Page 80 of Home Sweet Home

“I’d heard,” her dad had said when Evie had told him she was coaching the boys team that summer. The business had seemed too good to be true, and Evie now had proof that it was. He hadn’t come back to see her and Josh. He’d come back because he knew West was in town and had seen what he thought was a surer bet than a blackjack table.

“Here,” she said, handing West the check. “Probably has the honor of being the smallest check you’ve ever gotten.”

He looked at it then back at her, all the light gone from his eyes. It looked wrong on him, and it sucked all the warmth from the universe. “I’m not cashing this, Evie. Can we just take a beat and cool down? We’ve got the game later, and maybe after I can come over, and we can sit down and hash this out?”

“Do whatever you want with the check,” Evie said. “And I’m not coming to the game, because I quit.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

When Evie steppedinside her house and put her back against the door, the tension that had run through every muscle in her body fell away. She closed her eyes, grateful for the slab of wood between her and West. Then she remembered Josh.

When she did, her eyes snapped open. He was home. There wasn’t anywhere else he could have been. His room faced the front lawn, and he always kept the window open during the summer to let the breeze in.

She had no energy left, and more than anything, she just wanted to lie down on her bed and take a long nap, leaning into the blissful oblivion of being unconscious. But she had a messy mountain of problems to deal with when it came to Josh. There was what Mrs. Jenkins had started to tell her at the salon, and thinking about Josh overhearing everything she’d just said to West made her stomach hurt. She knew what she had to do.

Evie knocked on his door. When he didn’t answer, she knocked again, this time her knuckles rapping against the wood so fast and hard, they stung when she pulled her hand away.

“Josh, come on. I know you’re in there,” Evie said, her patience a frayed thread that was a light breeze away from snapping. She tried knocking once more before she just opened it.

“Hey!” Josh was sitting on his bed, his computer on his lap, his headphones sliding halfway off his head. “I thought we agreed. Always knock.”

“I knocked twice,” Evie said. “The rule doesn’t exist for you to just avoid me.” She sat down on the edge of his bed, and he recoiled toward the headboard, drawing his knees into his chest like he was trying to make himself as small as possible. She wasn’t sure how to have this conversation. There wasn’t exactly a precedent. “What are the chances you didn’t hear any of that?”

The hard stare and twitch in his jaw told her he’d heard every word.

She bit the inside of her lip and glanced out Josh’s door. “Did you hear him leave?”

“Yeah,” Josh said, swallowing down the lump in his throat and tightening his grip on his knees. “Heard his van a little bit after you left for work.”

“Did he say goodbye?” Evie asked, her voice soft, even though she already knew the answer.

When Josh shook his head, his jaw clenched. The fury Evie had felt just moments before came rushing back. She imagined a punching bag with her dad’s face on it and how good it would feel to lay into it, except it only took a second for her to know that she wasn’t angry at him, not really. She was angry at herself for letting him back in. The hurt she could so clearly see on Josh’s face wasn’t his fault—it was hers, because she was the one who knew better.

“Goddamn it,” Evie whispered, to no one in particular, shaking her head as if it could dislodge the guilt she felt growing in her stomach. “I’m so sorry, Josh. I shouldn’t have let him stay. And I shouldn’t have gone off on West like that.”

When she braved looking at Josh, his hurt had morphed into very clear anger. Evie recognized the signs because they were the same as hers, his eyes flashing, the tension running through his jaw, his fingers tightening into a ball by his side. It was like looking in a mirror.

“Maybe you should have,” Josh said with a glare that was packed to the brim with hidden meaning. He was trying to explain something, but he wasn’t using a language she understood. “And maybe he’s right.”

“What—” Evie started, trying to figure out what she’d done to earn such contempt, but Josh put the wall back up, his hands wrapping around his legs.

“I just want to be alone, please.” Josh slid his headphones back on his ears, looking back at his computer screen. Evie could see the tears pushing up through the corners of his eyes, and she remembered what Mrs. Jenkins had said to her about Josh getting upset.

Mom would know how to get him to open up, Evie thought. She would have pushed and prodded, gently, until Josh shared what was bothering him. But Evie wasn’t her mom, and she had exactly zero energy left and no clue what she was doing. So she nodded weakly and got up from Josh’s bed then closed the door behind her softly as she left.

* * *

Evie had beenhungover once in her life—after her twenty-first birthday, when Kayla took her to Mel’s to celebrate. They had done so many flaming tequila shots that after Evie stumbled in her front door after one in the morning, she’d puked for what felt like hours and fell asleep on the toilet. She’d woken up to Josh shaking her shoulder, the slight smell of urine wafting up through her nostrils and dried chunks of what she assumed were the tacos she’d eaten for dinner clinging to her cheeks. That entire day, she’d felt like the living dead and worried she would never be normal again. But then she’d gone to sleep, and when she woken up, it was like she’d just been born, fresh and new.

When Evie woke up the morning after her fight with West, the sounds of the birds coming in through the window made her want to hurl. She smashed her pillow over her head, hoping to muffle the sounds of a morning she didn’t want to meet. The nausea and tension that ran through her weren’t unlike that hangover, except five hundred times worse, because she knew nothing, not even more sleep or time, would make her feel any better.

When her alarm had gone off the first time, the sliver of sky peeking through her blinds barely pink, she listened to it long enough to text Joe and tell him she wasn’t coming in. She never called off work, but dragging herself out of bed felt too overwhelming, like the simple act of sitting upright would cost every ounce of energy she had left. Then she put her alarm clock in the closet to make extra sure it wouldn’t disturb her and went back to sleep, wanting to be unconscious for as long as possible.

In her dreams, there was a hand between her shoulders, gently rubbing her back in small circles. For a moment, she allowed herself to believe it was West’s hand, strong and sure and the best fucking thing she’d ever felt. Then her eyes blinked open, and she saw that it wasn’t him and that it definitely wasn’t a dream.

“Rise and shine, cupcake,” Kayla said.

With a groan, Evie reached for a pillow and covered her face, the light hurting her eyes, but Kayla wrenched it away.

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