Page 53 of All My Love

I should never have left him with Tiffani. Never.

After I got home from my trip and thanked Dolly for everything, I was feeling supremely guilty for all the things I’d been feeling and thinking. I thought asking Tiffani to hang out with my boy for a few hours was a step in the more ethical direction, despite the fact my gut hated it.

I know it was the wrong choice. And this trying to date Tiffani bullshit? It’s done now.This fucking second.

I’ll find a way to assuage Ev’s worries, but it is not gonna be with some woman who lets a four-year-old wander off to get into an open body of water alone.

“Tiffani says,” he starts, and my spine lengthens, my shoulders going rigid. Deuce gently rests his palm on my chest, leveling his gaze on me. “Hey,” he quietly grabs my focus as my gaze shifts to Tiffani, who is emerging from the house with an ice pack pressed to her nose. Her hair is shiny, and her strappy sandals are in place. The ice pack is the only visible disturbance.

I look back to Bear, who is soaked. Ev is dry except for where she clearly held my boy, and Deuce is dry too.

He watches me sorting things out and keeps me there, using that hand on my chest. “Listen now, okay?”

I give him my focus because in truth, I need a minute to pull it together. Seeing Ev emotional always fucks me up, and the way she’s doting on him tells me she’s still going through it.

Deuce’s hair curtains his face as he leans in, his menacing ink a stark contrast to the lightness in his voice. “Bear asked Tiffani to take him to the creek to skip stones. She said no, but she got a phone call and went into your room and closed the door.” My blood boils so much that my back and underarms sweat. “Bear said she was in your roomfor the entireTrollsmovie, and so he thought she fell asleep.”

I shake my head. “I’m so fucking mad at myself.”

“Why?” he asks. Soon, after he and Ev have kids, he’ll reflect back on this moment with full understanding.

“I knew she shouldn’t watch him. What was the point?” I shout, my misguided anger flying everywhere but where it should.

“Don’t do this, don’t blame yourself,” Deuce says, shaking his head. “You had to work. It was three hours. She had one job, she sucks, Bear is okay.”

He nods until I nod along with him.

“Now, Bear snuck off and slipped on some stones on the bank. Then his foot got caught–”

My head falls between my shoulders as I choke on a singular breath. My sweet little boy was in trouble, andI wasn’t there, and I was the one who put him in that trouble. Deuce’s voice is smoky and calm when he quietly pulls me into him with a hug. “He’s okay.” He slaps my back. “Thank God for Dolly.”

“What?” My head snaps up too fast, breaking the comforting connection.

“Well,” he says, “Dolly was in her barn working when she thought she heard something. She said she ran out near the oak, and kept listening. She thought it was coming from the creek, so she took off running that way, and when she hit the top of the hill, she saw him, out in the creek, just his head. Ended up getting in the water and going under and getting him. She swam back with him and then carried him in her arms the whole way back. Oh, and she stopped on the banks after she pulled him out and got him to puke, so thewater wouldn’t stay in his lungs, then she carried him back. Ev and I had just got here, we were running out when she was traipsing up.”

I stand there blinking at Deuce like he’s speaking another language. “She…what?”

He repeats itallagain, and I find myself searching. “Where is she?”

“Home,” he says, “I tried to get her to see the EMT but… she was…in a state.”

I shake my head, thoroughly and frustratingly confused. “What—why did she need an EMT? Why was shein a state?”

“Well,” Deuce says, looking down at his combat boots as he strokes his ring-covered fingers through his hair. In the distance, a sports car pulls up next to my pickup. Deuce turns around, waving at the man. “Give me five.”

The guy is the new artist for the shop. His custom plate reads TRACE69. Trace Calhoun waves, sinking against the sports car with his eyes on his phone.

“He was already on his way to meet me, I told him I had an emergency and dropped my location pin here,” Deuce explains.

It’s not that I don’t care about Trace or the shop but right now, I have a singular focus.“Tell me about Dolly.”

“Okay, well, she fell down the hill, she was running so fast. And on her way out to the creek she cut her foot really badly. Likely made it worse in the creek and on the walk back. Hell, if you retrace her steps they’ll be bloody.” He grimaces as he stares in the direction of the creek. “Her face was banged up a little, and her clothes were torn. Fuck, man, she was a mess.”

“Dolly saved Bear’s life,” I say aloud, imagining her withhim in that cold water, both of them small, both terrified. She was so strong and brave for my boy.

“I should probably tell you about thelastpart,” Deuce says, glancing over his shoulder at Tiffani, who is weaseling into the paramedics' space to get her nose looked at. I’m realizing now that?—

“Why is Tiffani hurt if Dolly is the one that found him and brought him back?”

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