Page 13 of Playing With Forever (Hollow Point #4)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Thankfully, Sundays at the center were quiet—at least they were for me.

It was the day I used to catch up on all the things I couldn’t get done with a full roster of kids and staff.

It wasn’t that weekends at the Hope Center weren’t bustling it was just that activities didn’t require my involvement.

The gym was normally packed with pick-up basketball games.

All but one of the computer labs were closed, and weekends were for adults and kids who had homework or research to do.

No games, no social media, no scrolling YouTube.

The library was open, and it was only one of many function rooms, which were mainly used for some sort of parenting class, or occasionally, Womens Inc.

would use the room to help with resumes, college applications, or finding scholarships for either parents to continue their education or kids who were beginning theirs.

This also meant I could leave early, which turned out to be a blessing when I got home and found my water heater had—in Kane’s words—shit the bed.

Over the years, I’d prided myself on being self-sufficient.

With no other choice, I’d learned basic home maintenance.

I couldn’t afford to call in a handyman every time something broke.

When my boys got old enough, they’d pitched in and, in some cases, had taken over the chores that required more than a screwdriver and hammer.

To this day, one of my boys came home to clean my gutters, not wanting their mother on a ladder.

Not to mention, if a chainsaw was involved, they were on it—as in all over it—with the explicit directive that I wasn’t to touch the saw.

“No mother of mine will be out in the heat limbing trees,” DJ had declared.

“Don’t you dare even think about cleaning up the tree, Mamalious,” Kane had ordered after a tree fell during a storm.

It was also Kane who had installed an alarm in the water heater closet, explaining it would alert me at the slightest trickle of water.

Seeing as the hallway and half of the bedroom across from the closet were flooded, I’d say it had been alerting for a while. However, I hadn’t been home to hear it.

Now I was mopping up water with every towel I owned. This was after I turned off the water, flipped the breaker to the water heater, and called a plumber to come out on a Sunday, which was going to cost an arm and a leg and possibly a kidney.

I was either going to have to go out and buy more towels or start using sheets to soak up the hours of water that had been free-flowing.

A quick check of the time told me I was going to have to cancel my date with Evan, which was disappointing in the sense that it was heartbreaking.

I’d been putting off calling him for the last hour, hoping the plumber would show and it’d be a quick fix.

No such luck, and if I didn’t call Evan now, it would be incredibly rude.

Not that canceling a date forty-five minutes before said date wasn’t rude, but it couldn’t be helped.

I padded on wet feet into the kitchen where I’d left my phone, dreading making the call I needed to make.

Perhaps I needed to make the time to examine why over the last week Evan had consumed my thoughts, and why most of those thoughts had nothing to do with what happened during the hours I’d spent with him in his bed.

When I was done with that, I needed to give serious consideration to why my stomach was clenching and despair had settled in now that I knew I wasn’t going to see him tonight.

Once I had Evan’s number pulled up, I took a deep, fortifying breath, reminded myself I was being ridiculous, and made the call.

It rang twice before he picked up.

“Josie.” His smooth voice ratcheted up my disappointment.

“Evan, sorry to do this at all, especially on such short notice, but I need to cancel tonight.”

“Everything okay?”

“I came home and found my water heater broken. The plumber is on his way—” A van pulling into my driveway caught my attention. “Actually, he just got here, but I have water?—”

“Do you have a shop vac?”

I was walking to the front door, hoping the flood didn’t buckle the laminate floor Kane had installed two years ago when I answered, “No.”

“I’ll bring mine.”

“Evan—”

“Josie, I’ll be there in ten minutes with my shop vac. And don’t agree to let the plumber do any work until I get there.”

The insinuation that I couldn’t handle a plumber burned my ass.

“You do know I am more than capable of dealing with a plumber.”

“No doubt. However, you are aware women get taken advantage of more than men. Even when a man cannot fix his own shit, he’s less likely to be taken to the cleaners.”

He wasn’t wrong, which also chapped my ass.

“Fine,” I ungraciously snapped.

I heard him chuckle before he disconnected, and I opened the door.

Fifteen minutes later, I was annoyed when Evan had taken over the conversation with the plumber.

It wasn’t Evan stepping in to help that had me infuriated; it was that not only had Evan been correct, but this particular jerk wasn’t trying to take me to the cleaners—he wanted to take me for a very unnecessary and expensive ride.

That was until Evan showed, then his tune changed, and I no longer needed to replace the cold water connector and the little fitting that screwed into the top of the water heater—he called it a ‘nipple’—which was where the expense was going to come in.

I only needed the hose and not the super-flex two-hundred-and-fifty PSI heavy-duty stainless that cost more than double the standard connector.

“Think you’re done here, bud,” Evan clarified when the plumber tried to justify his recommendations.

