boardroom, and the lobby was otherwise empty.
Rose spun to focus on Darcy.
“What’s Teagan’s issue with selling the art?” she demanded. “We don’t have to sell anything that’s hanging at his house.”
“No, I think he’s fine with selling some of that stuff,” Darcy said, thinking of the titty painting in the living room.
“He won’t tell me what he’s willing to let go of,” Rose said, grimacing at the boardroom.
“Letting go is . . . not Teagan’s strong suit,” Darcy admitted.
Rose twisted her mouth in consternation. She took a step closer to Darcy and pitched her voice so as not to carry quite so far. “Is it just the issue with using Nora’s gallery? Because we could use an independent broker. We don’t have to let Nora do the sales.”
Darcy lifted her palms in supplication.
“Look, I don’t know—whatever you want to know. If Teagan ever told me, I overwrote the space with bird facts.”
Rose squinted at her suspiciously.
“Do you want me to find out?” Darcy asked. “Teagan’s not really the secret plan type.”
The other woman sighed. “We’re spending more on programs than we’re bringing in via donations or investments. So either we need to raise more money or Teagan’s going to eventually liquidate the endowment. And either would be fine with me. But it’s not fine with the board, which raises fiduciary concerns—”
“I don’t really know what any of those words mean,” Darcy said. “But I’m sorry? Or glad? Which is right?”
Adrian made a muffled noise like he’d stifled a laugh but snorted instead. Rose glared at him.
“I don’t suppose you know what the board wants to do about cash flow,” she said.
“No. I am also very careful not to pay attention when Nora’s talking business,” he said, perfect features unruffled.
Rose rubbed her face. “Where was I the day they were handing out rich partners?” she mumbled to herself. “I could have expensive hobbies. I could paint. I like birds.”
“It was your choice to study something frivolous like accounting,” Adrian said, delicately flipping through pages of antidepressant ads, eyes still on his magazine. “I knew I wanted the flexibility of a career as a kept woman when I got my MFA in studio art.”
Rose closed her eyes and tipped her head back. “That wasn’t a dig,” she groaned. Her eyes flicked to Darcy. “At either of you. I’m jealous, honestly.”
Darcy wondered whether she needed to reinforce that she wasn’t actually Teagan’s girlfriend. If Teagan did in fact settle into sobriety and thank her for her time at the end of three months, Darcy wanted the dignity of considering herself not dumped.
But there was a part of her—maybe not the best part, sure, but a new part—that preened at the idea that she’d secured the bag, that she had a life someone else wanted, that she had her shit together. Nobody had ever thought Darcy had her shit together.
“So, I am happy to talk about my career path as a sober companion,” she began to say, but the door to the interior conference room where Teagan had gone with Nora flew open so hard it banged into the opposite wall.
Teagan flew out of it, at a pace just short of a run, and ducked into the restroom a few steps away.
Adrian and Rose both looked at Darcy, their eyes rounded with alarm. This was apparently not expected behavior in the Van Zijl Foundation workplace.
Oh shit.
“Excuse me,” Darcy said brightly, trying to project the confidence of a person who definitely knew what was going on. “I’ll go handle that.”
I am not having a heart attack.
I am not having a heart attack.
Teagan repeated that to himself, even as every instinct shrieked that he was dying. Fear raced along every nerve at the speed of lightning, collecting in an aching pool in his chest. Everything was wrong. He was breathing wrong. His heart was beating wrong. He was going to fall, he was going to throw up, he was going to pass out.
He was not having a heart attack.
This would pass. He told himself things that he’d learned intellectually, even as the corner of his mind that could still think intellectually was overwhelmed by the animal core that could do nothing but fear and shriek of shame and danger. This would pass, because there wasn’t actually anything wrong with him, and this was all in his head.
Thank God there wasn’t anyone else in the bathroom. He leaned against the door, his entire body shaking.
This will pass. This is all in my head. This isn’t really happening.
“Teagan?” He heard Darcy’s voice through the bathroom door. She knocked. “Teagan? Are you okay?”
