Chapter 3 #2
Her gaze shifts to the neon lights above the brick building spelling “Laundromat.” The neon M appears to be shorting out—blinking on for a few seconds before it darkens for an even longer pulse, then repeating the pattern.
It’s the only way I’ve ever remembered the building to look.
“I hate going here.” Her tone isn’t ungrateful.
It’s akin to inflections you’d hear from someone who blew all their birthday candles but one.
Not disappointment at all, but more of an observation.
I don’t tell her that we wouldn’t have to waste time here if her dad had done his own chores. Nope, I don’t say that at all. I aim a smile at her. “What kind of pizza would you like?”
An immediate sparkle returns to the center of her eyes, reflecting hues of blue so vibrant they look made up. “Extra cheese?”
“Anything you want.” I walk to the back of the car, retrieve the garbage bag, and step on the curb to wait for her to walk with me toward the blinking M.
We pass through the front door and are hit by a cacophony of machines running all along the walls.
My senses are immediately overloaded by the small crowd of people.
There seems to be a person sitting in front of every machine.
It’s a small laundromat, but I’ve never had problems finding an open machine before.
Who knew Sunday night at the laundromat would be so popular?
I grab Bella’s hand, and we shimmy sideways to fit through the narrow aisle between the benches of people and the machines.
Most of the people are about college age, which now makes sense to me as to why they opted for Sunday night to do laundry.
I know I’ve never seen any of these people here on Saturday mornings, when I usually do my laundry.
Scanning the back wall for an open machine, I’m about to lose hope when I see one machine in the far corner with the front door open. I rise to the tips of my toes to check inside, and my heart pumps with excitement.
It’s empty.
I tug on Bella’s hand, pulling her a little faster in hopes of getting to it before someone else.
“We are in luck,” I exclaim as we close the gap between us and the machine.
A forgotten cart is pushed up against it.
I look all around to see who it belongs to, but there isn’t anyone here who appears to care about it.
Bella drops onto the narrow bench in front of the machine, and I plop my bag into the cart and sort through the laundry, removing the colored clothes first and adding them to the machine.
Half the clothes in the bag do not even look as if they’d fit Bella anymore.
The more I rummage, the more I realize that Chase added everything to this bag.
There’s no way she wore all this stuff in the three days she had him.
He's like a child who always goes out of his way to annoy me.
It’s not going to work.
I take a deep breath and calmly add the rest of the clothes to the machine, swipe my card to pay, and stand back as the clothes start to tumble around.
Everything looks good, so I turn back to Bella.
“Alright, I bet you’re hungry. Let’s order food.
” Her expression remains unchanged, and my heart pings, deflating a little.
This wasn’t the fun mother-daughter night I had planned for us.
Bella’s slumped shoulders tell the truth that she’s feeling the same way.
Forcing a cheery voice, I raise my eyebrows and tack on, “Maybe we can watch a movie on my phone?”
Her posture perks up a little, but her eyes are glazed over the way they get when she’s tired.
I’m sure she didn’t get the rest she needed since Chase doesn’t care about bedtimes.
I hate this so much, but I refuse to let it ruin our night.
I retrieve my phone from my purse, tap on the pizza app, cruise through my clicks to order a pizza, and then hand my phone to her.
“Go ahead and pick out a movie. The pizza should be here in twenty minutes.”
Her fingers brush against mine as I slide my phone to her. Finally the tips of her lips bend up in a genuine smile—a tired smile, but a smile nonetheless. Since I’m not in a winning-at-life era, I always count the small wins.
That is one for the day.
“Wait a second . . .” A baritone voice calls as measured footsteps stop right behind me. “Who took my machine?” I toss a lazy look over my shoulder and do a double take as I observe a hot guy.
He’s got an athletic build, muscular ripples in all the right places, and he’s standing next to a small boy who looks to be about Bella’s age. The boy is adorable as any kid that age is, but the dude is so freakishly handsome it causes me to freeze.
With his chiseled jawline and full lips, he could seriously be a model.
His eyes are a rare shade of blue-green, and his hair is medium brown with light blond tips as if he spends days at the beach. He and the boy are dressed in dark blue sweatpants and jackets like they are part of some sports team. When I narrow my gaze, I see a Granite Ice logo on the guy’s coat.
The ripples make sense now.
After a beat of silence, where I pretend to not be looking at how wide his shoulders are, he repeats his question, “Who took my machine?”
My lips pinch tight, puckering in the middle. It’s beyond rude to take someone’s machine. Everyone is busy. I can’t stand people who try to cheat to get ahead, but it’s not my business to interfere. I turn my gaze down, pinning it onto my phone to help Bella scroll for a movie to watch.
His feet shuffle forward, stopping only when his hand lands on my machine, and his gaze slams onto me. “Did you take my machine?”
“I beg your finest pardon.” Defensiveness buds in my chest, and I straighten my spine to sit taller. I’m not exactly petite at five foot five, but I’ve learned to exaggerate my height when I’m trying hard to get a point across. “That’s my machine.”
“Well, no. It’s mine. I reserved it.” His tone is extra curt as he slices his hand through the air in my direction.
“I parked my cart in front of it to hold it while I went back to my car for my wallet.” His gaze scans the immediate surroundings until it lands on my cart still half-filled with laundry and my garbage bag.
