Bad Girl Reputation (Avalon Bay #2)(4)

“Hey,” he says, holding out his arms in a hesitant offer, which I accept because it feels more awkward not to.

He always did give good hugs.

I force myself not to linger in his arms, not to inhale his scent. His body is warm and muscular and as familiar to me as my own. I know every inch of that tall, delicious frame.

I take a hasty step backward.

“Yeah, so, I heard. Obviously. Wanted to pay my respects.” Evan is bashful, almost coy, with his hands in his pockets and his head bowed to look at me under thick lashes. I can’t imagine the pep talk it took to get him here.

“Thanks.”

“And, well, yeah.” From one pocket, he pulls out a blue Blow Pop. “I got you this.”

I haven’t cried once since finding out Mom was sick. Yet accepting this stupid token from Evan makes my throat tighten and my eyes sting.

I’m suddenly transported back to the first time a Blow Pop ever exchanged hands between us. Another funeral. Another dead parent. It was after Evan’s dad, Walt, died in a car accident. Drunk driving, because that’s the kind of reckless, self-destructive man Walt Hartley had been. Fortunately, nobody else was hurt, but Walt’s life ended on the dark road that night when he’d lost control and smashed into a tree.

I was twelve at the time and had no clue what to bring to a wake. My parents brought flowers, but Evan was a kid like me. What was he going to do with flowers? All I knew was that my best friend and the boy I’d always had a huge crush on was hurting badly, and all I had to my name was one measly dollar. The fanciest thing I could afford at the general store was a lollipop.

Evan had cried when I clasped the Blow Pop in his shaking hand and quietly sat beside him on the back deck of his house. He’d whispered, “Thanks, Gen,” and then we sat there in silence for more than an hour, staring at the waves lapping at the shore.

“Shut up,” I mutter to myself, clenching the lollipop in my palm. “You’re so dumb.” Despite my words, we both know I’m deeply affected.

Evan cracks a knowing smile and smooths one hand over his tie, straightening it. He cleans up nice, but not too nice. Something about a suit on this guy still feels dangerous.

“You’re lucky I found you first,” I tell him once I can speak again. “Not sure my brothers would be as friendly.”

With an unconcerned smirk, he shrugs. “Kellan hits like a girl.”

Typical. “I’ll make sure to tell him you said so.”

Some wandering cousins glimpse us around the corner and look as though they might find a reason to come talk to me, so I grab Evan by the lapel and shove him toward the laundry room. I press myself up against the doorframe, then check to make sure the coast is clear.

“I can’t get hijacked into another conversation about how much I remind people of my mom,” I groan. “Like, dude, the last time you saw me, I still wasn’t eating solid food.”

Evan adjusts his tie again. “They think they’re helping.”

“Well, they’re not.”

Everyone wants to tell me what a great lady Mom was and how important family was to her. It’s almost creepy, hearing people talk about a woman who bears no resemblance to the person I knew.

“How you holding up?” he asks roughly. “Like, really?”

I shrug in return. Because that’s the question, isn’t it? I’ve been asked it a dozen different ways over the past couple days, and I still don’t have a proper answer. Or at least, not the one people want to hear.

“I’m not sure I feel anything. I don’t know. Maybe I’m still in shock or something. You always expect these things to happen in a split second, or over months and months. This, though? It was like just the wrong amount of warning. I came home, and a week later she was dead.”

“I get that,” he says. “Barely time to get your bearings before it’s over.”

“I haven’t known which way is up for days.” I bite my lip. “I’m starting to wonder if there’s something wrong with me?”

He fixes me with a disbelieving scowl. “It’s death, Fred. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

I snort a laugh at his nickname for me. Been so long since I’ve heard it, I’d almost forgotten what it sounded like. There was a time when I answered to it more than my own name.

“Seriously, though. I keep waiting for the grief to hit, but it doesn’t come.”

“It’s hard to find a lot of emotion for a person who didn’t have a lot for you. Even if it’s your mom.” He pauses. “Maybe especially moms.”

“True.”

Evan gets it. He always has. One of the things we have in common is an unorthodox relationship with our mothers. In that there isn’t much relationship to speak of. While his mom is an impermanent idea in his life—absent except for the few times a year she breezes into town to sleep off a bender or ask for money—mine was absent in spirit if not in body. Mine was so cold and detached, even in my earliest memories, that she hardly seemed to exist at all. I grew up jealous of the flower beds she tended in the front yard.

“I’m almost relieved she’s gone.” A lump rises in my throat. “No, more than almost. That’s terrible to say, I know that. But it’s like … now I can stop trying, you know? Trying and then feeling like crap when it doesn’t change.”