Page 47 of Crazy Imperfect Hearts

“It’s not that much. I’ll just take it out of the price Stan gives you for the car.”

I smile, knowing it’s not what he’s going to do at all. He’s being neighborly. It’s why half the businesses around here don’t make very good profits. But I do the same, so I understand. “Thanks, Carter.” I turn to leave, but then stop to ask, “Hey, Carter, how’s Christian doing? He says he’s going to be working here.”

His face beams. “He is. The boy’s been telling me for years he wants to follow in his old man’s footsteps.”

I tilt my head. “Has it been hard for you? With Christian.”

He looks at his son across the room, sorting spare parts into bins. He nods, but smiles. “It has. But I tell you what, it’s been worth it. He’s a hell of a kid. I’m a lucky man.”

“Yeah,” I say, my mind reeling. “I can see that.”

“I’ll call you when I hear from Stan.”

I thank him then trot over to strike up a conversation with Mrs. Henderson over in the corner. She’s one of my best customers.

~ ~ ~

“Your head is anywhere but here,” Ava says during our usual weekly meet-up behind the ice cream shop.

I look away from Teddy, who is sleeping peacefully in his stroller beside our table. “It’s my car,” I lie. Well, it’s not exactly a lie, I do worry about what I’ll do if I really need transportation. In this moment, however, my car is the furthest thing from my mind.

“You know you can borrow mine whenever you need to.”

“Mine, too,” Maddie says.

“Thanks, guys. I think I have it all figured out, though. I can order a ton of stuff online. The only time I absolutely need a car is when I take my donations across town. But with the money I’ll be saving on car insurance and repairs, I can easily pay for an Uber.”

“Or”—Maddie puts her hand on my arm—“you can borrow one of our cars and save even more money.”

“I tell you what,” Ava says. “You know I rarely use mine. I’ll leave the keys under the floor mat. That way if I’m busy at work or sleeping or whatever, it’s there and available.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Teddy begins to fuss, gratefully cutting off any further attention to my transportation problems.

“I’ve got him,” Ava says, scooping him up and smelling his head. “God, I can’t wait to have one of these. My ovaries explode every time I’m near this little nugget.”

I reach over and touch his little cheek, wanting to hold him, but not wanting to draw attention to the fact that I’ve completely changed my stance on children over the course of the last week.

“It must be a lot different this time than when you had Gigi,” I say. “I mean, I know you had Gigi’s dad at first, but then you were a single mom for quite a while before you got together with Tag. How’d you do it?”

I’m hoping I asked nonchalantly enough so as to not raise suspicion.

“It was incredibly hard. But I had Gran.”

“What would you say was the hardest thing about it?”

Maddie thinks on it. “I guess knowing that I was solely responsible for a small human. And knowing I’d be the only one to blame if something happened to her or if she’d turned out bad.”

I laugh. “Nothing to worry about there. Gigi is fabulous.”

“She is, isn’t she,” she says like the proud mother she is.

“So you wouldn’t change anything?” I ask. “Like if you could go back and do anything differently?”

Her hard stare alerts me to my ridiculous question. “You mean other than leaving my hair straightener on and burningdown my house, and my baby’s father going back in to rescue her and then dying?”

I swallow my guilt. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

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