Two days later

I killed the engine to my bike, swung off, then headed inside Whitecaps.

I’d had to postpone a full day of work on the house after getting called in, which would’ve pissed me off, but I’d never be pissed about getting paid.

Furniture was my next purchase. I’d drained my accounts getting the house, and even though the raise was helping, any extra shifts I could get I’d take.

I knew Shayla was working today. I’d seen her car, so I was expecting more of what we were doing now: talking. Letting shit play out, which was her idea, and I was grateful she offered it, leaving me not having to explain my actions. So when I stepped out of the hallway and caught Shayla at that exact moment coming out of the lounge, met her eyes, and watched her make a hasty retreat back inside that lounge, I didn’t understand what the fuck was going on.

But I sure as hell was finding out.

“Give me a minute,” I said to J.R., holding him off from leaving. I prowled out of the kitchen and yanked the door to the lounge open.

Shayla was standing at the lockers, chewing on her nail. She stopped chewing once I stepped inside, and looked at me with worry.

“The fuck was that?” I barked. “You see me and you go runnin’? We’re back to this?” I stopped on the other side of the bench seat and stared her down. “Explain,” I ordered.

“I didn’t think you were working today,” she said meekly.

“The kid has something he’s gotta do, so I offered to come in. So what?”

“I just…well, I wasn’t expecting to have this conversation yet. I’m not prepared.”

“What conversation?”

“Your ex is my client.”

I leaned back. “Say that again.”

“Valerie. She’s my client. I did her hair on Sunday.” Shayla scraped her teeth across her bottom lip. “And I’d never keep something like that from you, but I’d really like to keep her as a client, and I was worried you’d have a problem with that. I knew we were working together tomorrow, so tonight I’d planned on coming up with a list of reasons why her as my client would be a good thing. I’m not prepared with that list, so I retreated in here when I saw you. I panicked.”

Pinching my eyes shut, I rubbed at my face. “How the fuck do you know Val?”

“I met her Friday night at Frank’s Pizza. She was there.” Shayla quickly shook her head, as if to read my mind. “But I had no idea who she was to you until Sunday. I swear. This is all just one big coincidence.”

I thought on this. Did I care if Shayla kept Val as a client or whatever the fuck? No. That didn’t bother me. Was it a little weird? Fuck, yeah. It was weird.

“Um…”

I turned back to Shayla, brows lifted in question. “What?”

“I met your girls,” she said, and my chest constricted, making it too fucking hard to breathe. “They were at Frank’s too. Caroline and Fiona. I just love those names.”

Fuck.

FUCK.

She saw them. She saw my girls. They were at Frank’s.

Why the fuck wasn’t I at Frank’s? I needed to be going there if that’s where they went. I’d sleep there if I fucking had to.

“Would you like to see them?” she asked.

I blinked hard, forcing focus. “See them?” I questioned.

“Valerie friend-requested me on Facebook after her appointment,” Shayla explained as she slowly dug her phone out of her pocket. “She has pictures of the girls on there. I could show you…”

I shook my head in a quick no. I couldn’t. Fuck, no. I didn’t deserve that.

“You haven’t seen them for over a year, right? You should see them, Sean.” Shayla said this while hitting buttons on her screen, and then she was grabbing my arm and turning me when I tried to move away. She held the phone out for me to see it. “Look. Look at them,” she pleaded.

I swallowed hard with tears burning in my eyes. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Her profile isn’t private. Anybody can see it. Just look.” Shayla climbed over the bench, stood beside me, and held the phone out while her other hand stayed wrapped around my arm.

Her thumb pressed on an album labeled Christmas 2016.

I could feel myself shaking, my limbs vibrating uncontrollably, and Shayla’s gentle touch on my arm growing firmer to comfort me as I looked at pictures of my girls standing beside a tree and opening presents. Eating Christmas morning breakfast. Smiling. Decorating cookies with Val. They looked the same. Slightly taller, and their hair wasn’t as curly. But that was the only difference. Shayla clicked on another album. This was one of the beach—last summer in South Carolina. Caroline was standing proudly beside a sandcastle and Fi was filling up buckets with water. There were pictures of them jumping in the pool and at some amusement park riding the carousel. They looked happy. They were so fucking beautiful. Smiling. Always smiling.