He was breathing too hard to answer. He couldn’t make his voice work. After another syrupy, painful ten seconds, she pushed against the door to open it. Teagan pushed back to keep it closed, then pushed the lock closed with trembling fingers.
“Jesus Christ!” Darcy snapped when she discovered that the door was now locked. “Teagan, tell me what’s going on.”
He managed to force out, “I’m fine.” He knew he didn’t sound fine. He probably hadn’t looked fine to anyone in the conference room. They were probably in there talking about it now, wondering what was wrong with him.
“Then open the door,” Darcy said.
Teagan stepped away from the door and turned on the nearest sink. Taking the handful of steps made his head swim.
It wasn’t carpeted over by the sink. If he fell, he might crack his head on the tile. Maybe he’d die in here anyway.
“Teagan,” Darcy said in a lower voice, speaking directly against the door frame. “I am not afraid to get out the fire axe and break this door down if you do not tell me right now what is happening. I’ll do it.”
He felt too unsteady on his feet to respond. Could he forget how to breathe? It felt like his body would no longer breathe without his conscious control. He gripped the counter, afraid that he would fall down.
His mother had done this. Been unable to walk, too many drinks into her evening. He’d come pick her up at a party or a restaurant, slip an arm around her waist, half carry her out. Sorry, she’s not feeling well, he’d say. Maybe some people had even believed him.
The lock on the door was the flimsy kind, just a button, no key. It rattled for a moment, and then the handle twisted as Darcy got the door open with a bobby pin.
Teagan got just a flash of the worry on her face before he ducked his own to hide it. He lifted his hands from the counter to scrub at his cheeks, but he needed them to hold himself upright, and he had to quickly grip the counter again.
“Oh my God, Teagan,” Darcy said, the fear in her voice sending a fresh bolt of shame through his stomach. She swept up against him, pulling at his tie to loosen it, fingers scrabbling for his pulse.
He got one hand free to ineffectually bat at hers.
“Stop,” he managed. “It’s not—it’s not a medical problem.”
Darcy ignored that. She pulled on his arm until they sank down to the bathroom floor, then got his tie all the way off and his shirt collar unbuttoned. Her fingers were solid and cold where they pressed against the pulse point in his neck.
“It’s too fast for me to count. I think—I think you’re having a heart attack,” she said, voice tightening until it sounded entirely un-Darcy-like. “I’m calling 911.”
Teagan grabbed for her wrist as she moved to get to her feet.
“It’s not a heart attack,” he said. “I know it’s not a heart attack. I saw a cardiologist.” He felt a little bit better on the floor. “Don’t call anyone. Please.”
“Then what’s happening?” she begged, distraught like he’d never seen her.
“Nothing. Nothing is actually happening. This is all in my head,” he said.
God, what would she make of that? He was on the filthy floor of the bathroom, hyperventilating as tears rolled down his cheeks, and the worst part was that nothing was happening to him.
“Did you take something?” she asked, voice only a little calmer.
He shook his head and nearly laughed. He wished he’d taken something, like he wished he was an alcoholic instead of a psychiatric patient, because if he took things that made him feel like this, then he might be able to stop.
“I won’t be mad,” Darcy promised. “You can tell me.”
“No, I—I was just in that meeting, and I didn’t sleep well last night, and—just give me a minute. Just give me a minute and I’ll be fine.”
He closed his eyes and leaned forward, resting his head on his knees. The spinning sensation was subsiding. He’d just stay here for a while.
He heard Darcy exhale and then rise to her feet. He heard the sink turn off. Her footsteps receded and returned. Darcy crouched next to him and gently wiped his face with a wet paper towel, then folded a second one over the back of his neck.
“Don’t move,” Darcy said unnecessarily. He couldn’t go anywhere. He wasn’t even sure he could stand back up.
He heard the door open and close. He tipped his head forward. The entire scene felt unreal, like it was happening to someone else. He had the sensation that he’d wake up in his own bed any moment now, still sweating but able to think again. Any second he’d wake up, and he would never have run out of an ordinary business meeting, because that wasn’t the sort of thing he did. That wasn’t the sort of thing anyone did.
