“Uh-oh. A pity party. Do you want me to come over there?”
“It’s not a pity party. I’m fine. I swear.” Even though she really wasn’t, she was afraid if she fell apart over Sean, Lisa might let it slip to Mike and then it would eventually make the rounds and get back to Sean.
A self-pity party was one thing. His pity would be too much.
“Call me if you change your mind,” Lisa said.
“Okay. And, hey, see if you can sneak something good out of Mrs. K’s cookie jar for me.”
Lisa laughed. “I will. Call me tomorrow.”
Once the conversation was over, Emma stood in her hallway and listened. The house was so quiet. And it was different, too. In the two years before Gram and Sean had descended upon her, the house was always quiet. But now the quiet wasn’t the same, as if a joyful song had suddenly been cut off in the middle of the chorus.
Rather than stand around listening to her own thoughts, she grabbed her iPod and—after making sure the playlist she was looking for didn’t have a single sad song on it—she stuck her earbuds in her ears and grabbed the cleanser from under the sink. Maybe cleaning the bathrooms would wear her out enough to sleep.
Sean put fifty miles on his truck cruising around town, waiting for his aunt and uncle’s driveway to be free of miscellaneous vehicles, before he finally pulled in and killed the engine.
He had soft and hazy memories of feeling sick or scared or tired and crawling into his mother’s lap. She’d hold him and rub his back until all was well in his world again. He needed that now. But he wasn’t a little boy anymore and his mom was gone. He had his aunt, though and, maybe if he looked pathetic enough, she’d wrap her arms around him and give him a good hug.
His uncle opened the door. “You look like hell, boy.”
“Thanks, Uncle Leo. That helps.”
“Guess you’re looking to go mooching around in the Cookie Monster.” Back when Danny was little, he’d pleaded with Lisa to buy a Cookie Monster cookie jar for his Grammy for her birthday. On any given day, the blue monster was full of delicious, melt-in-the-mouth baked goodies.
“Is Aunt Mary in the kitchen?”
“Have you ever known her to be somewhere else? I’ll be out in the shed if you want to talk after.”
“Thanks.”
His aunt was at the counter, hulling strawberries, when he walked into the kitchen. She gave him a good looking over. “Blonde brownies.”
One of his favorites. He grabbed two from the Cookie Monster and pulled out a chair at the table. She washed her hands and then poured him a glass of milk to go with them.
“What’s got you looking like something a dog dug up in a backyard?”
Since she was wearing her apron with the ever-present wooden mixing spoon in the pocket, he swallowed the smart-ass retort that came to mind. “Not sleeping, I guess. After being in the middle of nowhere for the last month, being over the bar in the middle of the city’s taking some getting used to.”
She whacked him in the back of the head with that damn wooden spoon and he rubbed the spot. That might actually leave a knot. “Ow!”
“You look at me, Sean Michael Kowalski.” He looked in the general vicinity of her face and she took his chin in her hand and jerked his head up. “You look me in the eye, young man, and don’t you dare lie to me. Do you love Emma?”
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth.
She released his face and he rubbed his jaw. “Well, that’s a start. And I’m going to guess you didn’t tell her that before you packed your stuff and moved out.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing. Other than not getting any sympathy.”
“If you’re looking for sympathy—”
“I know. It’s between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.” So they’d all heard. Many times. “The brownies are good, though.”
She pulled out a chair across from him and sat down. “What makes you happy, Sean?”
Emma. Emma made him happy. “I didn’t even get a change to figure out what would make me happy. I was going to go do…something. Travel, maybe. Find a place I wanted to call home. And yes, I love Emma, but she’s so…rooted. She has that house and her business and that’s her life. I want to live my life.”
“You’ve been sharing a life for a month now. And you were happy. Don’t deny it or I’ll whack you again. And now you’re not sharing a life and you’re unhappy.”
“She didn’t ask me to stay.” There. He’d said it.
“Had you given her any reason to believe you would?”
He felt himself clenching his jaw and forced himself to relax. “How could she not know?”
She leaned forward and covered his hands with hers. “And how could you not see the way she looks at you? How could you look at her at the goodbye party and not see her heart breaking?”