Page 90 of Stay in Your Lane!

“Jesus, he went to the ER?”Wait, of course he went to the ER. He was bleeding out his freaking ears and I’m the one who demanded an ambulance!God, I was a mess. “I need to call him.”

My sister put a hand on my arm. “Can it wait until after you say hi to everyone at home? He’s okay, I promise—his dad is looking out for him.”

That didn’t exactly sound like the Daddy Bowman I’d met. Then again, having your kid almost get killed by your coworkers probably put a lot of things into perspective for a guy. “Fine.” I texted, though, just a quickYay, I’m out of jail and it’s even legal! Where are you? Can I come by?Then I put my phone in my pocket so I wouldn’t be tempted to stare at it until a reply came through.

The rest of the ride home was filled with Leanne’s happy chatter, which I hadn’t heard much of lately. It made mewonder… As we pulled into the back lot, I waited for her to turn the car off before I asked, “Are you leaving the business too?”

She stared at me. “How did you know?”

How could I not? “You’re back together with Theo, even though the major sticking point in your relationship was how much you prioritized working here over moving out and getting a place together. But I also know you want to do cosmetology school, and you’ve got a new sticker on your phone case for one—” She slapped a hand over the back of her phone, but it was too late to try to hide it. “And you wouldn’t have time to do both school and work here the way Dad wantswhiletrying to have a relationship with Theo, so something had to give, and I bet it’s working here. Good for you,” I finished with a grin.

“You—that’s—” She sighed, but it was more amused than resigned. “I should never underestimate how well you can pay attention when you want to. You know about Stuart too, huh?”

“Yeah.”

She stared down at her phone for a long moment, thumb rubbing over the sticker. “You’re not planning to leave too, are you? I don’t think Dad could keep the business running if all of us left at once. It was bad enough when he was fretting for just a few hours over how long you might be gone.”

“I don’t want to leave the business,” I assured her. “I love working here. Just…maybe not the way I have been.” Being at Dad’s beck and call while making less than I ought to, never taking the chance to move out and be on my own—or with someone else, someone with two cats and a fish with an attitude problem. I was ready for a change, even if it meant getting a tiny apartment to live in for a while as I sorted my shit out.

“That’s fair.” Leanne nodded sagely. “Now brace yourself.”

“Wh—” The door flew open, and my brother jerked me out of the seat and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Jesus Christ, Everett!” he half-laughed, half-shouted at me. “I saw you get taken down by SWAT on the evening news! Dad just about had a heart attack!”

Oh boy. “Um, surprise?” Sadly, Dad’s night wasn’t about to get much better. But at least I could reassure him that I was okay.

That was the easy part, apparently. I got a quick side-hug, a“good thing I don’t have to bail you out of jail, kid,”and then my dad plunged into the weekend cremation schedule and the services we had coming up, just“getting you up to speed on things”so I could work, work, work. It left me feeling kind of cold, honestly. When was the last time my father had been concerned for me outside of how many shifts I was good for, or whether or not I could set up a funeral correctly?

Leanne held up a hand, interrupting our father’s discussion of flower deliveries. “Dad.” She glanced at both of us, then firmed her shoulders. “We’ve got something to tell you.”

“I can’t believe your dad yelled at you!” Kyle’s indignation was like ice on a burn.

“Eh, it wasn’t so bad. It was mostly him yelling at my brother and sister,” I said, snuggling in a little closer. After I got to his place an hour ago, the first thing we did together was shower. It had been decidedly cleanliness-oriented, which was fine since between the floor of Waffles? and the holding cell, I’d been exposed to more kinds of bacteria than I wanted to think about.

Now we were on the couch, bracketed by cats and full from an extra late-night dinner courtesy of Colin’s awesome wife. Taco casserole was a thing, it turned out. “But yeah, he wasn’t happy with me either. Said we were all betraying him. Then hetold me I’d have to work harder than ever to make up for my siblings not being around, so I asked him for overtime pay.”

Kyle snorted a laugh. “What did he say to that?”

“Over his dead body, which I thought wasn’t very funny under the circumstances.”

“Does he not understand that you could have been—” Kyle didn’t say it, but we were both thinking it. Tonight could have been it. Tonight could have been our Ricky Leighton moment, all because we weren’t willing to let go of the truth. It would have been so much easier to just…allow things happen the way they’d been going, to let Ricky’s death be labeled a suicide and go about our business.

I didn’t regret pushing for the truth. I couldn’t, not just because Ricky deserved that much but because our investigation was what brought Kyle and me together. Still… “I couldn’t tell him how scared I was,” I said. “Or that I thought I might die. Or how awful it was when you were down and bleeding and you couldn’t hear me and all I could do was dumb shit to get attention and hopefully not get shot at the same time.” I heaved a sigh and turned my face into Kyle’s neck. He smelled like his soap, and clean skin, and a little like fabric softener. It was better than any cologne.

“Thanks for letting me be here.” I already knew I would have been up all night otherwise. Hell, it was so late now that this probably counted as being up all night, but at least with him I could sleep today.

Kyle ran a hand through my hair, pushing back the bits that had flopped down onto my face. “I wanted you here.”

I smiled. That was nice.

“So do Jeff and Patches.”

Aw, sweet.

“Steve too.”

I had to laugh. “Bullshit.”

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