Series: The Laws of Opposite Attract Series by Vi Keeland
Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 105253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Devyn was the last person I expected to find standing here. She held out a glass filled with clear liquid. “I can’t bake for shit. But I wanted to apologize for the attitude I gave you earlier. Plus, I figured you could use a drink after the evening you had with my little brother. It’s a tequila soda. You drank one the night we met.”
I hated that I softened so easily. I’d been pissed for hours. “I didn’t help because I wanted something in return,” I told her.
“I know you didn’t. It was just my knee-jerk reaction, and it was totally inappropriate.” She smiled. “I have a bad habit of being overly defensive. I’m not used to nice guys, I guess. Can you forgive me?”
I opened the door wider. “You want to come in? We could share that drink. I’m sure you could use it too, right about now.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I really shouldn’t.”
I looked back and forth between her eyes. “You shouldn’t, or you don’t want to?”
She bit down on her bottom lip. “Shouldn’t.”
I held out my hand, and she passed me the drink. “Apology accepted.”
“Thank you. And thank you for everything you did for Heath.”
I nodded. “No problem.”
“Have a good night.”
“You too.”
I stayed at my door, watching Devyn walk to the elevator. Just as the door slid open, I yelled after her. “Hey!”
Devyn turned back.
“You shouldn’t come in because the dynamic duo are upstairs unsupervised, or you shouldn’t come in because you don’t trust yourself alone with me inside my apartment sharing a drink?”
Her lip twitched with a hint of a smile as she stepped onto the elevator. “The kids are asleep. I don’t think they’d get into trouble.”
Well, well, well…maybe there’s hope after all.
CHAPTER 4
Devyn
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
The sound of Heath chomping on his Cap’n Crunch cereal grated my nerves. I’d thought I couldn’t stand the sound of chewing in general, but this crunching was far worse. Maybe I was just on edge lately, with everything that normally bugged me amplified.
He slurped some milk.
Slurp.
Slurp.
Slurp.
That was worse than the crunching.
Heath wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “That Owen guy is alright.”
Just the mention of his name made my pulse speed up. A fleeting memory of my nails digging into Owen’s back flashed through my mind. I willed it away, suddenly wishing we could go back to the crunching and slurping.
I leaned my arms against the table. “What made you think of him just now?”
“We talked the other day when we got pizza.”
“What did you talk about?”
Heath drank the last of his milk straight from the bowl. “Just stuff.”
“Stuff like what?”
He hesitated. “I told him about Mom.”
Ugh. One more reason for Owen to feel sorry for us.
“You shouldn’t be talking about Mom to anyone.”
“Why not?”
“They won’t understand, and it’s no one’s business.”
“It’s not like I can avoid it. People are gonna start to wonder where she is if she doesn’t come back.”
I sighed. “Exactly how much did you tell him?”
“Just like…how this isn’t the first time she’s disappeared and stuff.”
I had to stop myself from scolding him again. The truth was, my feelings on the matter had to do with my trauma, the shame I felt about having been abandoned by my own mother. I should’ve been asking myself what kind of mother takes off and leaves her child? Instead, my mind often twisted it to what kind of child makes her mother want to leave?
Heath should be able to talk about his shitty family situation with whomever he wanted, I reminded myself. That was good for him. I needed to respect that.
“Okay. I understand why you felt you needed to explain things,” I told him.
“He said I could stop by his place if I ever needed to talk.”
That made me uneasy, but how could I be mad that Owen had offered my brother a shoulder to lean on?
“Well, that was nice of him.”
There were seemingly many nice things about Owen. I wished I could get to know him better, but I couldn’t afford to get emotionally involved with anyone while I was here.
***
That afternoon, I dropped Heath and Hannah off at the local YMCA. They’d walk back home themselves later, but I had to accompany them to pay for the membership. Heath was going to play basketball, and I’d signed up Hannah for an art class. It was tough figuring out things for them to do with their time so they stayed out of trouble. The Y, where they would be somewhat supervised for a couple of hours, seemed like a good alternative to them walking around the building wreaking havoc.
That also meant I had a little time to myself, so I took a walk to clear my head.
As I returned to the building, a beautiful woman with wild, curly blond hair stood outside the front entrance, holding a tiny baby in an infant carrier. The mom or nanny was all dressed up. It seemed almost illegal not to pause and dote on the adorable little peanut.