When I’d arrived home to Sassy’s sleeping form on my mom’s sofa, everything had gone to shit. She’d told me about Evan’s phone call, about my mom leaving Willow home alone, and about Willow letting slip to her that my mother had been visited by “the apartment man” who was mad about “some money.”
After waking up this morning, I noticed Mom still hadn’t come home, and she sure as hell still wasn’t answering the phone. I found an overdue notice in a stack of bills and papers on the kitchen counter and wondered what the hell Mom had done with the rent money I’d given her two weeks before. Obviously, she hadn’t paid rent with it.
I’d had to call in late to the bakery so I could get Willow on the bus to school. Thankfully, Dina had offered to keep Willow after school since Aria and Ayana were having a midweek sleepover birthday celebration that night. Willow and I had gone to Save-Mart on Saturday afternoon to pick out cool hair paint and glitter nail polish for the girls’ gifts and had painstakingly wrapped them in empty toilet paper rolls and cereal boxes to make it “mysterious” according to Willow’s specifications.
Once Willow was off to school and I took my checkbook and the cash from my tips the night before to the landlord’s office, I heaved a sigh of frustration and hopped in my car. How the hell was I supposed to face Evan after all of this? He had to think I was trash. If he hadn’t already thought it by the way I was going hot and cold onhim, he surely thought it now after finding my baby sister abandoned by both my mom and me. And if that didn’t do it, he’d sure as hell lose respect for me when I couldn’t even afford gas in order to get to work anymore.
I couldn’t face him. If there was a goddess, she would keep him out of the bakery all day. One look at him and I might break. It was all too much. My life was a fucking roller coaster of ups and downs. I was a hot mess, and he deserved better.
The bakery was thankfully slammed, and I ended my shift by delivering some treats to Charlie and Hudson at the pub.
They were so stinking cute together, it made me bubble with jealousy. I wanted that. I wanted open affection and someone to touch me the way Hudson did with Charlie. Hell, the guy hadn’t even been into men before, and now he was as handsy as could be in front of anyone and everyone. He liked Charliethatmuch.
I swallowed past a lump in my throat as one of the local busybodies started sniffing up Hudson’s tree, much to Charlie’s amusement and Hudson’s squirmy discomfort.
It wasn’t until I heard Otto and Sheriff Walker come in that I realized Evan was right behind them.
“Eeep,” I cried, diving over the pub’s new custom bar top and landing in a ball next to Charlie’s feet. “I’m not here,” I squeaked.
Augie came into the pub next, informing us Mama was in his antique shop again.
“And I’ve noticed she looks a little… pregnant,” Augie said. “It’s not possible Milo…”
Hudson leaned over and whispered to Charlie. “Isn’t Milo a cat?”
Charlie’s smile was devious. “Should I pull a Stevie and screech to the heavens about someone deflowering my special girl?” he asked.
“Not fair,” I whined, feeling awful all over again. “I was beside myself with guilt. I’m going to be the father of a passel of ugly-ass bastards.Me.I’m too young and pretty to be a baby daddy.”
I heard Evan’s deep, sexy voice over the crowd. “Is that Stevie? Sweetheart, get out here, we need to talk.”
Uh-oh.
“I’m not here,” I repeated to Charlie and Hudson in a frantic hiss.
“Baby, I’m looking right at you,” Evan said gently, peeking over the bar top. “C’mere.”
The wrinkles of concern marring his forehead as he searched my eyes were the last straw.
“Evan?” I asked, my voice wobbling more than I expected.
“Fuck this,” he muttered. Then the big strong fire chief vaulted over the bar, grabbed me up in a fireman’s carry, and hotfooted it out the door of the pub before I could take my next breath.
14
EVAN
I keptmy eyes focused on the road as the truck made its own way home. Stevie’s entire body was curled in on itself and crowding against the door to get as far away from me as he could. Every now and then on the short drive to my house I heard a sniffle come from his direction, but I didn’t dare reach over to him and risk opening my own floodgates.
Because seeing him hide from me had brought it all in focus. I’d fucked up. Something I had done had intimidated him, scared him, or just plain disgusted him, and now he obviously didn’t trust me to even help him as a friend. Honestly, I was surprised he’d even let me put him in my truck. I’d asked him when I got to the parking spot if he’d consent to come to my place so we could talk. He’d said yes in a small voice before climbing into the truck and securing his own seat belt.
He looked so tiny in the cab of the huge truck. I wanted to pull him closer to me and tuck him up tightly against my side. But I couldn’t start anything with him until we were alone with time and space to hash things out.
I pulled up in front of the house and hustled over to open his door. Stevie was ready. As soon as the door opened, he launchedhimself at me, wrapping his arms and legs around me and holding on for dear life.
“Please don’t hate me,” he said in a watery voice. “I couldn’t stand it if you hated me.”
I held him as tightly as I could without squashing the poor man and buried my face in his neck.
