“Say, woman, when’s that fine ass man you got finally going to put a ring on that finger of yours?” Tabitha asked as I finished wiping down the empty tables.
She refilled the salt and pepper while I straightened the chairs, blowing a piece of hair out of my face.
It wasn’t an unreasonable question. Felix and I had been together for almost eight years. I often used to wonder the same thing myself until I gave that up. There was no point.
Felix and I were forever—I felt it within the marrow of my bones—but we just didn’t have the financial means to pay for a wedding, let alone an engagement ring. It’d be a dream come true to marry him. But sometimes dreams had to stay just that, a dream.
Surface Rust barely covered the basics to keep the business alive. What profit they made was paid to the employees and Jared.
Jared didn’t seem to know, but I’d quickly figured it out. His brother took his cut each week and put most of it straight back into the business to keep it going another week, another month. For however long it would take for them to finish paying off the debts Darren had left behind.
He had only owned half the business. So Felix paid the mortgage on that while I paid for both our share of the mortgage on the house. Darren had been behind on his payments for that before he died, and despite doing all we could, they still owed well over a hundred grand. It turned out Darren liked to refinance.
“I don’t know,” I settled on saying. “I’m not too concerned about it, to be honest.”
Tabitha chortled loudly. I say the word chortled because that was often what she did.
“Girl, no. Don’t tell me you’re one of those new-age, fang-dangle types who”—she used air quotes—“doesn’t need marriage to cement their eternal bond.”
I started laughing, making my way back to the kitchen with her following. “No, I’d love to marry him.” Sighing, I dumped my cloth into the hamper and moved to the sink to wash my hands. “It’s just never the right time, I guess.”
“Totally get that, but still.” She eyed me from the counter she was leaning against. “Keep an eye on that handsome piece of man. You’d hate to waste all that time on someone only to be left broke and lonely one day, ya hear?” She clocked out and grabbed her purse.
“Night, Maggie.”
“Night,” I said quietly, scrunching the paper towel in my hands and taking a deep breath. Letting it out, I slumped back against the counter, wondering if her words held some merit.
I shook my head, determined not to let them get to me when I knew Felix, and so I knew better.
After clocking out, I walked outside to find the man himself standing beside my old Honda.
“What are you doing here?” I glanced around the parking lot. “Where’s your bike? Or truck?”
He straightened, pulling me to his chest and pressing his lips to my forehead. “At home. Got Jared to drop me off.”
Smiling, I asked, “Why?”
Amusement filled his eyes as he tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and rested his forehead against mine. “Because I wanted to drive you home. Been a while since we’ve done that.”
“It has,” I agreed, my eyes fluttering closed when his lips brushed softly over mine.
Tabitha’s words became nothing but dust in the windy night, floating away thanks to my heart standing in front of me. My heart was never wrong, so I refused to second-guess a thing.
“Let’s grab a bite to eat.” He walked me back inside, ordering some fries and burgers from Will, the young guy who’d just started working here a few weeks ago.
We took a seat in the back corner, and I’d complain that eating dinner together at my place of employment was hardly anything special, but it was. We rarely ever went out together for dinner anymore. Not just because money was always tight, but because we were also both tired. Mentally and physically. If we ever had a day off together, we spent it getting groceries or lying in bed and watching movies.
So I’d take whatever I could get, and at that moment, what I was getting felt pretty damn awesome.
We laughed, we fed each other fries, and we felt like us.
“So you finished with that bike yet?”
Felix swallowed and took a sip from his water. “Nah, not yet. Maybe tomorrow.” He sighed. “It’d wanna be; the guy’s on our asses about it.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, it’s fine, happens sometimes. I actually kind of get it. They miss their rides, and it’s hard, putting something you care so much about into the hands of other people.”
I’d have laughed at how silly that sounded—the way some people got so caught up in their bikes and cars was kind of funny and ridiculous—but I’d heard variations of similar things from Felix and Jared over the years.
So it was oddly normal.
“What time you working tomorrow?” He grabbed one of my fries and popped it in his mouth.
I watched his square jaw move as he chewed. “Ten.”
He nodded. “Means I can keep you up a bit later tonight.”
I laughed, raising a brow. “Is that so?”
“You can bet your perfect fucking ass it is.” Taking my hand, he brought my fingers to his mouth to run the pads of them over his bottom lip.
My blood started to heat, my breath quickening while I stared into his hooded eyes.
No matter how long we’d been together, he’d probably always have this effect on me.
“Well.” I cleared my throat a little and grinned. “We’d better get going then.”
Stretching my arms above my head, I blinked my eyes open when I felt the absence of Felix in bed beside me. The glow from the moon creeping inside the dark room had me glancing at my phone on the nightstand. It was just after two in the morning.
I should have gone back to sleep, my limbs were deliciously sore after the two rounds of sex we’d had earlier, but I didn’t. I sat up, picked my robe up from the floor, and slipped it on, walking quietly out of the bedroom.
I found Felix sitting at the counter in the kitchen and paused in the doorway to watch him shuffle some papers around. He seemed to be mumbling under his breath, but I couldn’t catch what he was saying. Highlighter in hand, he started scribbling on pieces of paper or discarding others to the side with a low curse.
Toulouse gave my presence away, walking over to me from where he was sitting on the floor at Felix’s feet. I picked him up, cuddling him to my chest as he purred, and walked over to Felix.
“What are you doing up?” he asked with a severe furrow to his brow.
I reached out to smooth it away with my finger. “I was just about to ask you the same thing…” My eyes fell to the paper, and my stomach sunk like a stone in the sea.
They were bills. Overdue bills, to be exact, and quite a few of them.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “Darren had credit cards, too?”
I tried to pick the statement up, but his hand grabbed mine. “Don’t. It’s fine.”
Frowning at him, I found that very hard to believe. What, with the worry and exhaustion marring his beautiful face. “Hey.” I motioned to his lap, and he scooted the stool back for me to sit down on it. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
His arms wound around my waist, his head falling to my boobs as he groaned out a pained sound. “Because I didn’t know until a few months ago. He’d been dodging some of these creditors for years.” He laughed. “Sneaky bastard.”
It was said with affection, but I knew it still stung that the fallout was coming back to lay at his feet.
“But he’s gone … they can’t just write it off?”
He nuzzled his face into my cleavage. “Nope,” he mumbled, then lifted his head. “Not when he mainly used them for the business. A business that’s still running.”
Shit. One step forward, three steps back. A never-ending game that might never be won.
But I wouldn’t let him shoulder this alone.
Felix stared down at the papers, chewing on his lip.
“Big guy, look at me.”
He did, and I yearned to absorb all his worries, all his pain, and anything that troubled him. Even after everything I’d already done for him, I’d do more. Whatever he needed.
“We’ll sort it out. We always do.”
He stared at me, his eyes unreadable for a minute. “You shouldn’t have to keep putting up with this shit, Mags. God, it’s so fucked up.” He moved his hands to my cheeks, fingers sinking into my hair. “You’ve had to deal with so much. This isn’t anything like the life we imagined for us.”
“Stop.” I grabbed his face, resting my head on his. “We’ll get everything we imagined. Someday. But first, we have tests we can’t fail. We won’t fail. We’ll figure this out, and we’ll look back on it one day and wonder what the hell we were even so worried about.”
A choked laugh erupted from his mouth, then he was silent for a long moment.
“I love you, Little Doe.”
I closed my eyes, rubbing my nose along the side of his. “Right back atcha, big guy.”