Page 6 of You've Got Male

Chapter Three

Evie

“Don’t you dare move,” Evie said to the about-to-topple stack of garbage bags full of clothes that she had purged from her closet for Goodwill during spring cleaning. It was now September.

Between helping with the store, being a mom, and running a household of four, things were falling through the cracks. Something she’d come to terms with the moment she discovered she’d be a single mom. Up until that point, her life was as organized as Marie Kondo’s closet. It was what had made her, at one time, such a great CPO: Certified Professional Organizer.

Evie loved the feeling of accomplishment that came with letting go of the old to make way for the new. It was how she managed to get through the most challenging years of her life, by letting go of the hurt and sadness. Most importantly, it was the ability to let go of the dreams that could have been. But that was an important part of the healing process. And that’s what she had helped her clients do. Organize the grief and sorrow, the joy and happy times, and hold on to what mattered and give awaywhat was holding them back.

Oh, if her former clients could see her now.

Evie’s life was such a mess she’d had to quit that last thing that was truly hers—her being a CPO—to bail her parents out of a bind. Help them let go of what wasn’t working so they could implement things that would grow their coffee shop.

For years, she’d managed to balance being a mom and running her own CPO division at the company she worked for. She’d even come to terms with being in her thirties and still living with her parents. Her divorced parents, who shared a home and a business and a plethora of dating tips for Evie. They doled out unsolicited advice on just about everything. From parenting, to finances, to how to relax her pelvic floor.

Evie might not be sure what her pelvic floor was doing, but her mom hadn’t needed to give her a gift card for a ten-session pelvic floor massage for Christmas—which Evie did not redeem.

She grabbed a basket of clothes, which were rolled but still not in their drawers, and shoved it under the bed.

“Mr. Karlson just pulled up,” Lenard called out.

“Tell that lemon thief he can wait on the porch until seven. Doesn’t he know it’s rude to arrive at an event early?” her mother snapped.

Moira didn’t have a mean bone in her body unless it came to Mr. Karlson. They made Jonah and Evie’s bickering look like a playground squabble.

Evie looked at her watch and panic set in. More people would start arriving at any moment and she hadn’t even had a chance to change her clothes. She was still in her barista uniform, smelled like a pumpkin spiced latte, and she didn’t have a speck of makeup on.

Hefting a gigantic pile of bills and receipts that her father had strewn around the office that she’d brought home to sort, she walked to her corner desk—the same desk that had Nick Cartercovering it—and set it next to her idea book—which was more of a stack of clippings—for her mom’s surprise sixtieth birthday party.

It was going to be a garden party glamorous enough to knock her mom’s socks off and she couldn’t accomplish that with Jonah’s yard in such discord, or rats on the guest list. She needed this meeting to go her way.

On her nightstand, in its own stack, was the most important thing in the room. A letter stating that Grinder was nominated forDenver’s Best Coffee Shop. The winner would be decided by the public and Evie wanted to be that winner. No, she needed a win—and so did the shop. The kind of publicity that came with the honor could singlehandedly pull them out of the red.

Another knock sounded and Evie heard the front door open and shut.

“Mom, light the cookie dough candle,” she hollered down the hallway. “It will make people think the cookies we bought are homemade.”

Moira peeked her head in. Dressed in a teal pantsuit, with her highlighted, choppy hair spilling over her shoulders, she looked like one of Charlie’s angels.

“Theyarehomemade. Their former home just happens to be the market,” Moira said, looking down at the pile of Goodwill bags that, three minutes ago, had been lining the front hallway. “No one will care.”

“I’ll care.”

“Clutter makes a home look lived in.”

“Your kind of clutter makes a home look like a yard sale. And I can’t preach beautification and have our house be one bag away from starring inHoarders.”

“You mean, you can’t lecture our sexy neighbor on community guidelines and have him see that you’re human and sometimes forget to make your bed?”

“This has nothing to do with our neighbor,” she said, and Moira sent her a knowing smile. “It doesn’t. The meeting that is cutting into my weekly bubble bath, that is all about him and his yard. I caught another rat in our trap today.”

“That is becoming a problem. They’re nibbling on the roots of the rose bed.” The roses her own grandmother had planted fifty years ago when they bought the house. No gang of needle-teethed, tail-whipping rats were going to take her down. She had singlehandedly raised her daughter, cared for her parents, was bringing a café back from the dead, and was throwing her mom the best garden party ever. Not to mention she’d decided to take accountability for her future and at least send in the acceptance letter for the placement exam for classes any day now.

And she wasn’t about to let her neighbor’s incompetence ruin her plans!

“Which is why this meeting is so important!” She stomped her foot and her mother lifted a brow at the usually calm-in-the-middle-of-the-storm Evie. Well, she was stepping out of the eye of Hurricane Granger spinning around her and taking some of the power back. If she wanted her life back on track then she needed to venture into unknown territory and find some damn tracks. “He either cleans it up himself or the board sends in a demolition team and landscaper at his expense.”

“If you’re so bent on besting him, then why do you have your favorite blue dress out?”

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