Her eyes take on a knowing look, and she bites her lip. “Been meaning to ask about that. I’m not going to complain about the help, but why are you here? We don’t have you on the schedule, and I don’t think that we’re actually paying you for this, are we?”
“I’m here because I’m family,” I say, as though that explains the mumble, mumble hours I put into the pizza shop every week.
“So am I. And I draw a paycheck.”
“Well, new businesses struggle a little bit at the beginning, and I just wanna make sure that it still does well. And I do well enough at the gym, so it’s not necessary.”
She assesses me shrewdly. “I’ve been here from the beginning, and I know what it takes to get a company off the ground. You and Nick are still in the thick of it with the gym, so you’ve gotta be putting, what, seventy, eighty hours a week over there? Plus what you’re doing here. Plus the millionty charities you help out with. Talk to me, Roly. Nobody puts in a hundred hours a week unless they need the money, or unless something else is driving them.”
I love Evie, but sometimes she sees too much. And I’ve been a mess the last couple of days, unable to sleep because of what I did to Heath. Rolling him in nut juice just compounded the fact that he already had a good reason to hate me. Also, this is me we’re talking about, and I can’t just let it go, not with what I’ve been through.
So, when Evie asks me how I’m doing, when she wants to know what’s going on, I know she wants more than for me to simply say that everything is fine. Platitudes will not work with her. And honestly, I’m so sleep deprived and emotional that her unasked question causes emotion to bubble up near my tear ducts without my permission.
Evie puts her hand on my arm. “I’m not pushing, Roly. I promise. But you and I have been working really closely together for over a year now, and I’ve always thought of you as somebody who is very busy, and always willing to help family, but… more recently, I’m beginning to wonder. You’re exhausted, and I don’t see you as happy as I usually see you. So, I won’t push, but I am here if you wanna talk about anything.”
I turn my back to the customers so that they don’t see the tears fall. She keeps her hand on my arm and squeezes it, but otherwise stays silent.
“My head has been really noisy these last several days. I don’t know if you know this, but Heath and I have history, and this whole incident with the almond milk kind of brought that all up over again, and I feel so terrible. He looked awful, Evie. I’ve never seen someone’s skin do that before. If he didn’t have reason to hate me before, hereallyhas reason to hate me now.”
She laughs, hard. “Roly. What the fuck are you talking about? The only kind of person who could hate you are the same people who hate kittens and puppies. From what I can tell, Heath is a fucking cinnamon roll of a man who, despite being a super-successful businessman, volunteers for a dog rescue and moved so that he could be close to his kids and his ex-wife slash best friend. On top of that, I’ve never met a single person who hates you.”
God, she just doesn’t get it. “I wasn’t always the delight you see today. I mean, yes, my personality has always been like this, but it used to have a sharper edge. And I used to be a lot more judgmental. And… I know Heath from high school, and he is one of the persons I judged. Out loud. A lot.”
Evie’s eyes narrow at me. “What did that entail?”
“I said things that were both funny and mean, which made them easy to remember, and easy to repeat, and it encouraged people to join in. The first day we met, I gave him a nickname that stuck with him through college.”
Her jaw twitches. “What was the nickname, Roly?”
The question has a bit of heat to it, like what I said here could change things between us. I’m scared to disappoint her.
“I’d rather not say.”
“Then it must’ve been really bad. Did it have to do with his weight?” she asks, conspicuously placing a hand on one of her generous hips. A few more tears fall, and I nod.
“What was the nickname, Roly?”
I feel my face get red, and I avoid her eyes. The word is broken and quiet on my tongue. “Heavy.”
“Clever.”
The silence after her one-word response is crushing.
After a moment, she asks, “So, these bears that you take down, I guess they don’t mean that much to you. Tell me, are you judging them while you let them fuck you?”
I shake my head. “I’d never judge a bear, at least not by that standard. And they do mean a lot to me, more than they could ever know. More thanyoucould ever know.”
I think of a dark room in Iraq and tuck that memory away.
“Try me.”
I can’t even look at her when I give the explanation. “I’m not using hyperbole when I say more than you could ever know. Some of it has to do with my days in the service, and with the incident where Nick lost his leg.”
Evie nods, her posture stiff. “Is this some kind of penance, then?”
“Oh, god no. I swear… just,no. It’s the only time I feel safe, when I’m with them.”
Evie’s posture changes at that. “There are a lot of big, beautiful men out there who think that you’re pretty spectacular. Why not settle down with one of them? Why not feel safe on a more permanent basis?”
