Page 12 of Home Sweet Home

As Evie stood at the mixer, creaming her butter and sugar, she looked out the window. The stars twinkled brightly in the cloudless, dark sky, and West Hawthorne paced in his living room, phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear.

If he was home, it meant he was staying the night. He caught her gaze and waved. She unhooked the string that kept the curtains tucked off to the side, letting them cover the window.

* * *

As Evie walkedinto the IGA, the automatic doors whooshed shut behind her and the AC raised goose bumps on her arms. She had nineteen minutes before work, and the last thing she wanted to do was grocery shop, heart palpitating at the thought of adding anything to her Visa balance. But she had five pies to make for Joe’s, and she and Josh were required by the laws of nature to eat. Ever since shooting up to six feet tall, Josh seemed to devour an entire box of cereal a day.

In the produce section, Evie held a Honeycrisp apple to her nose and inhaled.

“Does that really help?” a voice asked, making her entire body freeze. “Always wondered.”

When she finally got up the courage to look, West was standing less than two feet from her, gripping the steering bar of an empty shopping cart. In his hands, it was like a child’s toy from a supermarket playset, the kind that came with plastic cans of vegetables.

Of course he’s here.She’d always hated the smallness of Creek Water. With one grocery store, one gas station, one everything, it was impossible to avoid someone, even if she was desperate.

Evie put a bag of apples into the basket. “No. I smell them for entertainment.”

She turned toward the pantry aisle, the cart groaning underneath her.Great.The one she’d picked had a dud wheel, but she didn’t have time to get another one. As she examined the rice selection, West’s cart crept up next to hers.

He propped his foot up on the bottom shelf of the cart. “Any other weird new hobbies you have I should know about?”

“Don’t you have minions to do your grunt work for you?” Evie asked, throwing two boxes of the cheapest rice into her cart.

She started moving, hoping he would get the hint, but he kept pace with her as she walked down the aisle. “Usually. But today, I’m Della Hawthorne’s minion. I’ve been home for less than twenty-four hours, and I’ve already mowed the lawn and fixed a loose stair. Pretty sure she’s gonna make me clean the gutters when I get back.”

His use of the wordhomewas not lost on Evie as she studied the price under the Morton’s salt. It didn’t sit right, because home, to her, was the place you always came back to. West had avoided Creek Water for almost a decade, even when his dad died. “Stars. They’re just like us.”

He laughed, and her stomach leapt like she’d eaten Cheerios doing jumping jacks for breakfast. Once upon a time, she’d lived for the feeling that laugh created, ranked its importance squarely after water, air, and food.

Get a grip,Evie thought as she turned the corner. She picked up a green Styrofoam plate of ground beef and considered making tacos, Josh’s favorite. Then she looked at the price and put it down. They would be going meatless for a while.

Next to her, West held a pack of chicken in each hand, a devilish smile tugging at his lips. “Thighs or breasts?”

As Evie turned away, she rolled her eyes. “What are you? Twelve?”

“Always been a thigh guy,” he said, stacking five containers into his cart. At the look Evie gave him, he added, “What? I eat big lunches.”

One of West’s “lunches” cost as much as the food that would feed her and Josh for an entire week. She tried not to think about it as she turned into the snack aisle. As she grabbed a bag of Doritos, West was less than a foot away, contemplating the shelves, face twisted in concentration.

Evie turned to him, arms crossed over her chest. “You push your cart down the aisle and get stuff off the shelves. When you’re done, you go to checkout and give them money, and then you exit the building.”

A slow smirk pulled one corner of his mouth upward, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He thought this was a joke, a routine like the one they used to put on, and it annoyed the crap out of her. “I know how to shop, Peach.”

And as if he were trying to pile on the annoyance, there was the nickname again, dropped in so casually.

“Well,” Evie said, the gimpy wheel on her cart protesting as she turned. “You’re following me around like you need something, so I just assumed you forgot.”

She was halfway down the spice aisle when West came up next to her again. “I might be miles off here. But did I do something wrong? Despite the obvious.”

Evie’s heart started beating faster when West’s face warped in genuine concern.Did he mean what he said a long time ago?But then she remembered the angry fan on the TV screen. The boos rolling through the stadium at the latest Devil’s game. The steroids. West Hawthorne didn’t remember what he’d said. Or maybe he did, but it didn’t bother him like it bothered her. It didn’t matter either way, and she shouldn’t have let herself think otherwise.

She grabbed a canister of cinnamon. Spending four dollars seemed frivolous, given the circumstances, but she’d run out last week, and she couldn’t make apple pie without it. “What made you think that?”

“Well, you bolted out of Mel’s the second I walked in,” he said.

“I told you—I had stuff to do. We don’t all have minions at our beck and call.”

“You’ve barely looked at me. Not at the bar and not here.”

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