He didn’t pour himself a shot.
Because he had a trick to counter the need. He imagined the drink in Brett’s hand. Imagined the kid who was more of a brother than a friend dying because Brett had not only poured the shot but had also drunk it. And the other shots he’d poured, too.
There was no trick, though, to deal with the pain and emotion. Well, no trick that Lawson had found yet, anyway. So, he did what he couldn’t seem to stop himself from doing.
He remembered every detail he could remember. Letting it repeat in his head. Letting the pain that he deserved eat away at him.
*
“THE MAILMAN JUST delivered two more gifts,” Cassidy called out.
Eve knew that hearing something like that didn’t usually cause people to groan, but most people didn’t have to deal with Kellan’s steady stream of creepy stuffed toys. The stream had tapered off, however, and since it’d been a month since the green snot blob had arrived, Eve had thought maybe Kellan had forgotten about Aiden. Apparently not though.
She hit the save button on her computer for the spreadsheet that she’d been working on, and while trying to brace herself for whatever levels of depravity she might face, Eve went into the foyer. No visible depravity though. There was a bouquet of flowers and a wrapped gift box on the table. It was much too small to contain the behemoth-sized gifts that Kellan had been sending, but Cassidy was still eyeing it with concern.
The person who wasn’t concerned was Aiden. Cassidy had him on her hip, and the moment he spotted Eve, he grinned and clapped his hands. But it was no longer just a gummy grin. The little speck of white was a tooth that had appeared a couple of days earlier.
All of the parenting books had said that three months old was early for teething, but Aiden had proved the books wrong. He’d also used that tiny tooth to bite the devil out of her when he nursed. And that was the reason Cassidy now had a bottle in her hand. Eve missed nursing him, but she didn’t miss the pain. Besides, she could still hold him close when she gave him the bottle.
Eve went to the flowers first. A dozen red roses. When she pulled out the card, the relief came. Not from Kellan trying to make some attempt to romance her. “It’s from Mrs. Hattersfield. She was my high school drama teacher.”
Cassidy looked over her shoulder and read the card. “‘Here’s hoping you’ll come by the new drama center soon at Wrangler’s Creek High. Welcome home, Eve.’ Ah, that’s nice.”
Yes, it was, but Eve imagined how this would play out. The high school students were about the same age as that ego-bruising Swaron and probably wouldn’t think much of an aging Ulyana.
Eve put aside the card from the flowers and tackled the box next.
“Kellan?” Cassidy asked when Eve opened it.
No, but when she took the contents out of the box, it still caused her to groan. Because it was another pair of binoculars almost identical to the ones Dylan had given her. The very ones that Eve had used when she’d seen a nearly naked Darby in Lawson’s house. After that, Eve had shut the binoculars in a storage closet and vowed never to use them again. No way did she want to see Darby making booty-call trips to see Lawson.
Eve took out the card to see who would be so misguided as to send her another pair. “‘Regina,’” she read aloud.
“Lawson’s mom?” Cassidy asked, leaning in to read the card, as well.
Eve nodded. “‘A little gift to spice up your life,’” Regina had written. “‘Take them to your kitchen window and have a peek.’”
That caused Eve to groan again because she knew what she’d see out that particular window. The Granger house. And she just might get a glimpse of Dylan. While she liked Dylan, she wouldn’t get much of a thrill spying on him.
“Matchmaking,” Cassidy concluded. She gave both the note and the binoculars some stink eye.
Eve had filled Cassidy in on what Lawson had said about his mother, and what had happened with the raincoat episode. Cassidy, being the good friend that she was, had assured her that maybe nothing had happened between Darby and Lawson, that maybe Lawson had sent a nearly naked attractive woman away once he made it back to his house.
Part of Eve had wanted to latch on to that because she was pathetic and delusional. She was still clinging just a little bit to those old fantasies of her being with Lawson. And she was still clinging a lot to the lust she still felt for him. What had helped cool her down some was the fact she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Lawson in the month since that’d happened. Of course, he’d done a great job of avoiding her since she’d moved back to Wrangler’s Creek, so maybe this latest avoidance had nothing to do with Darby.
“Say, when are you going to finish going through the rest of the boxes in the family room?” Cassidy asked, and she headed back in that direction. “Especially the one marked Lawson, etc.”
Eve followed her though it wasn’t necessary for her to see which boxes Cassidy meant. She certainly hadn’t forgotten about them, and while the neat freak in her wanted them cleared up, she hadn’t quite brought herself to go through the last two. Because in addition to Lawson, etc., the other was labeled high school crap. Eve had packed them away years ago—eighteen, to be exact—and while she couldn’t remember everything that was in them, she was certain some of the things were going to trigger a trip down misery lane.
“I can open them for you if you like,” Cassidy volunteered. Then she mumbled some G-rated profanity under her breath. “Okay, I’ve already peeked. I know what’s in them.”
Eve huffed though she wasn’t really surprised or upset. Cassidy was nosy, but she might have been looking for anything that she felt would be too much for Eve to handle.
“Well?” Eve prompted. “What’s the verdict?”
“You’ll be okay with the high school junk.” Cassidy obviously knew exactly what Eve was talking about. “Yearbooks, drama-club stuff and a plaque for chess-club champion. I didn’t even know you knew how to play chess.”
“I have layers,” Eve grumbled. The studio had known about her being a chess champion, but it hadn’t gone with Ulyana’s kick-ass image, so they’d told her not to mention it. Ditto for her love of gardening. “What about the Lawson box?”
“Possible land mines throughout it. Pictures of you two. You obviously couldn’t keep your hands off him. And vice versa. There’s a junior rodeo buckle. More layers?” Cassidy asked.
“No, it was Lawson’s. He won it after he let a bull sling him around like a rag doll for eight seconds, and then he gave the buckle to me. Possibly while he was mildly concussed and had a dislocated shoulder.”