Page 11 of Crazy In Love (Love & War #2)

CHRIS

The bell above the bookstore front door jingles downstairs, alerting me to visitors. Though I know they’re not customers.

They’re Franky and Fox, here to settle in and discuss business.

I carefully set my wrench in my toolbox and take a step back from the spout that, an hour ago, leaked a constant drip-drip-drip into a shower that hasn’t been used in months.

Perhaps even years. And though turning the mains off to conserve water briefly passed through my mind, it took only a moment more to realize those same pipes feed the shop downstairs, too.

If I cut one half of the building off, the other half goes without.

Which means no toilets. No sink. No way to refill the coffee machine to appease the steady stream of customers Alana has cultivated over the past few months.

No coffee means the old ladies of Plainview might revolt. And shit, but they were young in the sixties. Every smart man knows not to fuck with folks from that era.

“I’ll show you upstairs soon, Aunt Fox.” Franky closes the front door, his voice echoing throughout the long shop and up the stairs into the apartment Fox will move into soon. He clomps across the store and flicks the lights on, and after that, the computer.

I know his routine almost as well as he knows it himself.

He moves to the cash register and powers it on so the Wi-Fi has time to catch up, then he switches the coffee machine on so customers have something delicious to drink while they peruse books .

“My mom sometimes bakes things herself for the fridges. And other times, the bakery up the street supplies us.”

“Does your mom call them the day before to let them know?”

“Yep.” He drags a stool over the old flooring, a tooth-aching screech announcing exactly where he is.

At the computer. “She usually writes a list each day of all the things we need for the next day, and then she decides which ones she’ll bake herself.

Whatever is left over, she tells that to the baker, and the baker takes care of it. ”

“Sounds like a good system.” There’s no click-click-click of heels on the floor. So… sneakers? Flip flops? “Do you usually sell a lot of baked items?”

“We sell them all. Every single day.”

Fuck, I don’t have to see him to know his face glows with pride.

“We sell them faster when Mom bakes them,” he adds smugly. “And usually, whoever the first customer is, asks, then they tell everyone else, ‘cos this town is run on a grapevine.”

“A grapevine?”

“Yeah, like, gossip . We don’t even need TVs around here. Everyone knows everything about everyone else anyway.”

He shudders.

I mean, I don’t see it.

But he shudders. I’m sure of it.

“I miss that about New York,” he murmurs. “Where people leave me alone, and no one talks about anyone else.”

“It sure is nice,” she agrees. And because I can’t see her, and I don’t know her well enough to know where she intends to take this conversation, I stalk out of the bathroom and into the studio apartment that hasn’t been lived in since…

the civil war, maybe. If Fox Tatum thinks she can manipulate an impressionable Franky into wanting to return to New York, then I consider it my right, my damn duty, to stand guard.

I have no desire to hide my presence, so I stomp across the apartment and close the door with a noisy slam—her one and only warning I’m on my way—then I jog down the interior staircase, the squeaky steps providing music for my approach. If Fox is my opponent, then the stairs are my fight song.

I move quickly, skipping off the final two steps, and come to a stop at the very opposite end of the bookstore where Franky and Fox wait.

One of them smiles when our eyes meet.

The other sets her hands on her hips and scowls.

“Why were you up there?” Agitated, Fox strides away from the front counter and stops an easy twenty feet from where I stand.

Her brows pinch tight, and her eyes burn me in my skin.

It’s almost like she thinks her bad mood and five feet, nine inches are scary.

“I thought the shop was locked and empty.”

“It was.” But I dig a hand into my pocket and pull out my keys, showing her that CW charm Franky gifted me for my birthday.

“Fortunately, I have access and permission to enter anytime I like.” And I’ve been fixing your living quarters, you ungrateful shit.

Dismissing her, I tilt to the left and meet Franky’s glasses-covered eyes. “Your mom and Tommy resting at home?”

“No. But Whacky’s at home and being a total jerk. He chased me all the way to Aunt Fox’s car.”

“The rooster?”

“Do you know anyone else named Whacky?” He pushes his glasses up his nose and softens his expression. “And Mom and Tommy are at the hospital.”

Fear spears through my blood, like the sting of a thousand furious hornets. “Why are they at the hospital? Is Alana okay?”

“She’s fine.” Where I expect derision, Fox offers kindness. When I expect snark, she presents a friendly grin and a slow walk forward. “Alana’s having contractions, but they’re slow and mild.” She pauses in front of me, tilting her head back and meeting my eyes. “The baby will be here soon.”

“Like, in twenty minutes soon? Or three hours soon?”

“Three days soon?” She comes around and stops beside me, so we’re facing Franky’s curious observation and presenting a united front.

“Could be today, could be tomorrow. But we’re calm and relaxed.

” She digs her hands into the pockets of her daisy dukes and leans, ever so gently to the side, until her shoulder touches my arm.

“There’s no emergency, and we’re not panicking like there is one.

