23. Anthony

This isn’t right.

Lying awake at some ridiculous hour with my cats snoring away beside me, I stared into the darkness as those words kept tumbling through my head.

This isn’t right.

Tomorrow, Wyatt would be leaving. I’d kept my word when I’d said he could stay until Lily was finished with her medication, but up until tonight, I hadn’t really thought about what happened after that. In the moment, it had been a convenient way to deal with reality later. We’d just kick the can down the road, Wyatt and Lily would stay for ten days, and after that time was up, we’d figure out what happened next. Everything after that period sort of fell off a cliff in my mind. It was like a To be continued… at the end of a TV show with nothing after that but a dark screen. No previews. No teasers.

Now that time was up, and he was supposed to leave tomorrow, and…

This isn’t right.

I rubbed my eyes and exhaled into the silence. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just take him downtown, drop him off, and wish him the best of luck. It didn’t matter how much stuff he had now to help him and Lily survive—my conscience couldn’t accept that this was the solution.

I could get him a hotel room somewhere. Maybe find a decent apartment and cover his rent for a few months? But that would only go so far. His VA disability was just enough for him and Lily to scrape by. A hotel room or an apartment would be a roof over his head, but for how long? And how much thinner would that stretch what money he had?

With every solution I tried to conjure up, my mind circled back to the same question:

Why not just let him stay here?

I couldn’t think of a reason not to. He clearly wasn’t a threat to me, my cats, or my property. It was my house. Okay, it was also Simon’s, but he’d moved out, and it wasn’t his business if I decided to bring in a houseguest, regardless of how long they stayed. If he didn’t like it, what was he going to do? Dump me?

So yeah, it made perfect sense. Just let Wyatt stay here.

The thought that had me pumping the brakes on that was, oddly enough, how much I wanted him to stay here.

I didn’t want him to leave, and I was spooked by how many selfish reasons I had for that. Because it went beyond wanting them to be safe and comfortable. I wanted that, of course, but I also liked Wyatt. I liked Lily. I liked seeing them happy. I liked having someone else here besides my cats.

So was I finding reasons to shoot down all my alternative solutions because they really were bad solutions? Or because I selfishly wanted Wyatt to stay here?

Because, I was starting to realize, I would’ve wanted him to stay even if he had a stable income and a place to live?

“Oh my God,” I muttered. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

Well, I could figure that out. If things went well tomorrow, I’d have plenty of time to sort out where my concern for Wyatt ended and my growing affection for him began.

Because over my dead body were he and Lily getting booted out of this house.