“The service call?—”

“She won’t be paying the service fee. She would’ve if you hadn’t tried to upsell her without her knowledge. I get the upcharge on parts, but the upsell? No. A hundred dollars for a fifteen-dollar hose before labor? Fuck no. Let this be a lesson in manners and general decency.”

“But—”

The plumber, whose name was Ted, snapped his mouth shut when Evan pierced him with a lethal stare and waved in the general direction of the front door.

Ted saw himself out. Or more to the point, sulked out of my house.

“You wanna come with me to Lowe’s to get the hose, or are you gonna stay here and start wet-vacuuming the floor?”

I silently stared at Evan.

“Baby, hose or vacuuming?”

I still said nothing. Partly because now that I knew it was just a hose—which was something I should’ve checked before I turned off the water, though in my defense, I had been standing in an inch of water—but now that I knew what was wrong, I could fix it myself.

However, it would seem I wasn’t going to because Evan was.

Partly due to Evan handling the jerk—not in a macho, arrogant way, but instead with disgust because Ted was doing exactly what Evan had predicted he'd do.

And partly, but maybe most importantly, because Evan was there at all.

Evan held my eyes as he closed the space between us. When I was within reaching distance, he hooked me around the back of the neck and pulled me closer.

“Josie?”

God, I loved his voice.

“I’ll buy pizza,” I announced.

Evan grinned, which meant when he lowered his mouth and brushed his lips over mine, he did so smiling. This further meant I got to feel his smile as well as see it.

I wasn’t sure which way I preferred to experience his happiness, and before I could get a lock on my reference, he stood.

“I’ll get the pizza,” he contradicted.

“I’m giving you money for?—”

“I’m getting that too.” He saw me preparing to argue and rushed on, “I was exaggerating, the connector won’t be fifteen dollars—it’ll be eight at the most.”

I didn’t think I’d have a snowball’s chance in hell to win this argument, but still, I tried.

“Fine. Then I’m buying?—”

“Josie.”

Obviously, he thought my name said more than it did.

“I don’t know what my name has to do with it, but clearly you think it’s a full sentence. If you’re buying the part, I’m buying pizza.”

His mouth curved up into another really great smile. This was annoying because it was so attractive I could feel myself giving in.

Plus, I was hungry and there was water to clean up, and I had a feeling this standoff could last a while.

“Fine, if you want to pay, be my guest.”

Again, my response was ungracious, or I should say this time it was more ill-mannered than the first.

“If I tell you you’re cute when you’re ticked off, will that piss you off more?”

He thought I was cute when I was ticked?

“No one’s cute when they’re being insolent.”

“Maybe not, but you’re cute as fuck when you’re pissed.

I can guess why you’re ticked, and that guess would be accurate, but that would only piss you off more, so I’ll shut my mouth and be grateful we’re not gonna stand here a year having a silly conversation about who’s gonna pay for an eight-dollar part and a pizza that’s gonna cost a third of the dinner I was gonna buy you tonight.

Though, just to add, we’re still going out for steaks. ”

I loved steaks, but I kept that to myself.

Instead, I concentrated on the part I found interesting. “You could guess why I’m ticked?”

“Yep.”

I waited for the elaboration, but it would seem Evan had again erroneously thought I spoke one-word sentences.

“What—”

“How about you get to work on the carpet in that bedroom before you have a problem with mold? I’ll move the furniture when I get back.”

He’d move the furniture. Of course, he would.

I remained silent but vowed to move the dresser by myself.

“Fuck, this sucks.”

I felt my spine stiffen. “What sucks?”

Evan tipped his head close, but not close enough that I lost focus on his eyes.

“Sucks that I’ve known you for years, but I don’t really know you.

Sucks that if my head hadn’t been lodged up my ass, I would’ve made my play a long time ago, which means we’d be at a place where I could tell you that if you move that dresser while I’m gone, you’re gonna go to sleep tonight with my handprint on your ass.

” I felt my whole body shiver, but Evan saw it.

“But since we’re not at that place, and as much as I’d like to see my handprint on your remarkable ass, I’m gonna have to settle with telling you I have a good memory, so keep that in mind when you’re thinking about dragging that dresser out of that room by yourself. ”

I was thinking the vow I’d made to myself was now set in stone, and I hoped his memory was as good as he said it was, because suddenly and inexplicitly, I wanted to wear his mark.

Thankfully, Evan ended the conversation without my further participation. “Be back.”

I watched him walk through my house, then out the front door.

I stood there wondering how irritated I should be he’d gotten his way. It only took a few seconds for me to realize I didn’t really care he was buying an inexpensive hose or dinner. Thus, I went to my room to change into knockabout clothes.

I had water to vacuum up.