Page 22 of Fall Over You

“Is that her bedroom?” she points past the kitchen to a closed door.

“Yes. Sorry, all I can offer is the couch. There’s a blanket on the back of it. If you need another⁠—”

She waves a hand. “That’s plenty. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll let you use the bathroom first.” I scratch the back of my head. “I don’t think there’s an extra toothbrush right now. I just opened the last one a few days back.”

She shakes her head to stop me, her voice tired. “I’m good, Ty. You can go first.” She hesitates. “Guess you’re still looking after me, all these years later.”

My stomach tingles and I want to say something smartass about her being uncontrollable, but I get tongue tied. “I guess. Anyway, I’ll just,” I thumb over my shoulder toward the bathroom.

When I come back out, Becca’s already asleep, the blanket loosely draped over her. I curse myself for not taking the AC unit out of the window yet, because it’s pretty chilly at night. The wind blows straight through. It’s fine in the bedroom, but I’ve woken up cold the last few mornings as the season’s changing. I open the storage bin with more blankets in it and grab two. I tuck another one tight around Becca’s shoulders and pin it under her knees. My lips ache with the urge to give her a little kiss, and that’s just one more thing to add to the list of weird time warps that are happening right now.

“Night, Reba,” I whisper into the dark before I dip into Ellie’s room. I’m usually awake until my mind wears itself out, but tonight, I feel more settled than usual.

And for the first time in a long time, I feel less alone.

TEN

BECCA

“Miss Becca?”

A tiny voice wakes me and the face that looks back at me is a blast from the past. The deep, dark, swampy past. Strawberry blonde hair and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose. Even the same gap she had in her teeth when we were little.

CJ.

Ellie looks so much like her mama that it sends a pang through me. Though as my eyes focus, I can see traces of her daddy too.

“Morning, Ellie.”

“What are you doing here?” she asks, her excitement apparent.

I sit up, stretching out a crick in my neck. I’m on a couch in Tyler’s apartment, a pair of crocheted blankets falling to my lap. A faint memory floats in of those blankets being tucked around my shoulders. “Your daddy was worried I wouldn’t make it home safe last night and had me sleep here.” My eyes cut toward what I assume is the bedroom in this apartment.

She shrugs. “Oh. He was asleep on the floor. That makes sense.”

“Is he awake yet?”

“No, but I can get him up.” She raises her voice about fifty decibels. “Daddy!”

“No, shh, that’s okay. We can let him sleep.”

Ellie looks at me like I’m the silliest goose that ever was. “Who’s going to feed us breakfast, then?”

She’s right. I can’t just leave her here with her dad asleep. I mean, maybe she’s used to that, but I’m not and I feel weird abandoning her. “Why don’t you show me around the kitchen, and we’ll scare something up?”

Ellie giggles. “Why is it scary?”

I laugh too. “‘Scare something up’ is an old way to say ‘put together.’”

She points me to the cupboard with a few toaster pastries in it, and I notice some stray dishes in the sink. “Men,” I mutter under my breath. There looks to be a perfectly good dishwasher. Is it really that hard?

Maybe I’m being too hard on Tyler. He’s a single dad living over his auto shop. That can’t be easy.

I look through the fridge and find a carton of eggs about to go bad. “You like scrambled eggs?”

“I like eggs in a basket.”