Fuck. There’d been a time when he’d have done anything for her. Literally anything. Kidney removal and all. Both of them.
Hell, if she’d asked him to, he’d have carved them out with no anesthetic and a fucking spoon. Not anymore.
His phone rang on the table. Clare. With a sigh, he flexed his jaw and hit the green button.
“Eli, I’m sorry to keep bugging you but…” Her tense voice cracked as she trailed off. “I’m desperate. I have someone picking Mason up from school, but I was wondering if you could bring him home after practice. I wouldn’t ask but—”
“I said I can’t help you, Clare.” His words burst out on a growl.
“Of course. I… I… I’m sorry for asking—”
He pushed the red button and slammed both the paper, and the phone onto the table, causing his mug to clink and the coffee to slosh over the side. He snapped a picture of the paperwork and emailed it to his lawyer with a note that he’d drop the originals off tomorrow during business hours. The man never slept and worked 24-7 so he’d probably have them read by the time Elliott handed him the pages.
Maybe he was misreading it, maybe she wasn’t trying to fuck him with his pants on, maybe it just looked like it and there was a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why she wanted his name off the house.
And maybe pigs could fly.
Denise had unknowingly declared war, and he was done with her bullshit. It was time to get her the fuck out of that house and figure out his finances once and for all. He just needed to figure out how.
***
“I’m so sorry.”
Clare’s narrowed eyes, folded arms, and pursed lips suggested she wasn’t buying his lame-ass apology. “You hung up on me.”
He nodded. He had done that. “I did. I’m sorry for that, too.”
The kids were finishing up on the ice, but practice wasn’t quite over yet. Elliott had come to the rink specifically to apologize to her for being an asshat. That had to count for something, right?
The flickering fury in her eyes told him no, it didn’t count for anything.
“Clare, I…” He rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. “I’m going through some shit right now. I know that’s not an excuse, but my mom…”
Her face softened. So she knew.
She nodded. “Mom said she’d been recently moved into an assisted living facility.”
He could read her like a book. She knew more than that. She knew that Mom was deteriorating, she knew Dad was struggling at home alone but too stubborn to move in somewhere with Elliott, or sell their home and move somewhere more manageable.
She probably also knew that if one died, the other would die of a broken heart. His stomach clenched. “It’s more than that. And Denise is being…well, Denise.”
The words stuck in his throat. He didn’t want to talk to Clare about Denise. He didn’t want her thinking that Denise still held space in his life. She didn’t. It was over between them.
“She’s trying to take the house.” He shrugged. “She had nowhere to go, y’know? I thought letting her live there until she figured something else out, until she was in a better position to sell, was the noble thing to do.”
He frowned. “Sorry, this isn’t… I shouldn’t…” He blew out a puff of air and took a step toward her. “My point is that none of this is your fault. I was entirely out of line snapping at you and hanging up on you and…”
Was it getting hotter in the rink? Or was the brewing storm still in her eyes producing enough heat to crank up his body temp?
Will blew his whistle and the kids reset for another drill on the ice.
Clare covered Elliott’s mouth with her delicate fingers and gave him a soft smile. “I won’t say it’s okay, because it isn’t. I definitely didn’t deserve your ire earlier. And I admit, I wanted to scream obscenities at you when you put the phone down on me. In fact, I might have yelled cusswords, but I’ll neither confirm nor deny it.”
She shrugged, the edges of her smile tugging higher. “But I accept your apology. I can’t imagine the stress you’re under right now. But I figured out my emergency by myself. I’m sorry for calling you. I couldn’t think of anyone else to help out.”
His stomach dropped. Her pale face had fallen from fury to sympathy, to something close to fear, maybe even shame, in a matter of seconds. He took another step forward and cupped her cheek. Her skin was so fucking soft against his palm. Was the rest of her skin as soft? His dick twitched at the thought of nestling between her ass cheeks.
“I don’t want you to apologize. I want to be there for you where I can.” He leaned closer to her, he needed her to know, to know everything. Brushing his nose against the side of hers, his muscles relaxed, her body did too, and the sharp little gasp that escaped on a half-squeak made him smile. “It’s what friends do.”