We’re just gonna get the shop ready for business and wait by the phone for Tommy’s progress texts. ”

“I just…” Relaxed? Who the fuck is relaxed? “She’s in labor now?”

“She’s having contractions now. Which is not labor. It’s pre -labor.”

“Contractions means baby! That’s labor.”

“Good lord. This is gonna be more difficult than I thought.” She gestures toward Franky. “Your mom is fine, right? She’s safe, and everything is okay.”

“Everything’s fine,” he answers in monotone. “Fun fact: there are three stages to having a baby. And my mom is only in the first stage. We have loads of time.”

I read the book. I read the book, dammit ! “Stage one leads to stage two. Why is no one concerned about the impending arrival of stage two? ”

“Because we’re calm.” Fox turns to me and presents her hands, a silent question flashing through her eyes. Then she places two fingers on my chest, right between my breastbones.

“What are you?—”

“I know Alana was your zen master all the way through childhood, and I know she has this special ability to simmer you the hell down. I won’t even pretend to be as cool as she is.

But,” she glances up, grinning, “did you know you have a pressure point right here at your sternum? When you press on it and take a long, deep breath, your nervous system catches on that everything is okay, which then makes it possible to calm down.”

“I’m not not calm!” Stop touching me. I like it. “I’m asking questions about a time-sensitive matter. If Alana is in labor, then a baby is coming. If the baby is coming, then I think I’d like to be there for the actual, literal birth of my niece.”

She increases the compression of her fingers, massaging my breastbone and filling her lungs with a deep breath. And fuck, I don’t mean to do the same, but I inhale anyway, expanding my chest and stretching my lungs. Damn her and her witchcraft .

“The baby is coming… at some point this week,” she murmurs.

“And you’ll be there for the big reveal, I promise.

Though, no matter how fond Alana is of you, I know for a damn fact you’re not invited into the birthing suite.

So why don’t you trust me to handle the logistics, deal with the timing, and eventually, get you and Franky where you need to be when you need to be there? ”

“ Trust you? Woman, you already don’t like me! You’d be happy if I missed out on this.”

Her eyes shutter, from faux comfort to the real, angry person she is beneath.

“I do not intend to miss it, Christian. Not the end, when Tommy comes out and tells us everything is okay. Which means for as long as I’m right here in front of you, you haven’t missed anything.

Now breathe.” She inhales again and nods when my lungs do the same.

Traitorous fuckers.

“Feels better already, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t…” Shit. She’s not wrong. “You?—”

“You’re lucky she didn’t tell you to dance,” Franky drawls. “She’s real annoying when she thinks dancing will fix a bad mood.”

Pleased, she drops her hands and strides away, the absence of her touch as startling as if she’d smacked me on the side of the head with a two-by-four. Instead, she claps her hands and beams for Franky. “Do we have to go to the bakery to get the stuff, or does the bakery deliver to us?”

“They come to us.” He studies his computer screen, the reflection of spreadsheets bouncing off the lenses of his glasses.

Hell, it’s almost like his world wasn’t just fucking turned on its head, right here in the middle of Alana’s bookstore.

“They usually come at nine, right after Mom takes me to school and opens up. But since it’s Saturday, they’ll come at about ten-thirty. ”

“Makes sense. Not many folks are heading to the bookstore as soon as they wake on the weekend.”

She has a way of dancing while she walks. It’s not an overt sashay and sway, but a more discreet roll of her hips. Which, unfortunately for me, is a million times more pronounced now that she’s wearing denim shorts and those high-top sneakers she seems to favor.

“Can you teach me how to work the coffee machine?” She wanders around Franky’s desk and kisses the back of his head. “Aunty Fox needs a hit of caffeine before she turns herself inside out. You know how dangerous no-coffee can be, right?”

He scoffs in agreement.

“So if you could peel yourself away from all those numbers, I’d be hella grateful.”

“Hella is not a real word.” But he slides off the stool and walks her to the machine, tapping buttons and catering to her the way he does his mother. He likes caring for them, and I think both women know it. So they give him tasks and save him from his racing brain.

It’s me. My brain is racing.

“I’ll go get the pastries.” I stalk toward the front door, hunching my shoulders and digging my hands into my pockets. And though I draw both sets of eyes, curious stares following my progress across the store, I stride through the doorway and onto the sidewalk outside without a single added word.

Fresh air hits me like a wall, pushing my hair back and attacking my lungs.

And though it should erase that suffocating squeeze crushing me from the inside out, I can’t quite find a way to get my brain to talk to my lungs.

So I press my fingers to the blazing point in the center of my chest instead, right where Fox touched only a moment ago.

But I don’t have that same magic touch she has.

It doesn’t work when I do it.

I can’t find the calm.

“Shoulda told her not to fuckin’ touch me.” Frustrated, I lower my hand and stomp toward the bakery. “Should’ve smacked her away and told her to get jacked.”

Yeah, right, dickhead. You wouldn’t dare.