AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Glad?”
I nodded. “It’s…really good to see you. If I had to take a coffee over the head to get to talk to you again…it was worth it.”
That truth surprised me. I had missed Lark Meadows, and I hadn’t realized it.
The light brown of her eyes flared. She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything before she jerked her gaze away. “The bathroom is down that hall,” she murmured, gesturing toward the right side of the room.
I nodded, throwing the flannel shirt over my shoulder and heading in that direction.
It was worse than I realized when I looked in the bathroom mirror above the sink. My hair was stained and the shoulders of my white shirt looked like I’d been doused in a coffee rainstorm.
I grimaced and turned the faucet on. The handle squealed as the water sprayed out in spitting spurts. The bathroom was much like the rest of the house, small and cluttered. I didn’t remember the place being so packed with things, but maybe that was a result of Lark leaving. I didn’t know her mother well, but Lark had spent more time at our house whenever she could for a reason. My mom had basically taken Lark as her own. I could see why Lark always looked at my mom the way she did. She was taken care of at our house, not the other way around.
I grabbed the towel from a towel bar and tried my best to rinse my sticky hair and neck. I unbuttoned the white dress shirt that I suspected would never be fully white again and slipped on the flannel.
The shirt was about as bad as I expected. My head tilted to the side as I studied my reflection. The remnants of coffee were gone, but now I looked like a Christmas lumberjack. Not my vibe. At all.
Swallowing down my pride, I turned toward the door and opened it. It was better than nothing. I needed to be grateful and stop caring about how I thought the thing looked. Besides, maybe Lark liked the lumberjack vibe.
I stepped out into the hallway, wondering why the hell I cared about what Lark did or didn’t like, when a raspy voice stopped me in my tracks.
“You gonna pay for that shirt?”
Winifred Meadows leaned in the doorway of what I assumed was her bedroom farther down the hall. Her yellow-blonde hair was in a messy bun on the top of her head, and she had a large boot on her left ankle.
My hand absently rubbed my chest, the flannel soft under my palm. “Miss Meadows,” I said in polite greeting, ignoring the snide tone of her question.
“My name is Winnie,” she corrected, eyes narrowing. “What are you doing here? I don’t allow strange men in my house.”
I was far from a stranger. I wasn’t exactly a friend, but she knew who I was. She had been invited to my damn graduation party.
“Mom.” Lark’s sharp voice stole my attention, and my head snapped to the opposite side of the hallway. “I invited him. I gave him the shirt.”
Winnie’s voice softened, but barely. “Honey, you know how happy I am to have you home and helping with all the crap that I’m going through, but you can’t be giving away the merchandise. The store is already in a hard place.”
My gaze bounced between the two women. Lark’s shoulders curled inward as she looked down at her shoes. Her mother pushed off the side of the doorframe and straightened her spine. I hadn’t seen the two of them interact much throughout the years, but it seemed like Winnie ruled the house. I didn’t like the expression on Lark’s face. She looked…defeated. Embarrassed. She looked small under the stare of her mother, and it didn’t sit right with me.
I coughed loudly, pulling my shoulders back and giving Winnie a smile I wasn’t sure she deserved. “I’ll be more than willing to pay for the shirt. Maybe I’ll even buy more. Hell, I have a bunch of brothers who might even want some. I’ll be sure to send them your way when they beg to know where I got mine.”
“Reid—”
I cut Lark’s protest off with a raised hand, my eyes locked on Winnie.
Winnie frowned, suspicion etched in the creases around her eyes. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”
I shook my head. “No sarcasm here, ma’am.”
I’d meant what I said. I would get a shirt for every one of my brothers if that was what it took to keep her off Lark’s back.
I reached into my back pocket for my wallet. There hadn’t been any pricing on the shirt that I saw, but I pulled out a few twenties and held them out toward Winnie. “Will this cover it?”
Her eyes flicked down to the bills.
“Oh, my God,” Lark mumbled, sounding mortified. She didn’t have to be. This wasn’t about her.
Winnie hesitated, but then she snatched the money out of my hand. She spared one quick glance at her daughter before she turned and limped back into her room, closing the door behind her.
“I think I’ll go crawl into a hole and die now.” Lark’s entire face was a delicate shade of red.
