by May Dawson
Tiger Lily
May Dawson
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
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Prologue
Also by May Dawson
About May Dawson
1
Lily
I was definitely not the only twenty-something stuck in a ridiculous job with ridiculous people.
But I was the only twenty-something tiger shifter I knew who lived that way. It felt absurd sometimes: rushing in my sensible flats to work, a can of tuna in my purse in hopes I’d actually get time for lunch. But pretending to be human was the only way to leave behind my hometown, Silver Springs.
Living on two feet is complicated. That’s just a fact of life.
At seven-fifty-eight, I stashed my purse below the reception desk in the lobby of our office suite. Two of the senior analysts, Debbie and Rob, were deep in conversation as they walked through the front door.
“I saw Jonathan post on Facebook about his nephew’s graduation party,” Rob said.
“Oh good grief,” Debbie shook her head. “I’d place a bet that we’ll have another sycophantic sniveler joining us, then.”
“At least Jonathan’s nephew probably won’t be a snob who uses big words no one understands,” Rob teased. The two of them were always poking at each other; he didn’t mean anything bad when he called her a snob.
They both laughed, then broke off when they saw me. I flashed a smile at them—it’s not as if I was going to tell the boss how much they hate his endless cycle of relatives who get their start here at Cleary Associates. I was on their side.
I’d been here for a year, since I graduated college with a dual degree in English and Art Education, and I still didn’t know why the place is called Cleary Consulting. Jonathan started the place, and his last name is Weaver. There’s no Cleary in sight.
“Good morning, Lily,” Debbie said, sounding a bit sad, and I wondered what had her feeling down. Debbie was usually so cheerful.
But I didn’t have time to wonder, as Jonathan pushed the door open from the cubicle farm to the lobby.
“Oh good, you’re finally here.” Jonathan said to me.
I glanced at the clock. 8:01. There was no reason for him to think I was late, and my lips parted, about to tell him just that, before I pressed them together. It was no use, really.
“Lily, be a dear and get me my usual from Starbucks,” Jonathan said. “Get yourself something too.”
“Sure. But then there’s no one here to run reception.” I didn’t really mind—I savored the walk. I preferred to spend as much time outside as I could, and being a receptionist wasn’t great for that. Neither was city life, to be honest.
“Mm? It’s fine.” He patted his hip. “Oh, my wallet is at my desk. I’ll get you when you come back. Oh—and a blueberry muffin too.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t think Starbucks has them. I like the crumb-top muffins at Rogers’ bakery.”
I glanced at the clock again. Rogers’ bakery was in the opposite direction. He would probably send me on this absurd errand and then complain about how long it took me.
But whatever. I was a big fan of Rogers too, and I skipped breakfast, and he was my boss. This was part of living in the real world, wasn’t it? Dealing with dickhead bosses? I was just living my most human life.
I smiled at him sweetly. “Be right back.”
My walk in the early summer air was refreshing. I loved the contrast between sunshine warming my hair and a cool breeze skating over my skin. While I was walking, my cell chimed with a text, and I reluctantly pulled my phone out to glance at it, even though I didn’t want to take my eyes off the trees that shaded the street, their vibrant green leaves shaking in the breeze.
It was my grandfather. Morning, beautiful girl! Today is a great day to come home.
I grinned and shook my head, slipping my phone back into my purse. He texted me twice a day, to say good morning and to say good night. And every time, he always said…
My phone buzzed again. I knew it was the missing message even before I saw it. I love you!
He would never quit. He wanted me to come home to Silver Springs so badly. Seeing me once a month was definitely not enough for the man. I’d go home more often, but my boyfriend, Brad, always wanted to spend the weekends with me—and he didn’t want to spend them in Silver Springs. My grandfather wasn’t openly rude to him, but the few times they met, he’d rolled his eyes behind Brad’s back. Brad got the general vibe.
This morning, honestly, my grandfather’s invitation felt tempting. Maybe I would go back this weekend. I was tired of being here. But I wasn’t sure there was truly the antidote to how I felt.
I picked up the lattes and baked goods and headed back to the office. When I knocked on Jonathan’s door, he was on the phone, absently squeezing a stress ball. That was funny—he seemed like the primary source of stress around here. He glanced up, gesturing me in.
“Yeah, come on in this afternoon. Two p.m. should be good. We’ll start getting you set up,” he said. “Okay, bye.”
He hung up and took the latte from me, then took a sip. “Oh, this is good. Best part of waking up, am I right, Lily?”
“Absolutely.” I paused for a second, waiting for him to remember he never gave me any money.
