Page 79 of One-Star Romance

The phone began to trill again. “Lord of Darkness really wants to get a hold of you,” Nat said.

Angus sighed. “Can you put it on speaker? I can’t stop this in the middle, or the whole thing will collapse, which Trent should have looked into before ordering so many of these.” He caught himself. “Not to be mean to Trent. He’s trying.”

Natalie did as requested. “Hello?” Angus called, his voice slightly muffled.

“Angus? I need your thoughts on the Quartz investment.” Just from the sound of his boss’s voice, Natalie would bet anything that the man had spent far too much money on hair plugs.

“Right,” Angus called. “I can email them over tonight. But as I’ve said, I’m mostly out of the office for a little while.”

“What is it again? Family?”

“Yes, my wife is having surgery.”

“Oh, of course, that’s right. Take all the time you need.”

“Thank you—”

“But you will be back in by Wednesday, yes? Because we’ll have a big client coming in, and we could really use you.”

At this, Angus wriggled partway out from underneath the futon, frustration all over his face. He took a deep breath, then said, “Well, my wife will only be two days out of surgery then, best-case scenario, so I was hoping to stay home with her. And you know I don’t feel comfortable coming into the office when she’s so vulnerable, healthwise, but I can hop on Zoom—”

“That’s going to be difficult. Why don’t you just come in, and you don’t have to go to the luncheon afterward. Face time is important if you’re hoping for that promotion we discussed.”

Natalie waved to catch Angus’s attention, then mouthed, “Rob and I can handle it.”

Angus shook his head, his jaw set, his curls wild around his head, a smudge of dust on his cheek. “But I want to be here,” he whispered.

“Sorry, Stoat, what was that?” his boss asked.

Still looking at Natalie, Angus asked, under his breath, “What am I trying to prove?”

Natalie shrugged her shoulders, gave her head the smallest shake. And from his undignified position on the floor, Angus glanced at the phone for a moment as if mystified. Then he blinked, his expression clearing. “I quit.”

“Excuse me, what?” his boss began.

Angus hauled himself to his feet with a grunt. “I said I quit.”

“Very funny, Stoat. Don’t be unreasonable—”

“I can’t keep working for a place that doesn’t respect my family. Goodbye.” Angus gestured to Natalie to hang up the phone and, her mouth hanging open, she did, plunging the room into sudden silence. This was a noble gesture, quitting for Gabby. But impulsive too, a far more serious version of the wedding zip line. What about their health insurance in the midst of this emergency? And how was Angus supposed to job hunt while caring for Gabby? And—

Angus caught Natalie’s eye and shrugged as if he’d read her mind. “Don’t worry, we’re all on Gabby’s health insurance plan. She’s raised the idea of me quitting before. And I want to run my dad’s futon store anyway. Trent is a disaster.” Then he turned and gave the futon a firm tug, and it flopped itself open into her bed.

Nat stepped forward and hugged him. This bumbling boy, now a man she trusted to take care of someone as precious as Gabby. This whole time, almost ten years now, he’d never wavered in the way he’d loved and treated her. She’d been so skeptical that Angus deserved Gabby. Now she realized not only that he did, but that Gabby deserved him too. God, Natalie thought, may we all be so lucky as to have an Angus Stoat the Third.

“I really misjudged you,” she said into his shoulder.

“Well”—Angus extricated himself; his face had turned pink—“people often do.”

32

Sometime over the last two days, Christina had decided that she liked Rob well enough to stop running away from him. Instead, she led him by the hand around the house to show him where she’d hidden away her various treasures. In the basement behind the TV, a pile of rocks. “Wow,” Rob said, as she carefully handed them to him one by one. In her bedroom under a teddy bear, a sparkly barrette, which she demanded Rob fasten in her hair. And in the living room, she pulled a piece of paper from under a couch cushion to show him the stickers she’d put on it.

“Beautiful,” Rob said, then looked closer at the paper. To-Do Before Surgery, it read at the top, followed by a long list of items. The handwriting was far too neat for Angus. “Let’s go show this to your mom.”

Slowly, he and Christina walked up the stairs. (Sometimes she liked to walk up a few steps, sit, and scoot back down on her bottom, then do it again. It was cute, if inefficient.) At long last, they made it to the door of the primary bedroom. Rob knocked.

“Come in,” Gabby called. She sat on the bed, efficiently packing herself a hospital bag, forehead furrowed in concentration.

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