“See?” Shayla spoke softly, clicking on more albums. “Aren’t you glad you looked? They’re so beautiful, Sean.”

I wiped harshly at my eyes, clearing wetness away.

“You bought that house for them, didn’t you? You’re fixing it up and making it perfect for your girls, right?”

I jerked my chin. “Wanted something better than my trailer,” I answered. “I’d never keep them there. That house…it was supposed to be what they deserved. It ain’t good enough.”

“It will be,” Shayla whispered, clicking out of the pictures then and tucking her phone away. “Let me help you, Sean. Did you paint the bedrooms yet? I saw the paint cans when you gave me the tour. The pink makes a lot more sense now.” She giggled.

I turned my head and looked down at her. “I was planning on starting it today,” I disclosed. “Didn’t have time before the kid called me.”

“So tonight. We’ll get started after work. How’s that sound?”

“I ain’t askin’ you to help me.”

She tilted her head. “Haven’t you realized yet, that is not how we work. Besides, you want me helping you. I kick ass at painting. I paint hair for a living, remember?” Her hand on my arm pulsed. “Let me help you. Come on. Let’s get that house ready.”

I breathed deep, wanting to say no, wanting to pull away from her.

I didn’t do either.

I just kept breathing.

Later that night after I closed up at Whitecaps, Shayla was waiting for me at the house.

She’d gone home and changed into worn, bleach-stained coveralls and secured her hair back out of her face with a plaid bandana.

I swung off my bike and met her on the porch, where she smiled at me under the light.

“I got you something,” she said.

I watched her slowly pull her hands out from behind her back and hold up a clear bag between us.

Two goldfish bumped against the plastic.

“The fuck?” I asked, squinting at the bag.

“Now you can’t say you never had a pet.” She giggled and pushed against the plastic. “I named them already—Mac and Cheese. Since you’re a cook. This one’s…no, he’s Cheese…no, wait, uh…you know what? Their names are interchangeable. Here you go.”

She shoved the bag at me and forced me to take it.

I looked from the Shayla to the fish. She got me a pet.

Nobody ever got me anything anymore.

My hand tightened around the plastic. I didn’t know what to say to her. I could feel her staring at me, not waiting for anything in return, I was sure, but simply gauging my reaction as I studied the fish.

“They’ve been cooped up in that bag for a while,” she shared. “Don’t want the little guys getting claustrophobic…”

I met her eyes after hearing her warning, nodded once, then quickly unlocked the front door and pushed inside.

“I’m excited!” Shayla called out at my back as I went straight for the kitchen, looking around for something I could use as a tank.

I had an old, clear plastic pretzel barrel I kept spare change in sitting on the counter. I dumped the change in an empty drawer, rinsed the barrel a few times, then filled it with water and carefully dropped the fish inside.

“Here.” Shayla slipped next to me and placed a jar of fish food on the counter beside the makeshift tank. “Aw, look at Mac and Cheese. They’re so happy to be here.”

I bent down and studied the fish. I didn’t know what the fuck she was seeing. They didn’t look happy to me.

“This is for you too.” Shayla pulled one of those cards she was always giving me out of the front pocket of her overalls. “It’s from my mom. She gets high off stationery, just like me.”

I chuckled and took the card, shaking my head. “She didn’t need—”

“That’s not why she did it,” Shayla cut me off.

Holding her gaze, I nodded once and tucked the card into my back pocket. “Right.”

Shayla grinned. “Come on. Let’s get started. It’s late.”

She was right—it was late. I didn’t get home until after ten, and I was fucking tired and felt like I could drop leaving work, but Shayla was here.

Suddenly, I wasn’t that tired.

She followed behind me into the large bedroom I was fixing up for the girls. Dominic and I had knocked the wall down days ago. The spots that needed spackling or other repair work were fixed and dried.

It was ready to be painted.

“This is a nice-sized room. My bedroom growing up was tiny,” Shayla said, working on the trim on the opposite wall I was working on.

“Won’t be that big once I get furniture in here.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Did you find anything yet?”

I shook my head, dipped the brush in the tray, saturated it with paint, then turned back to the wall, dragging the bristles slowly along the edge down from the ceiling.

“So, you’re cool with Valerie staying a client of mine?”