He held out his hand for the paper bag that contained his muffin, and my fingers curled a little tighter on the bag.
Not that I would keep track of petty details or anything, but I bought my boss breakfast twice this month because he forgot to pay me. It was a new trend, and it was not my favorite.
He gave up and leaned back in his chair. “Lily, have a seat. I need to talk to you for a minute.”
I perched on the edge of the seat across from his desk.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” he began, templing his fingers together and looking at me over his fingernails. Classic power move; I know, because I saw him reading Leadership through Posture. “You’re been a wonderful receptionist. Very efficient at, ah, greeting people…”
He trailed off as if he can’t think of anything else.
“Managing the scheduling requests and calendars for four different conference rooms? Coordinating catering? Scheduling training and following up with absentees to make sure everyone completes annual training?” I began to fill in, since he was apparently determined not to appreciate what I do.
His use of the past tense—you’ve been—made me feel suddenly queasy, and I set my iced coffee cup down on the edge of his desk. My hands were already sweaty.
“Yes,” he said. “All of that. You’ve done a great job. But we actually aren’t in need of a receptionist anymore.”
“What’s the fancy title you’re giving your nephew, then?” I stood abruptly. “He doesn’t want to be a receptionist, does he? He’s just going to sit at my desk and do my job and have some fancy title like Executive Assistant or Office Logistical Coordinator?”
Jonathan’s eyes widened. Bingo. I’d been here for a year, I knew the man’s particular brand of nonsense.
“Now, don’t get emotional,” he said. He opened his mouth to keep going, but I didn’t let him.
Don’t get emotional? Oh, you don’t want to see me emotional. I could feel the tiger inside me growling, desperate to get out and claw his face off. Literally.
Tigers cannot be trusted with stupid people.
“You know, I forgot to give you your muffin,” I told him, reaching into the bag. I was not going to rip his face off, but I doubt he’d appreciate my calm. “You never paid me for it, and you never were going to, were you?”
“Now, Lily—” he began.
I wrenched half the crumb top off the muffin and flung it at him. He ducked, covering his face with his arms, as if it were something more dangerous than carbs.
“You’re a terrible boss!” I told him, crumpling another handful of muffin into crumbs before I threw them at him. “Nobody likes you! Everyone makes fun of you after those stupid Friday afternoon meetings you hold. You always ask, where’s everyone going for happy hour at the end of those meetings, and we all know why call a meeting for Friday at three o’clock. Everyone knows you want to be invited. But they claim they’re going home. Then they sneak out and meet up at Teko’s!”
Oops. That was really Rob and Debbie’s secret, but it had to be said.
He blinked at me, looking hurt. There was a bit of blueberry muffin lodged in his relentlessly gelled hair. “I don’t believe that’s true.”
“Oh, don’t get emotional, Jonathan,” I told him, and took the opportunity to throw another handful of muffin crumbs at his face. The ones that didn’t stick to his shiny face and hair scattered across his equally-shiny desktop.
He pushed himself back from the desk, the wheels of his office chair screeching at the sudden motion, and his office chairs toppled backward. He grabbed for the edge of his desk, but he was too late.
I have the last and final handful of muffin.
As the muffin flew toward his face, he raised his hand to block it. I knew how seriously that man takes his face-washing-and-moisturizing-routine, he wouldn’t want to ruin his work. He told me all about his routine during the most boring hour of my life at the office Christmas party.
Without his grip on the edge of the table, his chair tipped all the way over, dumping him ass over head. His expensive shoes slammed into the filing cabinet behind him.
“Next time you’re going to fire someone for your nephew, get your own damn coffee,” I snarled. I grabbed his coffee cup and my iced coffee and strode for the door back to the lobby.
For the first time, as I saw the shocked faces of my former co-workers, I realized I left the door to his office open to the cubicle farm.
Rob and Debbie rose. Rob glanced toward the office, where Jonathan was still trying to divest himself of muffin crumbs, and gave me a sly salute.
“We’re going to miss you,” Debbie murmured as I passed. “Even if we do need to find a new place for our happy hours now.”
I waved goodbye to them all before I collected my purse and quickly boxed up my stuff, then headed out the door into the sunshine.
The adrenaline rush of a good muffin fight almost salved some of my pain, but as I walked home toward the apartment I shared with Brad, reality hit me.
I left Silver Springs because I needed three things: a job and a boy and someplace no one thought they knew everything about me.
Now I was down a job.
2
Sometimes when I was upset, I wanted to be alone. The one problem with living in Scarborough was, unlike when I lived in Silver Springs, there was no place to go when I wanted to tiger out.
