Page 34 of Chance
Evie’s head shifted back and forth between them, her eyes filling with more tears.“Okay,” she whispered, dazed.
Chance
Evie leftthe hospital with Reid and Everly, without hearing me out.I followed them back to the apartment and then ran up to my place for a quick shower and change of clothes.I’d had an extra shirt in my truck that I’d put on when we’d rushed to the hospital, so at least I wasn’t walking around the ER in nothing but jeans and my cut.
Leaving my phone beside my bed to charge, I hurried back downstairs and knocked on number four’s door.No one answered right away, but I could hear activity going on inside.Knocking again, I twisted the knob and stepped into the living room.Automatically, my gaze went straight to Evie.Since she was still in my shirt, yoga pants, and her hair in a cute knot on top of her head, it wasn’t difficult to determine which sister was which.
She stood in the kitchen, the ingredients for a sandwich or a salad spread around her, sucking on an index finger, her eyes cloudy as she looked straight through me.
“We need to talk, peaches,” I gritted out, when really, I should have been begging.Christ, I was an idiot.“Now.”
Dropping her hand, she shot me a glare.I’d take that over the unfocused, almost blank look.“You don’t get to walk in here and make demands.I don’t care if you do own this building.We pay rent like everyone else, and that makes this our home.”
“Peaches—”
She talked over me.“You didn’t even ask if my sister was okay.”
Fuck.
“Is your sister feeling better?”
A muscle twitched beside her eye.“She’s right there, Chance.Ask her yourself.”Picking up a knife, she started chopping vegetables aggressively.All I could do was stare at her, transfixed yet terrified.She was so damn beautiful, so freaking adorable, but precise in how she used the blade to slice through the poor, unsuspecting bell pepper.
Clenching my jaw, I turned my head in the direction of the couch.Reid was stretched out beside Everly, giving me a smirk, amused at my expense.Cursing him under my breath, I shifted my gaze to Everly.She looked like hell, her hair tangled, face pale, a bandage on the back of her left hand.
“How are you feeling, Everly?”
“Much better, thank you for asking.”Her tone wasn’t mocking, as I expected after our first encounter.Neither of us had been feeling warm and fuzzy toward each other at Hannigans’ the previous night.Shooting her silent sister a glance, she tossed me a lifeline.“We’re about to have a light dinner.Evie is making sandwiches.Would you like to join us?”
I grabbed it like the drowning man I was.“Love to.”
“He’s busy,” Evie snapped simultaneously, her cold tone slicing through me as sharply as the weapon in her hand.
“Peaches.”
“Thanks for stopping by to check on Evy, but my sister is tired.Bye.”Turning away from me, she extracted plates from one of the cabinets.
A lump filled my throat.“Please, just talk to me.”
“Go talk to your mother,” she spat over her shoulder.
“Fuck.”I hated this.She wouldn’t even look at me.“Don’t be like that.Ma doesn’t know you yet.Once she does, she’ll come around.”
“Yeah, no.I’m not subjecting myself to that ugliness.”She set the plates on the island beside the veggies.“Sorry if I have more self-respect than the other whores you fuck around with.”
“Christ, Evie.You have to give me a chance to?—”
“I don’t owe you anything, least of all a chance to let your mother degrade me more than she already has.It’s not worth it.”My heart stopped when she looked at me, my stomach dropping toward the floor at the contempt banked there.“You aren’t worth it.”
Pain exploded in my chest, fragments ricocheting around, destroying everything in their path.Emotions choked me, my eyes stinging for possibly the first time in my adult life.
“Evie,” her sister admonished.
“What?You didn’t expect me to have a backbone?”she demanded defensively, looking directly at me.“No one expected the broken girl to stick up for herself.Well, joke’s on you, because I’m done letting people stomp on my heart.Just because I once tried to kill myself doesn’t mean I don’t love myself enough now to demand that the people in my life treat me with basic human decency.The fact that you would let your mom talk about me like that without speaking up is all I need to know about you, Chance Reid.”
Self-loathing bubbled up inside me at the same time as my mind got stuck on the words “just because I once tried to kill myself.”No, she didn’t mean that the way I thought she did.She couldn’t have.Not my peaches.She was pissed, understandably upset, the chaos of the day catching up to her.Girls did that all the time to elicit a reaction.
But that didn’t seem like something my girl would do.
