Vulnerable [Suncoast Society] (Suncoast Society #29)(19)

He’d damn sure do his best to stick to that, as much as he could in a six-year-old-child-appropriate way.

With the rest of the sushi polished off, he headed out to the garage. First to start a load of laundry, and then to get the garage door open and fire up the lawn mower. Their backyard, with the pool cage, wasn’t very big. But with the front yard, it took him nearly an hour to finish. Then he had to use the line trimmer.

Eva and Laurel came outside and started weeding the front flowerbeds while he did that.

It wasn’t worth investing in a riding mower for the size of the lot. And he needed the extra exercise. He didn’t have time to use the exercise room at his apartment complex, and he’d cancelled his gym membership in lieu of getting the Mote Marine family membership for Laurel.

And he wasn’t going to come swim in Eva’s pool, even though he did pay a pool service to take care of that.

He’d forgotten about the laundry when he heard the dryer buzzer go off inside the garage during a pause in the trimming.

Eva looked over. “I put the other load in for you,” she said.

“Thanks.”

She gave him one of those sad smiles and nodded before getting back to weeding.

This had been a mistake. He sensed it already. As the afternoon wore on, Eva would likely up her game in her attempts to get him to stay.

Maybe even enlist Laurel in her efforts. If Laurel begged him to stay he wasn’t sure he could say no to her, even though he knew that, in some ways, it would be reinforcing manipulative behavior.

She was his daughter. She already had him wrapped around her little fingers. Fighting a concerted joint effort by her and her mother would be a losing battle, and he knew it.

The first salvo came when he’d finished the yard work and changed to jump into the pool with Laurel before lunch.

Eva joined them on the lanai and sat at the pool’s edge, dangling her feet in the water. She didn’t look at him. “So who was it you said you’re going out with tonight?”

“One of the guys at the marina, Keith. Him and his wife, and some others.” Okay, close enough to the truth. “And a couple of their friends are joining us, from what I understand.” He could play dirty, too. “I get a lot of work from them. They were going to go out last night, but then I said I couldn’t because I was going out with Laurel, so they changed it to tonight so I could join them. I darn sure don’t want to risk making any of them mad and souring a business connection. And I have no idea how late we’ll be out tonight.”

“Oh.” Eva finally glanced his way. She believed him, he could tell from her expression.

And one thing she didn’t do was mess with his work. She was fully aware she couldn’t be living in the house with Laurel if he wasn’t making the money he did. He wasn’t rich, but they got by, although it was slimmer now with houses divided. At least Eva was now earning more money and able to kick in some to take up the slack.

If he ever had an emergency job he had to take care of and was supposed to take Laurel, she would make allowances so he could work. Just like if she got called into work at the last minute, he would drop everything, including social plans, and take Laurel for her.

Not that he’d had much in the way of social plans before now.

“Can I come, Daddy?” Laurel asked.

Now he had to fib, but Sigalo’s did have a bar area so it wasn’t a total lie. “Sorry, sweetie. We’re meeting at a bar. No kids allowed. You’re not old enough.”

She frowned. “When will I be old enough?”

“Too soon,” Eva chimed in. From the tone of her voice, Leo could tell all was forgiven. Now that he’d slipped the work connection more clearly into the mix, and added the little bit of guilt about them rearranging the outing around his time with Laurel, he suspected she wasn’t going to give him too much of a hassle about it.

Why didn’t I think of doing that sooner?

Oh, yeah. It would have given her more time to think of a comeback.

He hated being like that with Eva. She was the mother of his child, and had been his wife for twelve years. He had known her for over a quarter of his life. And as Laurel’s mother, she would be in his life, in some capacity, for the rest of her life.

But the sooner Eva got on with her own life—in earnest—and stopped hanging her hopes on a reconciliation that would never happen, the faster things would be easier on all of them.

Including Laurel.

Especially Laurel. Leo wanted his daughter to grow up a strong, independent woman who could make decisions based on what was right for her, not out of a fear of being alone.

Part of him wanted to shake Eva and make her step up to the plate.

The other part of him called that part of himself a total f*cking * for even thinking like that.

Especially since he knew why Eva was like that.





After the swim lesson, they grilled hot dogs on the back porch and sat in the shade. Eva had donned dark sunglasses that didn’t allow Leo to see behind them.

He could read her like a book and always had been able to, despite what she thought to the contrary.

Dark glasses allowed her to mask her vulnerability for a little while, but it didn’t disguise it. Not from him.

In fact, it only emphasized it to Leo.

He hated being the cause of her current pain but knew she was strong enough to walk through this and make it to the other side, if only she would let go of him in her heart and start the journey.