She was so upset, so devastated, that she almost missed the phone call. Answering it, she didn’t bother to look at the phone number… and the air in her lungs seized when she heard the voice.
“Hey Steffi – it’s Renata Murphy,” and Renata paused long enough for Steffi to drop her spoon into the ice cream as she sat up fully. This was her landlord, the person evicting her. “I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time. My daughter got sick at daycare, and I had to go pick her up, then we had to go to the doctor, and well – the day got away from me. I’m in Seattle and just got a text from the leasing company that they’d posted the notice… listen, I am so sorry. I wanted to call you first, to talk, but well…” And to Steffi’s horror, the woman began to cry. Not little tears, but massive, swamping tears along the same line as she’d been doing earlier in the day… hence the ice cream debacle.
“I’m sorry,” Renata sobbed. “I’d say, can I redo this whole month, but I don’t think my nerves could take it.”
“I hear ya…” Steffi whispered before she could stop herself.
“I am so sorry about the eviction notice. It’s just my mom lives there, and I need help with the kids because Jeff died.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock as a wave of guilt swamped over her, mixed with awareness.
“He had a clot and well… I need to move back home,” Renata finished weakly. Both women were silent for several moments. “Hello?”
“I’m here,” Steffi whispered in shock, realizing that the woman was evicting her because she was moving across country due to her husband's passing away –not because Drake had sold her out.
She had lost her cool, made a fool of herself, verbally attacked him… and he’d been innocent. Drake hadn’t protested, hadn’t said a word, just let her think the worst of him. It was so stunning as she replayed that whole scene in her mind, looking at things differently, that she didn’t realize Renata was still talking.
“… It’s gonna take a little time here to get this house on the market, but we’re going to make the move in a few weeks. I’m really sorry about the short notice – and I had my attorney look over the contract, so there’s that.”
There’s that?As if to say,‘I had someone check it, so don’t think about getting a lawyer?’The woman was fully focused on herself, and Steffi was trapped in a vicious mental cycle, thinking about how much she’d wronged Drake.
“Yep,” Steffi whispered. “There’s that. I’ll be out by the first.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate your understanding, Stef …”
Steffi had already hung up and sat there. She had no idea what to say to Drake or how she could turn this around. Today was the worst day she’d had in forever, but maybe compared to other people – people like Renata – it wasn’t so bad. She had a chance to apologize, to explain, to grovel… and thank goodness she hadn’t thrown his ring back at him. Maybe that was her inner voice, the one that knew better.
“I wish you’d speak up more often,” Steffi uttered aloud in the silence, feeling terrible and completely embarrassed at her own actions.
12
DRAKE
Drake felt gutted, adrift, attacked. He’d never seen such anger, such devastation in Steffi’s face. Not when he opened her mail, not when he argued with her, not even when she was getting frustrated about the dancing lesson, and he’d called her foot a hoof. She had been in a feral rage – and he could tell. When he’d put his arms around her, trying to bring her down from the ledge, she had fought, scratched, pushed him away… and it hurt. Not a physical pain, but an emotional one. He felt raw seeing her aching like that, unwilling to accept his help – and then she revealed why.
She thought he would do something to get her evicted. She thought he was capable of doing something so low, so personal, so unsettling as removing the ground out from under her. When you took away someone’s home, their base, you removed any sense of stability – he knew.
After his dad had passed away, his mother was always fretting about losing the house. When he signed with the Timberwolves, the first thing he did was pay off the loan and set her up with an account to cover the taxes for a decade… and his mother had wept.
The Camry was just a thing, a car – but the feelings it gave him were more powerful than that embarrassed pride he’d felt taking care of his mom. No, with Steffi, he wanted to beat on his chest, to handle all of her woes, because it made him feel good to provide. It wasn’t about masculine toxicity but rather helping someone who meant the world to you… And things had been good until today.
Until Steffi lost her sense of stability in more ways than one. Her job. Her home… and he’d sold her car, telling her to keep his. No wonder she felt decimated.
The world wasn’t a forgiving place. Everything ran on money – and in order to have money, you had to work. In order to work, you had to have a job, which meant transportation to get there. It was a violent, vicious circle… a stool with three legs – and today, Steffi’s fell over, toppled, because someone yanked off all three legs, leaving her on the floor.
He cursed under his breath.
There was nothing he could say right now to make things better. He’d recorded that message at her request because it was the least he could do for a friend who didn’t trust him, but anything else would look like motive. If he offered her money, she’d suspect him of tampering with her job. If he offered shelter, well, she already thought he’d gotten her evicted – but it would cement the idea in her head. No, the entire debacle was a lose, lose, lose situation that he was trapped in – just like her.
Hearing a knock at the door, his head looked up expectantly as a wave of fear hit him. If she was about to give him back his ring, then he’d cry. Honestly, he was so devastated, so embarrassed, so horrified at her reaction today that he hadn’t reached out to anyone to talk or for comfort. Personal was just that – personal.
His teammates had asked a few questions – but Drake refused to answer them. They thought he’d cheated on Steffi,that she caught him with a woman, that he’d committed some indelible sin to wrong her… and looked at him differently. None of that was true, but it was ‘guilty until proven innocent’… which meant they needed time.
Drake heard the knock again, feeling his nose sting as his throat worked – but he couldn’t answer it right now. Steffi needed time… and frankly, so did he. He’d been a jerk several times in the past, so falling for her had never even been in the cards. It wasn’t until he realized that they were kind of flirting with each other that her fire lit up his universe, that he wanted things to be different between them.
He wanted to be the one she turned to – but not because she was angry or felt like he’d betrayed her. That kiss, those moments where they shared a smile, taunted each other, or flirted… those were some of the best moments in his life. The ones that weren’t planned fell into place with little effort, the moments where both of their souls just fit perfectly, recognized, and clicked. He didn’t care about the car, the money, the dancing, or the tea… he just wanted to spend time around her, basking in that sensation – and then he paused, cracking his knuckles nervously as he sat there anticipating her to knock again or do something as crazy as come over the fence, knocking on his back door.
She was losing her home next door – and he was losing what felt like where he belonged, seeing how she reacted.