Page 44 of You've Got Hate Mail
Cricket’s sitting on the porch swing, head dropped into her hands, breathing unevenly.
“This seat taken?” I ask.
She bolts to her feet, and her phone clatters to the concrete below. “No. No, it’s—” She pauses, removes her wireless earbuds from her ears, then pockets them. “I’ll go back inside. Sorry. Didn’t know you were out here.”
Just enough light spills out from the sliding glass door into the apartment to illuminate her.
It’s instinctive to take stock, andfuck.
She’s a goddamn disaster.
Her hair’s in a bun on top of her head, but it looks more like a rat’s nest than a purposeful bun. If Lav’s hair looked like that, it’d take me an hour to work through it.
Or longer.
She’s wearing the pink rhinestone dick shirt, definitely no bra, and pants that might be a skirt except for the improbability that Cricket would wear a skirt given her recent wardrobe malfunctions.
And she’s looking at me like she’s a wounded animal.
Or possibly like she’s afraid she’s about to turn me into one again.
“Sit,” I say to her. “You don’t have to go inside.”
“No, I—I really shouldn’t be around people. Especially single parents. The porch might fall down on us and then Lavender would be a full orphan and I—I couldn’t handle the guilt.”
“Rebuilt the porch myself last summer. It’s solid.”
She eyes me.
“You have coffee yet?” I ask her.
She shakes her head.
I offer my cup.
The lust in her eyes as she stares at it—my dick actually twitches.
This isnothow I want to start my day.
“Not poisoned,” I tell her. “Take it.”
“Thank you,” she whispers. “I—I ran out yesterday.”
“Headed over to the house later. I’ll bring you more.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can—” She stops herself as her eyes get shiny. “Actually, I don’t think I can. Thank you.”
Fuck, I hate this. “The day I moved Ava and Lavender here, I backed my car into the side of the house. That side.” I point to the side near the garage. “Mabel didn’t say a word. Just had it patched up within three days.”
“You had a lot going on.” She takes a small sip, and her shoulders visibly drop and her chin lifts and a softmmemanates from her throat.
And my fucking broken dick twitchesagain.
I sit on the swing. “Samantha and Olivia got here a few months after we did. Two or three days in, they tried to open their bedroom window. Didn’t know it was painted shut. Olivia broke it. Whole window fell off the house. Cut herself too. First time I had to do a patch job on anyone here outside my own family.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“If they haven’t told you themselves yet, they probably don’t think you’re ready to hear it.”
