I slipped off the stool and turned, my eyes automatically going for the space that Copper had once been standing.
I found him nowhere in sight, and that made my stomach cramp even worse. Especially when I realized the woman from earlier wasn’t anywhere that I could see, either.
Shit.
A knot of dread filled my belly, and I nearly turned around and headed back for the table.
However, Cakes had spotted me over the bar top and beckoned me over. “Whatcha want?”
I licked my lips and held up the empty root beer bottle.
“Comin’ right up,” he said.
“I’m gonna run to the bathroom and I’ll get it on the way back,” I said, refusing to rub at the ache that had taken root in my chest.
“Sounds good, babe.”
Babe.
They all knew my name, but every one of them but Copper and his brothers called me ‘babe.’
It was cute, and I wasn’t sure why they did it, but I didn’t hate the nickname.
I was lost in thought of the origins of ‘babe’ when I finally made it to the end of the hallway where the bathrooms were located.
I’d just put my hand on the door to head inside said bathroom when I heard it.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Copper said, sounding truthfully regretful. “But I have a roommate that lives with me with her son. I can’t be bringing random women to my place with her there.”
My stomach dropped.
With my head out of the clouds of depression, and finally on straight, I could now realize the situation that I’d placed Copper in.
As a favor to my father, he’d taken me in, and I’d not thought anything of it in months.
I’d been so focused on me, and then Holt, that I hadn’t realized that I was putting a damper on Copper’s life.
Unwilling to hear anything more, I headed into the bathroom and did my business.
I plastered on a smile when I got to the bar to grab my drink and smiled at Cakes even though everything inside of me demanded that I start crying.
I was lost in thought as I wandered back to the table where I’d once been sitting, only this time Audric was also there, along with a few other members of the club.
“…thinkin’ of selling my place,” Audric said to Webber, his gaze on the beer in his hands. “Place is killing me. I can’t live there without her anymore.”
“Rent it out instead of selling,” Webber suggested.
“Yeah, but who would I rent to?” he asked. “No one’s gonna want a one-bedroom shotgun house with a nursery in the middle of the living room.”
Before I could stop and think about what I was saying, I blurted out, “I’d take it!”
Both Webber and Audric glanced at me.
“Yeah?” Audric said.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “At least, if I could afford it. How much would you charge rent?”
“Fifteen hundred a month is what the mortgage is,” Audric said. “If I could just get the mortgage payment, I’d be happy. Webber’s right, I don’t really want to sell anything just yet. I might want to do more to it like I originally planned…”
