Bringing Home the Bad Boy (Second Chance #1)(70)

He didn’t like it.

“You are capable of being both a talented, amazing artist and an incredibly loving father.” She smiled. Her words may be true, but the practiced sentiment was fake. Or, if not fake, at least reined in. He didn’t like her reined in. He liked her wild. He liked her honest. Honest and cheeky like she was in his studio. At her computer. On her bed. But this… this pseudo, false friendship bullshit she was peddling wasn’t cutting it.

“Ace—”

“You’ve been through a lot,” she continued. “Both of you. I lost my mother when I was young, but it still hurts. I never talk about her. I don’t want to. You want to pretend you’ve moved on, and I so get that.”

Pretend? He felt his brows pull. The hell was she talking about?

She stood, taking her glass with her. “It’s okay. I know you think you have. You’re working on it. You’ve committed to Evergreen Cove. You got a tattoo of it on your arm, for goodness’ sake.”

He glanced at the pines climbing his left arm. What the hell was she—

“Grief takes years. A lot of years. I understand the need to bury it, and to hide behind things because of it. I’ll always be your friend, no matter what’s happened between us,” she said after another perfunctory look to the blank kitchen window. “I’ll always be here for Lyon. You don’t have to worry about me being strange because of what happened between us. Take your time to grieve and feel those things for Rae. And take your time with your son.”

“Ace, you’re starting to piss me off.”

But this fact didn’t erase her soft, patronizing smile. His lip curled.

“Take the time you need, Evan. And don’t worry about me at all.” She smiled again, turned, and walked inside.

He watched her go, then groused at the pool, thinking. He thought until the sun set, until Patricia poked her head outside to say good night and let him know there were fresh towels in the bathroom for his morning shower. He’d nodded vacantly, growing more and more pissed as he put together what his girl had done.

She’d dumped him.

He stood and stalked to the house, aiming for her bedroom. Little did she know…

Not gonna happen.





CHAPTER TWENTY




That conversation went well.

Kind of.

Charlie felt like her heart had splintered, but quickly shoved the pieces aside and thought of anything but what would happen when she got home. Right now, she was in Rae’s old bedroom, decorated in beige with a pale green and soft blue floral print comforter and curtains with wide, vertical stripes in the same colors. The Mosleys hadn’t kept the bedroom the same as it was when she moved out and married Evan. They had promptly redecorated, which Rae hadn’t liked at all. She smiled remembering the conversation between the Mosleys and their only daughter. Charlie had taken the afternoon and driven out with Rae, shortly after Rae’s engagement.

“I can’t believe you scrubbed me from this house like I never lived here!” Rae had stood in the kitchen, one hand on her hip, and argued.

Patricia had clucked her tongue. “Drama mama!” Pat’s nickname for Rae was scarily accurate. “I always wanted a sewing room. You know that.”

Charlie’s eyes wandered to the compact desk and drawers on the other side of the room where a sewing machine sat. She slid the closet door open to find square cubbies filled with various materials, boxes of organized threads, needles, and a shelf holding craft books. She brushed her fingers along a pile of material—striped beige, cream, soft blue, and pale green. Her eyes went to the curtains.

Patricia had sewn the curtains.

Charlie’s smile stayed intact.

Thoughts like this—thoughts not on Evan or the way she’d been forced to lay down the way things were with him—would get her through tonight. Tomorrow when she got back home, everything would gradually get better. They were going to be busy in the coming weeks. She had work to do, and Evan would be getting Lyon ready for school, which she assumed involved supplies shopping and buying him some clothes.

Poor kid was going to have to start school with stitches, or at least a scar, and without the haircut he wanted.

Then there were school pictures.

She wished she could make this easier for him. For both of them.

Maybe her staying out of their way was the best way to do that.

A soft knock at the door came and she looked down at her short pair of pink-and-yellow-flowered pajama shorts and a pale pink tank. In case it was Cliff, she opened the door only a fraction. She found Evan through the gap instead.

She pressed her face to the crack and studied the long, dark hallway. The Mosleys’ bedroom was on the other end of the house, but Lyon was in the spare room with a pull-out sofa across the hall, and Evan was supposed to be sleeping on the couch in the family room.

He wasn’t ready for bed, still in jeans and the T-shirt he’d frantically pulled on this morning.

“What time is it?” she asked.

He answered her question with a question. “Why are you awake?”

Because she’d tried to sleep but her mind was too filled with Evan. So she’d gotten out of bed and clicked on the small bedside lamp and proceeded to distract herself with the contents of Patricia’s sewing closet. “Drank too much tea.”