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“What if you have a doctor’s note? I’ve got like a thousand prescription pads right next door. Hell, I’ll call them and tell them you can’t go in. Doctor’s orders and all that.”
What else could he offer? What else could he do? There had to be somehow, some way to fix this. He couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving like this. Hell, he couldn’t actually bear the thought of her leaving at all but he could deal with that possessive urge later.
“It doesn’tmatter, Eric,” she snapped.
And then she burst into tears.
He reached out to pull her into his arms but she swatted his hands away. There were times when he would’ve used his size and strength to overpower her because he didn’t actually believe she wanted to be left alone but she thought she should be. But they didn’t know each other well and it wouldn’t do to have his patients and their parents seeing him struggling with a woman through the windows that lined the entire top half of the breezeway.
Tears streaming down her cheeks and holding herself tight like she thought she might fall apart otherwise, Devy went on. “I have to go because I’ll get fired if I don’t. If I get fired I won’t be able to pay my rent. And if I lose my apartment and can’t find another one in this school district—which I probably can’t because I was lucky to get this one—Carter is going to take the boys. He’s going to take them away from me.”
Devy’s shoulders shook as she buried her face in her hands, sobbing. Fuck. He was such a fucking idiot. He could follow the hopscotch of Devy’s logic but hadn’t been able to make the leap to the boys himself. Despite working with kids all damn day, he hadn’t figured custody of Logan and Chase into the equation. He wasn’t a parent, but for fuck’s sake, he should’ve known.
He swallowed his anger at Carter and gently chafed Devy’s biceps, softened his voice. His little girl didn’t need his anger right now, she needed his empathy and his help.
“Okay, baby. I’m sorry I pushed, I get it now. Where do you work?”
She sniffed, scrubbed balled up fists across her cheeks and then named a store at the mall—one of the places the tweens liked to get their earrings and scrunchies and the latest trendy whatevers from. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting, and she must’ve seen the surprise on his face.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes like she was embarrassed. “I’m a grown woman who has a master’s degree. I shouldn’t be working there.”
He cupped her face in his hands and thumbed away some tears from her cheeks. “Devy, if that’s what makes you happy, you should work wherever you want.”
“That’s the thing. It doesn’t make me happy. I hate it. But there aren’t so many jobs that will let you work part time during the school day. I get yelled at whenever I have to take time off to bring the boys to their appointments or when I have to be home with them because it’s a holiday or they’re sick. Logan is old enough to be home alone but he gets so caught up in his games I don’t think he’d pay enough attention to Chase. And I’d move someplace cheaper but the boys go to a good school and if I can’t afford to live in the neighborhood anymore Carter will insist they come live with him. And I…”
She made a strangled sound in her throat and then looked up at him, blue eyes wide and so godawful sad. “You must think I’m so stupid. To have married him. To have stayed with him for so long.”
“I don’t,” he said with all the earnestness in his heart. “No way you could be stupid. I’m guessing you were in a tough situation and it seems like things haven’t gotten any easier since you split.”
Devaney shrugged. “In some ways. Carter doesn’t yell at me every day anymore, so that’s nice. And I get the boys away from him for most of the week so that’s good too. But they see Carter on the weekends, and I know he fills their heads with horrible things and lets them get away with murder and I can’t do anything about it.”
Right. The way Logan had looked up from his gaming console and rolled his eyes when Eric had sought him out yesterday. They way he’d been so fucking dismissive of his mom’s pain and illness. That was all Carter. Wasn’t it bad enough for the guy to be a total asshole to his ex-wife? He had to poison his sons against her too?
Eric couldn’t help it anymore, he had to hold her. This time when he went to put his arms around her, she didn’t resist but went willingly, burying her face in his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist.
Her head fit perfectly tucked under his chin and he kissed the top of her head as he gave her a squeeze. Rubbed her back as she gathered herself. After a minute she pulled away and used her fingers to swipe at the remaining tear tracks.
“I’m sorry I cried all over you, you’re going to have to change your shirt.”
“I promise that is not anywhere near the worst thing I’ve gotten on my clothes. You know kids are disgusting. If they’re not picking their noses, they’ve got potatoes growing in their ears. I’ve seen more blowout diapers and puke than you can shake a stick at, but I think the worst are jam hands. It’s this insidious stickiness that just won’t wash off. Damn those jam hands.”
She gave a weak laugh and he bent down to kiss the corner of her mouth that’d tipped up.
“There’s my pretty baby. I love it when you laugh, Devy.”
“I like it when you make me laugh,” she murmured, the swell of her cheeks flushing.
There, that was better. A little anyway. It would have to do.
Eric snuck a glance at his watch and yeah, he needed to get over to the office. He hated to leave her, but it seemed like there was a snowball’s chance in hell that he’d actually convince Devy not to go to work.
As much as he might want to haul her over his shoulder, drag her upstairs and buckle enough restraints on her that she wouldn’t be able to escape, he wouldn’t be that domineering asshole. Not yet, anyway, until she agreed to be his and they’d settled on exactly what that meant, at which point he’d just be domineering and not an asshole.
Before she left though, he wanted to make something very clear.
“It’s Friday, is Carter taking the boys after school?”
“He comes to pick them up after he gets off work usually, but they go to a friend’s house after school for a few hours before coming home.”
