She’d never even called to ask about them.
With shaky hands, I stretched my arm underneath the glass top, not quite able to reach what felt like a gaping hole in the middle where Mooney had once resided. There was no fucking way the plant had just fallen out. Dammit, I had warned the kids not to touch the succulents.
“Help me get the top off!” I shouted at everyone and no one, my pulse racing a mile a minute. I wasn’t sure who grabbed it first, Tyson or Jared, but within seconds, the glass was lifted, allowing me to carefully return the little pink plant back into the safety of its hole.
No less frantic, I turned, snatched up my spray bottle, and cleaned the end of each plump pink leaf ever so carefully. Then I lined them up in the soil, hoping like hell they would sprout roots rather than die.
Rising to my full height, I stabbed a hand into the top of my hair as I struggled to catch my breath, all the while realizing that, just like everything else in my life, what happened next was completely out of my control.
And fuck me if that wasn’t another kick in the balls.
“Honey,” my mom said, low and cautious. “Are you okay?”
My head popped up and I found everyone staring at me in what could only be described as a mixture of pity and shock—heavy on the pity.
Okay. So much for convincing them I was hanging in there. Clearly, I was only one fragile succulent away from a total nervous breakdown.
I swallowed hard and slid my gaze around the room. The concern emanating off my family was suffocating, but it was the understanding in Aaron’s eyes that hit me the hardest.
I blew out a ragged breath. “I just…need them to all be alive if she comes back.”
Her estranged best friend flashed me a weak smile—which I was starting to think was the only one he still possessed. “When she comes back, she’ll really appreciate that,” he countered.
My nose burned, but thankfully the emotion lodged in my throat.
When she came back seemed like a lofty goal.
But hope was a powerful drug, and it didn’t take much to do the trick.
When it came to Remi Grey, I would always be addicted.
Remi
In my dreams.
That was always where he found me.
I would spend hours before going to bed thinking about work, mentally going over conversations I’d had with the new manager of The Wave, or obsessing about embarrassing childhood memories with the hopes that generic nightmares of going to school naked would torment me when I closed my eyes.
But nope.
It was always him.
And I always woke up with a smile on my face and a tear in my eye.
“Sugar!” Barefoot and filled with panic, I stood in the middle of the street, rocking my weight from one side to the other, trying to predict which direction he would choose to cut around me.
Like a freaking track star, that black ball of fluff raced toward me, his tail wagging and tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. This entire thirty-minute ordeal was nothing but a game of chase for him.
“Come here, buddy. You want a treat? Cheese?” I cooed, hoping at least one of the words would ring a bell in what I feared was an empty puppy brain. Low and ready to pounce, I held my breath as he got closer, still running at a full sprint.
Left. He was definitely going left this time. He’d gone right six out of the ten times we’d played this exact game of chicken. Statistically, as Bowen would have said, he was due to go left.
I continued rattling off familiar words to lure him to me. “Ham? Walk? You want to play ball?”
His ears perked on the last one, but he never slowed.
As he got close, I went left and sure enough, he did too. Only my fingers slipped right through the curls on his neck where his collar should have been.
“Dammit!” Spinning, I turned, ready to continue being the cat to his mouse.
But Bowen suddenly rendered it unnecessary.
“Gotcha,” he said, catching Sugar midstride.
I blew out a ragged sigh of relief, my whole body sagging.
Holding the dog out in front of him, Bowen rumbled, “You are in so much trouble, mister.”
Sugar’s only response was to lick him on the nose.
“So, so, so much trouble,” I repeated, taking him from Bowen, the diamond on my finger sparkling in the sunlight.
“You got him?” Bowen asked before releasing him into my arms.
“Oh, I got him all right.”
Sugar wiggled in my arms, rolling from side to side, full-on celebrating his big day out. My heart was still pounding in my chest, but it was really hard to stay mad at the little guy. Bowen on the other hand…
“Why’d you take his collar off? You know he’s a runner.”