He effortlessly steps forward and taps his palm on the cart, saying in a commanding voice, “This is my cart. You took that too.” His eyes scan top to bottom before a disgusted sigh escapes out of his lips, and he grumbles, “Apparently, you put garbage in it.”
I suck in a giant inhalation, holding all my overwhelming emotions.
This guy is delusional.
The cart didn’t have his name on it. It didn’t have anything to mark that it belonged to anybody. It was empty.
Like the washing machine, it was empty.
I run my palm over my hair, smoothing it down, hoping to calm the quibbles sparking in my gut.
Can he not see how arrogant he’s being? You can’t walk into a business and claim something when it doesn’t have your money, your laundry or your name on it.
He has about as much right to this washing machine as I have right to the Empire State Building.
None. “There wasn’t any money or anything in it,” I spout back and shrug an exhausted shoulder.
Did I really care that much about a washing machine?
No.
On any other day, I’d walk away. Tonight is my one night to hang out with Bella. I’m wasting our time here because of stupid Chase. It’s not fair, and I want this chore done. Now. “Guess you’ll have to wait for the next one.”
His gaze drifts to the boy next to him, and they both execute a childish eye roll. Apparently, they are on the same mental maturity level. I turn my head away, refusing to give him a second glance.
Okay, maybe a little glance when he pivots. I have to double check how his jaw looked from this angle.
Seriously, nobody’s jaw is that perfect.
He must be pushing his chin out just to be annoying.
I overhear him tell the boy that they’ll leave to eat. I let out a quiet breath and return my attention to Bella, who’s staring at me intently. “What?” I ask, blinking several times to declare my innocence. “I didn’t take his machine. You saw it was empty.”
“That’s Rigsby Kane. A kid in my class.” She jerks her head toward the door, sending her ponytail flipping in that direction.
“Oh,” is all I manage. I vaguely remember the kid now that she’s mentioned it.
I’ve seen his mom drop him off at school.
I’m just so tired and disappointed about how this night is going.
Even my lashes feel heavier than normal as I lock my gaze on Bella, leaning over my phone as she zones out on the movie she selected.
Maybe I was a little rude?
It wasn’t my fault.
Maybe he thought he had saved the machine, but again, he didn’t do it well enough. It wasn’t obvious.
Plus, I’ll never see them again.
Exhausted, I am mentally disengaged as Bella watches the movie.
It’s almost over when her clothes are done drying.
I rush to fold them and carefully put them back in the garbage bag, since I don’t have any other way to carry them.
I’m slowly getting my sense of humor back.
I know this because I let out a disgusted chuckle when I tie up the bag.
It’s almost nine, and I’m completely bummed that we didn’t have any time to relax together at home.
Trying to hide my disappointment, I once again force a smile.
“Alright, clothes are clean. We can go.”
She stands up, but her gaze drops to the floor. She immediately bends over and reaches between the washing machines and pulls out something. “Look, it has the same logo that guy’s jacket had.” Pushing it forward, she lines the logo up with my gaze. “I bet it is his.”
“Maybe?” Tilting my head, I examine it. It’s a giant glove. She’s right. It’s an identical match to his jacket.
“We need to let him know we have it.” Her tone toggles between telling and asking. I should be proud she’s growing into such a responsible young lady, but it pings at my heart that she puts such worries on herself.
She inherited that from me.
Worrying. It’s my superpower.
I worry so much, I worry about my worrying.
“Uh, I don’t know about that.” I lift the bag out of the cart and slug it over my shoulder. My head is pounding from the longest day ever, and the last thing I want to do is run after someone who was careless enough to lose his stuff.
This glove, I will not worry about.
This is the one time I draw the line on my worrying.
I jerk my thumb over my shoulder, motioning to the machines. “We can leave it on top of the machine. He’ll come back for it if he needs it.”
“Mom, if we leave it here, someone might take it.” Her tone is extra curt, mirroring the one I give her when she isn’t listening. “Rigsby goes to my school. I can literally take it to him.”
“Fine,” I murmur, taking the glove from her with a straight elbow as if I’m afraid to touch it. That guy was annoying. He doesn’t deserve a favor, but I am a role model. And maybe I did use the machine he thought he saved.
“You should message Rigsby’s mom on Facebook so she knows.” She hands my phone to me, screen side up.
My brows bead together as I now worry about her worrying too much.
She’s right though. It’s a small town, and I’ve seen that mom in the drop-off lane at school many times.
I know what she looks like. I think her first name is Jackie.
“I mean, I guess I can.” I take my phone and open Facebook. “Did you say his last name is Kane?”
“Yeah.”
I quickly search for people with that name in Mapleton, and just my luck—I find a woman whose profile picture shows a kid who looks like Rigsby. I impatiently type.
Me: Hey, Jackie. You don’t know me, but our kids go to school together. I saw Rigsby at the laundromat tonight, and the man he was with left a hockey glove. Not sure if it’s important, but I have it if he needs it.
“Let’s go home.” I’m about to slip my phone into my coat pocket when a vibration stops me.
Jackie: Yes, that would be my brother, Jackson. He’s watching Rigsby for the night. I’ll let him know you have it.
Me: I’ll bring it to school tomorrow.
I pause, making sure our conversation is over. When I get no more notifications, I set my gaze back on Bella. “Alright, sweetie, we can finally go home.”