The door opened, and he willed it to be Darcy without opening his eyes. Then he recognized the smell of her herbal shampoo, the now-familiar scent immediately soothing him. She slid a very cold object into his hands—a soda. When he simply held it between his hands, focusing on the solidity of it, she took it back and cracked the tab.
As though he was a small child, she pressed it to his lips.
“Here,” she said, tone still thin and wobbly. “Some Sprite will probably help, huh?”
She probably was thinking about low blood sugar or stomach trouble, not panic attacks, but she happened to be right.
He sipped it, feeling his breathing regularize under the effort of coordinating the muscles in his mouth and throat. Darcy’s fingers slipped around his free wrist, and he knew she was taking his pulse again, but he savored the point of contact. That irrational part of his brain whispered that she wouldn’t let him die.
Someone else knocked on the bathroom door. Soft and tentative, unlike Darcy.
“Go away,” Darcy yelled.
“Is everything okay?” Rose’s voice came through the wood.
At the idea that anyone else would come in and see him like this, his anxiety crested again.
“We’re fine,” Darcy said.
“What’s wrong?” Rose pressed. “Teagan?”
“Nothing’s wrong. We’re fucking in here,” Darcy said. “Go away. We’ll be out in half an hour.”
Teagan made a small noise of objection as the other side of the door went silent. Jesus. If he hadn’t been fired yet, he was going to get fired soon.
Darcy looked over at him, and he realized that he had straightened and opened his eyes.
“Not enough time?” she asked. “Forty-five minutes?”
“Workplace,” he said.
“Oh, right,” she said. She looked back at the door. “Just kidding!” she called.
Teagan managed a very small laugh, even though it hurt more than gasping for breath had. She patted his shoulder in approval, then wrapped her hand around the inside of his bicep and leaned into him. She minutely rocked back and forth against him at the tempo of her slower breathing. When he’d matched it, her head settled against his shoulder, the braid she’d put her hair in today slipping down to dangle over his chest. Darcy turned her face briefly into his neck, her hot breath steaming on his skin.
“You scared me there, Bear Bait,” she said in a small, wobbly voice.
He nodded, feeling his eyes prickle again at the concern in her voice. Him too.
A few minutes passed, and the discomfort of sitting on a cold tile floor began to rise to the top of his list of unpleasant sensations. He could breathe. He could move. He could think. He couldn’t think of how he was going to explain this.
“Did you get fired?” Darcy asked. It was a reasonable assumption, given how he’d acted.
“No. Not yet, anyway. Nora’s got the majority of the board ready to let her sell off the art collection.”
“I see,” Darcy said, as though his reaction had made sense. It didn’t.
It made him feel dirty that Nora was skimming five percent after the taxpayers took a huge loss on the art donations. It made him feel at once ineffective and complicit in the whole scheme, because the foundation wouldn’t have had to sell assets at all if he’d been better at raising money. It made him feel like he’d been lying for years: first to cover for his mother, then to cover for himself, because hadn’t he told everyone that he’d fix this?
But a rational person did not sprint from the room in response to a business proposal.
“Well, I’ll go tell them you’re puking your guts up because you had all that lox at breakfast, and I’ll make them leave,” Darcy said, beginning to rise again.
“Don’t go,” he immediately blurted, and Darcy froze. She slid back down and put her arm back under his, fingers rubbing at the downy hairs on the back of his wrist.
They couldn’t just stay there forever, but he didn’t have a better plan yet.
“You’re going to blame the fish?” was all he could come up with, but Darcy gamely went along with it.
“Well, Pacific salmon stocks are down ninety percent in some places, and even the farmed varieties are spreading sea lice parasites to the wild population—”
She gave the impression that she was willing to sit in the men’s restroom with him and discuss the environmental impact of salmon aquaculture for as long as was necessary.
God, he loved her. He wanted to listen politely until she was done, then promise that he would never eat another creature with a central nervous system if she’d stay with him after this. He wished he could think of a single other thing he had to offer her.
That wasn’t the kind of worry that sent his heart rate spiking. It was the kind that felt like it would break his heart.
“Let’s not tell anyone anything,” he said. He didn’t want to lie any more than he already had. “Let’s just go.”