Her gaze narrows and she pierces me with it. “That doesn’t sound even.” She pulls her phone from her back pocket and paces in the small kitchen. “No chairs? I may need to sit, or I’ll pass out.”
She’s going to make me dizzy walking back and forth like that. “A small kitchen table and two chairs arrive tonight, along with our beds.” I reach for her hand, tug her over to the kitchen counter, and pick her up like a misbehaving toddler. Then, lifting her up onto the counter, I seat her there. The nerves inside my body light like a live wire with her nearness. I tell them to simmer—this woman is going to be around a lot.
“Now, dial,” I say. She said I’m solving all her problems. We aren’t backing out now. If I can help anyone in Brice’s family, I’m going to. I was closer to the Everly family than my own. My dad left when I was ten, and Mom was bitter—as well as stuck with me. There was fun and ease and acceptance when I was with the Everlys. Something I never felt with my own parents.
Stella holds up her phone in one hand and reaches out, grasping my T-shirt with her other. “Roman!” she barks, eyes wide and boring into me. “My parents don’t know about my … recent issues.”
“They don’t know?” I mull that over in my head. Stella’s loving, supportive parents don’t know she was fired? Or evicted? They must know about her visa issues—according to Willow, they all had issues.
“Mom would only worry if she knew I’d been fired and evicted and anything else.” She swallows, tugging me closer with my gripped shirt.
Standing between her thighs, I stare at her face—pretty and delicate and absolutely serious. I’m almost afraid of what she’d do if I outed her.
“Fine,” I say. “It’s not mine to tell.”
Stella nods and slowly loosens her grip on my shirt. Shesmooths her palm over the front of my wrinkled tee. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Rebecca’s phone rings only once before she’s picked up. “Stella?” Rebecca says, sounding exactly as she did nine years ago. But then— “What’s wrong?”
Stella said her mother doesn’t know about any of her troubles, and yet she answers her phone almost in a panic.
“Nothing is wrong, Mom.”
“Of course something is wrong.”
“Why must something be wrong?” Stella’s gone from antsy to agitated.
When did Rebecca start greeting her children with worry?
Possibly since the day Brice died in a three-car collision.
Are she and Stella always so short and strained with one another? That’s … new.
“Because you’re calling me. That’s why. You don’t call,” Rebecca says through the speaker of Stella’s phone.
“You don’t call?” I whisper. I’m not the only one who has changed.
Stella taps her lips with her pointer, shushing me.
“Who is that?” Rebecca says, her voice strained. “Is that a man? What’s going on?”
Stella pulls a breath in through her nose. And in a voice that doesn’t sayI’ve got good news, she says, “Mother, I’ve met someone. We’ve been seeing each other?—”
“Maybe Scott should be here for this,” I say. Stella and Brice’s dad would want to be a part of this conversation.
“It’s fine.” Her mouth purses with the words, and she pins me with a glare. Note taken—Roman should be quiet.
“You’ve met someone? Since when?” Rebecca says.
“Okay, not met as in new.” Stella squeezes her eyes shut. But she keeps talking. “I’ve known him. For a while.”
“And he knows your father’s name,” Rebecca says.
She’s taking forever. I can’t be quiet anymore. She can glare. She can gripe. But I’ve got to say something. “I do, Mrs. E,” I say, inching closer to Stella perched on my countertop. “Maybe you should grab him.”
“Mrs. E?” Rebecca repeats, her tone softer. And then she’s yelling. “Scott! Get in here.”
Stella holds her phone out with the noise. “What did you do that for?” she whispers to me. “Now we have to talk to both of them.”