Sometimes, it was unbearable being human. I didn’t understand how people coped with being stuck in their human skins all the time.
Being human might come with opposable thumbs, music, and toaster pastries—all things I really appreciate—but it was also kind of a mess.
But there was nowhere for me to go. Brad would be home, though, because he worked out of our apartment, and maybe he’d make me feel better. Maybe.
When we first met in college, Brad was the cute boy who sat next to me in Shakespeare and Love. Unlike the handsome-but-exasperating best guy friends I grew up with in Silver Springs, he didn’t annoy me. He seemed to ignore me, in fact. Until one day I couldn’t find a pencil as I rummaged through my backpack. He’d silently handed me his own pen.
I’d asked him on our first date. On our third date, when I fell and skinned my knee at the roller blading rink, he’d kissed my knee, and when he looked up at me and smiled as he knelt in front of me, that kiss felt like magic.
Unfortunately, that magic had worn off like glitter.
We lived on a third-floor walk-up. I knocked on the door with my elbow, hoping he would hear me over his headphones so I didn’t have to put down my purse and the box with my belongings and these two coffees that I didn’t even want but had juggled home, I didn’t even know why now.
No answer. I managed to set it all down so I could reach my keys, and I only spilled half an iced coffee down the front of my shirt in the process.
As a big cat shifter, I should be full of grace, but I’m only agile when I’ve shifted. I was pretty sure the cat had all the grace, and my human form got zilch. My grandfather used to call me Bella. That’s how bad it was.
It was also how I knew that man loved me enough to watch any movie I requested. Over and over again.
When I finally stumbled into the apartment and dropped the box on the kitchen counter, Brad wasn’t at his desk in the corner of our living room. His laptop was closed, his headphones resting neatly on top of them. I frowned around the white living room and the tidy little kitchen beyond. I even glanced out onto the balcony where my plants were, but that was my territory. He was already out of bed when I left. Maybe he ran out on an errand.
“Brad? Are you home?” I called.
There was the sound of something falling in the bedroom, but no answer.
My heart raced. Maybe there was someone in here robbing us. It seemed like a waste of time for them, given that our television was a seven-year-old yard sale find and my most prized possessions were my leggings collection. Brad and I were not exactly rich people.
It was probably Brad. But still, I knotted my hands into fists, ready for a fight, as I pushed open the bedroom door.
Just as I do, Brad called belatedly, “I’m in the bedroom, hon!”
I walked into the bedroom to find him in bed. He tossed the papers in his hands onto his nightstand and gave me a smile, patting the bed beside him. “It’s nice to see you. But what are you doing home so early?”
My heart was still racing as I climbed onto the bed beside him. I leaned against the headboard and pulled one of my pillows into my lap.
“I was fired,” I admitted.
He frowned. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything to get fired,” I replied, my voice hot. I was good at my job. Not that Brad ever respected that there was much to being a receptionist. “Jonathan wanted to replace me with his nephew.”
Brad’s glasses were a bit foggy, like they got when he was exercising. I frowned, leaning forward to study his hairline, which was faintly beaded with sweat.
“What are you looking at?” he demanded, trying to smile.
I knew that sweat. He didn’t exercise.
That was Brad’s sex sweat.
“Why are you in bed?” My voice came out soft, even though I was suddenly furious. Maybe I’m wrong. Please, please let me be wrong.
“That seems like a good way to put yourself to sleep.” I jumped back out of bed, trying to cover the sudden restless energy that swept through my body. “So, what should we do today now that I’m unexpectedly free? Want to curl up in bed and have a movie marathon?”
He paused. “Why don’t we go out for lunch? Go to your favorite place, cheer you up a little?”
I was not sure I could be cheered up, because I wasn’t convinced I was done being disappointed by the universe.
“Sounds great,” I said. “Just let me change my clothes.”
I could feel his tension behind me as I slid open the closet door.
I glimpsed her bare toes behind my neat rows of shoes as she pressed herself against the back of my closet. My stomach plummeted to my own toes. It felt as if all the air had just rushed out of the room, and I tried to breathe despite the suddenly strangled feeling in my lungs.
I pretend I didn’t see her pink polished toenails and focused on flipping through hangers, pushing them one-by-one to the side to buy me time to think.
My boyfriend was cheating on me.
My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. I wasn’t sure what I would say when I finally pushed the last hanger aside and came face-to-face with her.
I did know in about fifteen seconds, I was going to break up with my boyfriend, my treacherous jackass of a very-soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, and I didn’t want to cry when I did it.