Chapter 1 #2
As she closed her eyes in her childhood bedroom, it became very obvious she needed three things to get through the next four months: money to support herself, a place to practice, and somewhere to stay that wasn’t wallpapered in her lost potential.
* * *
LUCA
“AB, come finish your breakfast!”
Luca Bishop could hear his daughter ignoring him. The living room floor thudded from her jumping to death-metal Disney covers.
A hastily scrambled egg sat rapidly cooling on a unicorn plate.
“Annabelle, let’s go!”
This was not the day to oversleep. He’d been up late last night researching the complicated permitting system for Fairwick Falls’ business zoning, and had fallen asleep looking for “cute kid lunches.”
Now, where the hell are those cookie cutters? He rummaged through his kitchen drawers.
“Five bites,” he called as she ran into the kitchen.
Annabelle, his first grader, love of his life, chaos goblin, and the sweetest human he knew, didn’t walk anywhere.
She grimaced at the egg. “How about four?”
“How about five?” He pulled out the last drawer in his kitchen. All the small cookie cutters were shoved in the back.
Aha, finally.
He grabbed two. “Star or heart-shaped cucumber slices today?” He held them up for inspection.
He watched her eat two bites. It was two more than he thought he’d get.
She stabbed another bite with a grimace. “Hearts are gross. Stars.”
He agreed. Hearts were gross. He’d stayed far away from anything that looked like love for a long time.
They were going to be late, but other parents sent their kids to school with cute-ass lunches. He didn’t want Annabelle to feel left out.
“I want to wear my teal unicorn shirt today,” AB said to no one in particular.
Luca spied it on top of the pile in the laundry room.
“Ehh, let’s do purple.” This girl had a unicorn shirt in every color.
“Teal is my favorite!” she said, stomping her foot.
“I’ll wash it tonight, but you gotta wear something else, kid.”
“No,” she said, slamming her body against the chair.
“Annabelle,” he said sharply, and then caught himself. Tears started to form in her eyes.
Mornings had been hard, emotion-filled things since his sister had moved out.
I should be able to handle this on my own. Thousands of single parents did mornings all on their own with no help from anyone, so he would too, damnit. Since AB’s mom had died five years ago, he’d relied too much on his sister’s help. This was him proving he could do this all on his own.
And I’m failing miserably.
“Hey.” He crouched down by her chair and glanced at his watch. It was only 7:30—ah fuck, 7:35—in the morning, and somehow it had already gone to shit. He hated seeing her cry. “I’m sorry. Mornings are hard for both of us.”
“I don’t wanna go to school. My stomach hurts,” she said, resting her head on the table.
“What kind of hurt? Throw-up hurt?”
“No. Maybe.”
Oh, god. He hated throw-up hurt. “Is it nervous-hurt, like when you go to the doctor?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. Her little lip trembled.
Annabelle was full of chaos and energy, but his favorite thing about her was it never occurred to her to lie.
He always believed her. “What’s making it nervous-hurt?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
Lately, she just needed extra time in the morning. He rubbed her back. “There have been a lot of changes, and you’ve been handling them like a champ. Being in first grade is really hard.”
“I have to be there all day this year,” she whined. “And I miss AP.”
It was week three of him being a completely solo parent, and frankly, it wasn’t going so great.
AP was Annabelle’s nickname for his sister Pearl.
She’d moved out a few weeks ago to finally focus on her own life, and he was happy for her.
She was in love and about to launch her own business.
Plus, he’d depended on her for way too long.
She’d already sacrificed so much for him and Annabelle.
The first year after Marcy had died, he’d barely been able to get himself together at all. Missing her had eventually turned into a dull ache, like a hangnail that only caught sometimes.
He just needed to get the hang of balancing childcare and his own business.
“I know you miss AP.” He pulled AB into a hug, picking her up and swaying as he stood. He ignored the clock ticking to 7:37. “You love her a lot.”
“Mm-hmm,” Annabelle said through a sniffle against his chest.
“You’re going to see her after school today, okay?”
Annabelle smiled and wiped her eyes.
Light of my fucking life, that little smile right there.
He’d run back to Fairwick Falls, grab AB from school, and drop her off at story time at Bookish for an hour where Pearl would be working. He’d have just enough time to run back to his body shop, lock it up, and go back to pick her up. “And you can get any book you want in the bookstore.”
“Really?” She lit up.
“Now”—he put her down—“how about the purple unicorn shirt just for today?”
“No!” she said, digging her heels in.
His temper flared, but he tried not to lose his cool. “Annabelle.”
“Dad, I don’t want to!” Her temper flared.
He knew where she got it. “You’re just like your mom, you know that?”
She smiled, knowing what he was about to say. “Pretty—”
“And stubborn,” he finished for her. “How about wearing your blue plain shirt and you can put unicorn stickers all over it?”
Her eyes lit up with glee. “Yeah?”
“Have at it, kid.” Small victories.
At least he didn’t give in to her wearing a dirty shirt.
How was he so bad at this? She was just one kid, who he loved, who he’d been in charge of, technically, for six whole years.
But getting four hours of sleep every night after he planned out how to move his body shop to Fairwick Falls, then getting himself up, her up, her ready, her lunch packed, him out the door, her to school, and him to work forty minutes away all before 8:00 AM seemed like an impossible task.
Then there were the constant running messages on his phone: two clients asking where their cars were, which was fair, but they didn’t have to be such assholes about it, and one of his guys calling out sick.
His eyes caught on a clock on his phone: 7:40. Shit, they were definitely going to be late. He made the best out of her lunch that he could.
Annabelle had a deathly wheat allergy, and she sat at a separate table in the lunch room with her friend Sophie, who also had an allergy. He wanted to make sure Annabelle never felt too different.
Not like he had when he was a kid.
He’d been the kid whose mom didn’t care if he wore dirty clothes. Who had never packed a lunch for him.
He was determined AB would never know what it felt like to be forgotten.
They rushed out the door, and Luca had to admire her artistry of placing stickers every-fucking-where on her shirt.
Feeling quite proud of himself for only being two minutes late to drop-off, he pulled up to Fairwick Falls Elementary School and got Annabelle out of her booster seat.
He hugged her to his leg. “Hey, you’re going to have a good day, okay?”
She smiled up at him with that sweet angel face that made it all worth it. “Can I have my lunchbox?”
He looked in the passenger seat.
Empty.
Fuck.
He sighed. “Go, I’ll leave it at the front office.”
She ran to the door as the bell rang.
Already late and now I have to double back. Fuck.
A text pinged on his phone as he pushed the upper speed limit back to the house.
ANGIE (BODY SHOP)
Hey…anybody here yet?
Shit. Luca was the only one with a key to open the body shop in Elliotsville, over forty minutes away.
He voiced to text, “Running late” and stepped on the gas.