Chapter 18 Chance
Chance
Evie left the 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.
“Peaches, please.” I moved toward her, needing to touch her, fix what I’d unintentionally broken. She backed away from me, as if she couldn’t stand the thought of my hands on her, crushing my heart all over again. “Evie, fuck, please!”
“Goodbye, Chance.” She said it with such finality, I couldn’t catch my breath. And then she walked away, so damn calmly, slamming the bedroom door behind her.
“No,” I denied, the world stopping around me. “No, she didn’t say that. It’s not goodbye. I just found her. I’m not losing her.”
Reid moved to block me from following her, keeping me from her.
The image of breaking his neck popped into my head.
Abrupt. Intrusive. Pure impulse. I quickly locked it away, but only because I knew it would upset Evie.
“I don’t know what went down today, but give her a minute.
She’s upset over what Rory said to her.”
“They didn’t even talk,” I tried to explain, fear strangling me, making me desperate to get to my girl. He wouldn’t move, kept getting in my way. I shoved him back, but he wouldn’t let me pass. “Reid, man, get out of my way. I need to fix this.”
“I can’t let you in there, cuz. She wants a moment.”
Stepping back, I faked going right, but he caught me, tackling me to the floor, trapping me in place. “Let me up, motherfucker!” I roared, enraged, past the point of reason. I needed to get to Evie. My peaches.
Everly appeared over us. “She’s not going to listen to anything you have to say right now. Evie’s hurting. Today was a lot for her. Give her a little time to digest everything that happened.”
Reid shifted over me but didn’t let me go. Everly crossed to the bedroom. “Evie, it’s me,” she called, knocking and opening the door. The clicking of the lock echoed in my head, another wall between my girl and me.
A little out of breath, Reid stood and offered me his hand. I slapped it away and got up on my own.
“She has to listen to me.” Frustration eating at me, I raked my fingers through my hair. “And what the fuck did she mean about the whole…”
I couldn’t say the words aloud. If I did, I might puke. No, just…no.
“Dude, you know her better than me. Ev hasn’t given me many details about her sister, or her life in general, other than that they were separated for most of their childhood. This is all as new to me as it is to you. We haven’t had much time together to get to know each other yet.”
It was hard to believe that I’d only met Evie the day before. She already consumed every aspect of my life, filling my every thought. I needed her now like I needed oxygen. She’d become a necessity, vital to my existence.
Groaning, I rubbed my hands down my face and started to pace. “Mom went to WomanLand today. I guess she thought Everly was Evie. Things got heated. Your girl attacked my mom.”
“Unprovoked?” he asked.
“According to Mom, it was unprovoked. From what Sammy, Jos, and Mila all said, Everly showed restraint.” And I believed them. Mila more than the other two, but yeah, I believed them.
“Damn,” Reid muttered.
I dropped down onto the couch, blocking out the memories I’d made with Evie on it only hours before. Her scent was everywhere in the apartment, tantalizing and haunting. Fuck, I missed her already, and she was just in the next room.
“Ma keeps saying she’s going to file assault charges.
She showed me the bald spot on the back of her head that Everly caused.
” As pissed as I was at her for putting her hands on my mom, I’d been kind of impressed with how dirty she’d fought.
Ma had a large chunk of hair missing, and the skin had been broken.
“What are you going to do about that?” my cousin questioned as he walked into the kitchen. Picking up Evie’s discarded knife, he started chopping again, working to put a few sandwiches together. My stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten all day.
“I’ve already told her to chill out. She’s got all the women in a tizzy.
Mila told her she’s not allowed back in the boutique until she apologizes to Everly.
On top of that, Mom and Jos are arguing, but that’s nothing new.
They never could get along.” I remembered my dad’s texts from earlier, how upset he was with my mom.
He didn’t normally choose sides, but he might this time.
I wasn’t confident it would be Ma’s. “Only this time, my dad doesn’t have Mom’s back.
He’s just as pissed at her over what she was saying and the way she acted as everyone else. ”
Reid gave me a sharp look. “That tells you right there that she’s in the wrong on this, Chance. Matt worships Rory, but if she fucks up, he tells it to her straight.”
“Everly shouldn’t have put her hands on my mom, Reid.” It was the only argument I had.
He shrugged, admiring his sandwich-crafting skills.
“Sammy saying she used restraint is one thing. Her moral compass is broken. Mila is a completely other thing. If that girl says Everly felt like she was in a position where she needed to protect herself in any shape or form, I’m not going to question that. ”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Regardless of whether she should or shouldn’t have, I stand with Ev.”
“Blind loyalty?”
He picked up a plate loaded with sandwiches and veggie sticks. “There’s nothing blind about it. If you understood that, your woman wouldn’t be in the other room crying right now.”
That was when I heard it.
Evie’s sobs.
They broke something in me.
I’d caused that. Her tears were my fault.