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Chapter Twenty
Hadley
“Can we ask him, Mommy, please?” Lucy whined in my ear, and I shuddered from the sheer excitement in her voice.
“He’s not home. He’s working. Just because I’m off today, doesn’t mean the rest of the world is.”
I could tell the news devastated her. She sulked and stuck out her lip. “When does he gets home?”
I stopped bouncing Eli in his seat and simply studied my four-year-old sitting beside me. “Why do you like Elijah so much?”
She shrugged and rocked on her knees. “I don’t know.”
“What kind of answer is that?” I leaned in and arched an eyebrow. “Lucy, do you have a crush on him?”
She shoved my forehead, upset with me. “No!” She scratched her nose. “He always buys me stuff.”
My jaw dropped. “Lucy! I didn’t raise you to be so shallow. If Elijah heard you say that, he’d be hurt.”
She scrunched up her nose. “No, he won’t. He’s cooler than you. He’d just smile and laugh.” Wow, I was pretty sure I birthed a monster. I felt sorry for her future husband. “Can we ask him? I really want him to watch Big Hero 6. He’ll love it, Mom, like he liked The Croods.”
I feigned annoyance, but on the inside, I was a tad nervous. I wouldn’t mind Elijah coming over too, but what if we were bugging him? I saw him over the weekend at his shop, but Lucy hadn’t seen him in a while. It was obvious that she really liked the man. Maybe Lucy and Elijah got along so well because of their brutal honesty manner of speaking.
Their ease around one another made me remember my foolish reaction when I discovered that Elijah did piercings and tattoos for a living. I didn’t know why I was so surprised. Okay, I wasn’t as much surprised as I was… Frankly, I didn’t want to think it. All I had to do was look at the beautiful tattooed chick. Before Elijah took her into the back room, an awful surge of fear gripped me.
Elijah mistook my response. I didn’t think he was a perv. Honestly, I didn’t know why I behaved like a girlfriend who’d just found out something she didn’t like about her boyfriend. He saw attractive women of all shapes and sizes and tattooed and pierced them wherever they desired. I’d never been a confident woman, but that day, I noticed my flaws all over again. Elijah had seen me at my worst. Fudge! He’d seen me on the way to giving birth to Eli. What changed to make me care about his opinion of me? I must seem like a walking disaster to that man.
I’d had too much time to dwell on these feelings, but it shouldn’t have mattered. After all, Elijah was my friend. I’d admit that I liked him, but it was because Lucy did. Right? For me, it was admiration that a man like him could be friends with my daughter. So it didn’t matter if he saw naked, gorgeous women because Elijah and I were cool the way we were.
Really?
I asked the man if he was trying to get me into bed. How embarrassing! Elijah was attractive, big, had tattoos, and gave piercings to beautiful women all the time. … I didn’t care about all that. Right?
Somehow, Elijah had become our friend.
I smiled and swiped my finger across my iPhone.
“Yay!” Lucy screamed. “Let me call him.”
“I can text him,” I told her.
“No! Please, please, please, let me call!”
Should I? Elijah was an upfront person. I’d never once noticed a hint of irritation or annoyance from him toward Lucy since we began this journey of befriending him. A guy like Elijah couldn’t pretend. He liked my child. Of course, I’d also spotted his obvious way of avoiding Eli. I had of feeling he was terrified of babies. Surely, he didn’t hate babies? Who could hate babies?
Elijah.
I groaned, found his number, and handed my phone over. “Here. He might not answer where he’s—”
“Elijah!”
I leaned forward, trying to hear, but she stood. Did he answer already?
“Can you come over?” Lucy was bouncing vigorously as she spoke. Eli kicked his legs, getting excited with Lucy as he watched her. “There’s a movie you must watch! Okay! Yeah. Can you bring Funyuns? I also like chicken.”
“Lucy!” My child was such a bum. She just shrugged and ran away with my cell phone.
It wasn’t even a second later when she came running back out. “Oh, my fudge, Mom! He’s bringing us chicken.” There was a pause. “He said to ask you if Lee’s is okay?”