“I don’t care. She’ll be a good one. Used to get her hair done every other fuckin’ minute.”

Shayla chuckled. “Sweet. She’s really nice. I like her.”

I didn’t say anything to that. My ex had a right to treat me the way she was doing. To keep ignoring me. I didn’t blame her, but it was hard keeping my anger out of it.

“She, uh…mentioned a little about the way you grew up.”

I stopped going over the pink a second time and looked over my shoulder.

Shayla was peering back at me. “What was so terrible about it?” she asked in a quiet voice.

I didn’t talk about this. I never…fucking…talked about this.

“Told you I stole food and shit,” I said, reminding her—talking about this. “I think you can connect those fuckin’ dots, yeah?”

Shayla visibly swallowed. “Your parents didn’t feed you? They didn’t give you clothes?”

“Didn’t have parents. Had a woman who didn’t want me around. That’s it. I took up space.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“I took up space,” I repeated, saying it sharply this time as that anger rose up inside me, and as that voice echoed in my head, the one that never went away. “I wasn’t no son to her. I was nothin’. She did enough to keep DSS off her back, so she could keep gettin’ food stamps and whatever the fuck else I was able to get her, but extras like something to eat and new clothes when I needed it? Fuck, no. I took from her when she wasn’t lookin’, then I took from other people when she caught on and beat me so bad, I threw up all over myself.”

Shayla lowered the brush to her side, turning to face me. “Food and clothes aren’t extras, Sean,” she said. “She should’ve been providing for you. She beat you because you were hungry?”

“She beat me ’cause I was alive.”

Shayla sucked in a sharp breath. “What?” she whispered.

I learned to expect nothin’. I went out and took what I needed. Fuck that bitch. I made my own way. It was either that or fuckin’ die.”

“What about your dad?” she asked.

“Never had one. You wanna know more? Ask your brother.”

Shayla blinked. “You told him, you won’t tell me?”

“Don’t like talkin’ about that prick. It’s got nothin’ to do with you,” I said, then I promised her, “But there is shit I will never fuckin’ tell you about. Not ever. And that’s got to do with me and it’s got to do with you.”

“What shit is that?”

“You’ll know when you ask about it. If I tell you that’s off limits, or if I just get really fuckin’ quiet, do not push me, Shayla. Do you understand?”

She pinched her lips together, looking like a thousand words were trapped inside her mouth, and nodded her head.

Good. I needed her understanding this. She pushed me on a lot of different shit, but I wasn’t going there with her.

Then as I was turning back around, she murmured, “You never had a chance.”

“What?” I turned back.

Her eyes were glassy.

“You were born into hate. Children are supposed to be born into love. It’s unconditional, and you never had that,” she said. “What chance did you have? There was no one protecting you. It’s a miracle you are who you are, Sean, My God. I…” Abruptly, she sat her brush in the pan and started moving toward me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Shayla curtly shook her head, her lips pursed in anger, and reaching me, slipped her arms tight around my waist and pressed her body against mine.

I went stiff.

My arms were rigid at my side, and I held my breath as I looked at the top of her head. A second passed. Two seconds…“You done?” I asked.

“Nope.” She hugged me tighter. “Friends hug. It’s what they do. Deal with it.”

“You are the bossiest fuckin’ woman I’ve ever met.”

A laugh tore out of her, and she propped her chin on my chest and smiled up at me. “And you can get snippy.”

“Snippy?”

“Yep.”

“The fuck is snippy?”

“What you’re doing right now. The fuck is snippy?” she mimicked my voice, dropping hers lower and forcing it rough.

My eyes narrowed.

“Uh oh. There he goes again.”

“Yeah?” I lifted my brush, still damp with paint, and dragged it down the back of her. “How’s that for snippy?”

She gasped, then her eyes went steely as she slowly released me. “You have just declared war. I hope you’re prepared for the consequences.”

“From a midget? Can you even reach me with that brush?”

Mouth dropping open, Shayla dashed over to the roller with the longer handle and gripped it, challenge raising her brow.

“You’re fuckin’ on.”

“Ha!” she yelled.

Three hours later, the room was finished and nearly dry.

After cleanup, Shayla went home wearing one of my shirts covering her so paint stayed out of her car.

A half hour after she left, I crashed, feeling good about that room.

Feeling good in general.