A tight smile is about all I have to give.
“Are you waiting to see someone?”
“I’m inquiring about a small business loan,” I answer.
Her eyes light up at that, smile wide and glowing. “Really? What kind of business?”
“Personal training and nutrition.”
“Wow,” she breathes. “That’s… that’s actually quite perfect for you, isn’t it?”
My heart surges with the assessment, because it does feel perfect. It feels right.
But I still can’t move, can’t do much other than answer her questions as I stare at the ghost I never thought I’d see again.
Shawna’s mouth pulls to the side as she motions to the chair next to the one I was seated in. “Mind if I join you for just a few minutes? I’m not exactly in a rush to get back to the office.”
I blink out of my daze, nodding and gesturing to the chair for her to sit. I wait until she does before I take the seat next to her, rigid and uncomfortable and yet I’m glad she stayed.
“So,” she says, balancing her purse in her lap with a wide smile angled at me. “Starting your own business, huh?”
“Hopefully.” I tap the binder. “We’ll see if I make the cut.”
“They’d be crazy not to offer you a loan. I’ve got to say, though, after hearing Skyler won second place in that tournament in Vegas, I’m kind of surprised you’re not asking her for the loan.”
I sigh. “Well, to be honest, she’s my backup plan. But that’s her money, you know? She’s about to graduate, and I know she’s got her own dreams to go after.” I pause, sniffing. “I want to do this on my own.”
“You will,” Shawna assures me.
A silence falls between us, her looking at me and me looking at the binder in my hands.
“Clinton, I am so sorry for what I did to you.”
I close my eyes on a breath. “It’s—”
“Not okay,” she finishes for me. “I could sit here and give you every excuse in the world, repeat all the ones I did when everything happened… tell you my family is old-fashioned, that they were my money source, that I was scared, that I needed time, but the truth is that what I did to you, the way I behaved, the way my parents behaved… it was racist. Plain and simple. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I treated you that way, that I hurt you like that, that I was too blinded by what I thought was okay to see what was really right and what was so blatantly wrong.”
I finally meet her gaze, and finding such sincerity there makes my chest ache. “Thank you.”
She nods. “I know I can never go back and undo what happened, but running into you today… well, maybe it was the universe giving me one last chance to make amends. The right way.”
“What if I would have cursed at you and spit on your shoes?”
“I would have gladly taken the lashing,” she says with a smirk. “Although, I would have been pissed about the shoes. These are Michael Kors.”
I smile, relaxing a little more in my seat.
“So, other than opening a business, how are you?” Shawna asks.
“Good,” I lie. She must see right through it, because she arches a brow that makes me chuckle in surrender. “Or well, I was good… until about two weeks ago when everything blew to smithereens.”
“What did you do?”
“How do you know it was me who did something?”
She just gives me a pointed look, which makes me laugh again.
I run a hand over my fade, but don’t reply to her question. The truth is, I don’t know Shawna Ballentine anymore. I don’t trust her the way I once did. And while it was nice to hear her apologize, what’s going on between me and Erin, between me and myself… it’s not for her to be a part of.
My phone lights up where I dropped it on top of my folder, and Erin’s name fills the screen. I curse, thumbing open the text I had yet to respond to. She sent through a question mark after the text asking me to come over, and I shake my head, knowing I probably gave her a heart attack by not responding right away.
See you at seven. I’ll bring dinner.
She replies with a little heart emoji, and then I tuck my phone away again.
And find Shawna grinning at me.
“What?” I ask.
“You and Erin Xanders, huh?”
Though my skin is dark enough not to show it, I blush. “Yes.”
She shakes her head, sitting back and folding her arms. “It’s about damn time.”
I arch a brow.
“I always knew it would be you two in the end,” she says. “I’m so happy you finally figured it out.”
I want to laugh, but the gesture gets cut short when her words hit me square in the chest with the force of a tow truck.