I looked down at it, and since I’d seen that number before, I knew who it was.
God, my life sucked.
I hit the screen to take Walter Jones’s call.
I then immediately hit the screen to hang up.
I went back to stroking on mascara.
The phone rang again.
The motherfucker probably thought he lost connection.
I took the call and then hung up.
He called again.
I engaged and disengaged.
Done playing, I went in, blocked his number, and went back to finishing my makeup.
* * * * *
I walked into J&J’s, surprised to see the place was deserted.
Then I saw Feb pop up from behind the bar.
Years ago, when I’d first met her, seeing all that was her did not do good things for my mental health.
There was a reason Dennis Lowe picked me, having obsessed on Feb and Colt since they were all in high school together.
Wanting Feb for his own, he’d found a replacement in me.
In other words, we looked a lot alike.
Obviously, we still did, both of us tall, built, blonde, and brown-eyed.
Though, there was more to it and it was uncanny.
Honest to God, she looked like my older sister.
For obvious reasons, these making me a target of an ax murderer, even when she turned out to be awesome, it had fucked with my head. Lowe had even called me Feb and February, saying it was a nickname because we’d met in that month, but doing it because that was who he saw in me.
He also told me his name was Alexander Colton and he was a cop, not what he was in reality—a geeky software guy who hid the batshit crazy.
Since she and Colt were looking out for me, I covered my reaction to our physical similarities and what that all bought me in my life, burying the wince every time someone said her name.
It took some time, but I finally pulled my head together, twisting my thinking process to what it should be.
Feb was gorgeous. She’d been in her early forties when I met her and was smack in the middle of them now. That shit had not faded. She was the kind of woman men would look at when she was sixty and they’d still think, oh yeah.
She also had an edge, like me. Hers had softened over the years since she got Colt back and they had their baby, Jack, but it wasn’t totally gone. Lowe had also forced her life on a trajectory where she didn’t want to be, and that had started decades ago, so it had lasted a lot longer than mine.
Her edge made her cool, however. It made the sweet she had in her a surprise, which meant it ended up feeling like a gift when she gave that to you.
And if she had all that and kept it, my big sister who wasn’t of blood but was of a different variety, it boded well for me in the coming decades.
“Yo,” I called.
“Hey,” she called back.
I braced for her to start something with me about Merry, but she didn’t.
This was surprising.
Then again, I was surprised my cell hadn’t lit up since Friday, not only from Feb but from all the hens in our coop.
“Darryl was last in last night and he didn’t restock. I’m doin’ that and takin’ stock while I do. Need to get an order in. Can you take care of the bar while I do that? I’ll help if things get busy.”
Tuesdays during the day at J&J’s were the same as Mondays, so watching the bar while Feb did her thing would not be tough.
Even if it was, for her, I’d break my back doing it.
“Sure,” I said, heading to the office so I could dump my purse. “And I’ll help with the restock.”
“That’d be cool.”
I went into the office thinking it wasn’t surprising Darryl forgot the restock. If he was on alone on a weeknight, shutting down the bar, more often than not he forgot something. The only thing he never forgot to do was securing the money from the register in the safe.
Darryl could forget something you told him two seconds after the words left your mouth.
I didn’t think this was because he was stupid (entirely). He was just one of those people who didn’t have all their synapses firing. It took patience, but if you had that with him, he got where you needed him to go eventually.
I made it to the office, dumped my purse on the desk, and turned my mind from Darryl to the decision I’d made in my car on the way to work.
After I’d texted Merry last night, he hadn’t texted back. With the games we were playing, that could mean anything.
But he seemed entrenched.
As for me, I needed to protect myself, and part of doing that was getting him out of my business, any business I had. To accomplish that, I had to sort out the Trent and Peggy thing, and considering I had a job and a kid, limited money, and no investigative skills, I had to call in help.
If I was going to be facing lawyer fees to keep Ethan, I also had to hoard my cake.
All this led me to one conclusion: I had to find someone who’d do the legwork for me and do it for a price I could afford to pay.
I dug out my phone, scrolled down to that name in my Contacts, and hit call.
Ryker answered on the third ring.
“What’s goin’ on with you and Merrick?” he asked as greeting.
I set my teeth, not surprised Ryker knew something was going on with Merry and me because Merry had dragged me into the office at J&J’s. Morrie saw that, probably fifty other people saw that, and no doubt at least forty-eight (if not all fifty-one) of those people were talking about it.
I shared the minimum. “Something happened. One-time thing. We’re movin’ on.”