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“What happened? Why is he here?” I set her present on a nearby shelf and reached out to rub her arm.
Slowly her fist unclenched. “He…” She sighed. “His business? Buying me out. He knew who I was. I’m assuming the instant I introduced myself on Saturday.”
Now my anger had a focus. “I’ll be back. I have a face to pound in.”
“No.” Evie relaxed further. “Seriously, that’ll probably just provoke him. You do remember what happened, don’t you?”
All too well. In fact it had been playing on repeat in my head for almost two days. A warring series of memories that soared high with how incredible it was to be with Evie, and crashed with the fact that I had to share that moment with—
“Yes.” I could still find him later and deck him. Out of principle.
The rest of the energy seemed to drain from Evie as she sank to the ground and pulled her knees to her chest. “I can’t lose this place, Gage. I can’t.”
So don’t sell. I had a feeling from the despair bleeding into her words that it wasn’t that simple. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I owe so much.” Her voice grew quiet. “Back taxes. Interest and late fees on a bad loan. I can’t even dent the actual money owed, and I don’t know how to climb out.”
I’d known she was struggling, but had no idea how bad it was. “You should’ve said something.”
She scrubbed her face.
It didn’t matter now. That wasn’t the issue. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll help. Aubrey and Alys. Deacon and Adam.”
“You are not thinking of putting Aubrey and Deacon in the same room.” She snorted.
“And you can’t brush us off. If you need help, if your shop is in trouble, we’ll help. It’s what we all do.” I wasn’t letting her deflect.
“It doesn’t matter.” Evie sounded defeated, which I wasn’t used to. “Even if I climb out, even if I miraculously find a bag of money under a rock, this place doesn’t make enough without a cash reserve, and that’s gone.”
I sat next to her on the floor and wrapped an arm around her waist. She leaned into me and rested her head on my shoulder.
“There’s an answer—there has to be—and we’ll find it,” I said.
“Thank you.” The hopelessness lingered in her tone. “Eddie says happy birthday by the way.”
I’d let her change the subject for now, but we were looping back to this soon. “Same to him. Have you had breakfast yet? Come over to the grill and I’ll make you something.”
“I can’t. I have work to do.” She didn’t pull away.
“At least open your birthday present before you get back to it.” I reached up to the wrapped, flat box, careful not to jar her, and handed her the gift.
She took it from me and set it on the floor next to her. “You already gave me an incredible present this weekend, plus I left your gift at home.”
This weekend’s present was tainted now. “It’s a gift. You have to accept it.”
“I don’t think that’s how that works, but I do like presents.” Evie picked at the edges of the wrap, then grasped one and tore into the paper. She opened the box, and studied the framed paper inside, the creases in her forehead deepening. “Is this… the pact we made when we were kids?”
“Yes, but also no. Turn it over.”
She extracted the image, which was pressed between two pieces of glass inside the wooden frame, and flipped it to see the other side. “Oh. Oh wow.”
It was a rough sketch of a robot. The first she’d ever designed. She’d made notes on the other side, which was why it looked like I’d framed our contract with each other to get married if we were both still single at forty.
“I can’t believe this still exists.” She turned it back and forth, looking at one side and then the other. “Why do you have it?”
“Confession. I kept it originally because it had the promise on it. But I found it a few months ago when I was going through some boxes Grace dropped off, and it reminded me of…. I don’t know. More inventive times? Of what we were when we were allowed to just be.”
“I don’t think I was ever that.” Her voice was quiet.” She leaned into me again, this time squeezing my arm. “I love it. Thank you.”
