“Kid,” Frank cut me off as I opened my mouth to keep ranting. “You’ve done good at getting your life back in order.”
The sentiment made me deflate instantly. He took my silence as an opportunity to keep going.
“You haven’t had it easy, but you’ve made the most of it,” he said quietly. “You’ve worked your ass off and done a damn good job in the process. I’m proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself.”
His pride shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. As dumb as it was, it did.
“I am.”Mostly I was.It was hard to be proud of the constant uphill battle.
“Good,” he replied. “Get the job done. When you get back, dinner’s on me tonight.”
“Thank you.”
The Lowell house loomed in my rearview as I sat in the truck. I’d backed in to give myself a moment of privacy—a moment where Mrs. Lowell wasn’t staring out the window, glaring and plotting my demise. I wanted nothing more than to go back to Frank and tell him to fire me because I wouldn’t do it.I couldn’t.
Harley was gone. That much I knew. He hadn’t come back to Wilde Bay in years—the little bits of town gossip I kept up with had told me that one. At least one of us had gotten out. Hopefully, that would make this less confrontational. If her son wasn’t here, then technically, I wasn’t breaking my promise to never talk to him again. I didn’t even know if that still applied, considering I wasn’t in prison anymore and Howard couldn’t get his hands on me, but I wasn’t about to fuck with Elizabeth Lowell. I’d learned my lesson. I was expendable in the grand scheme of things.
Exhaling heavily, I climbed out of the truck. Frank kept a work truck on site. Because everything I needed was within decent walking distance, I didn’t own a car. I couldn’t afford it. At first, he’d been nice enough to let me use the truck for work calls, but over time, it became something I could use personally, too.
I grabbed my tool belt from the backseat, along with a few other generic things I might need. The job today was simple: get in, assess the situation, fix what I could, and make a plan for the rest.
I kept that list at the forefront of my mind as I approached the door and knocked. I heard something crash deep inside the house.Lord fucking help me if this woman fell while I was here and I had to save her ass.I was used to the universe screwing me over, but that would be a whole new low.
The door flew open, and it wasn’t Mrs. Lowell. It wasn’t Clifford either.
It was Harley.
The sight of him was a sucker punch to the gut that I did my best not to show. For a wild second, my body forgot how to exist. My lungs stalled while my pulse soared. The air pressed in around me, growing unbearably hot.Fuck, fuck, fuck.Everything inside me screamed with the instinct to turn and run, but I forced myself to remain still.
He looked as confused to see me as I was to see him. That hesitation as we sized each other up gave me enough time to look at him—really study him. The years hadn’t been kind to him. He was somehow prettier than he had been six years ago, and the unfairness of it almost made me angry. The light beard along his jaw carved away the softness I remembered, replacing it with something rougher and unsettled. His wet shirt clung to his frame, outlining how he’d thinned out in a way that made my chest ache uncomfortably—not fit, not healthy, just worn down.
What the hell had life done to him?
But it was his eyes that caught my attention. The profound sadness there tugged at my heart. I knew a broken man when I saw one. It raised questions, but I crushed them before they could fully form. Harley wasn’t mine to take care of. Not anymore. That ship had sailed a long time ago.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. The hostility in his words should’ve hurt, but they were well-earned after the things I’d said to him.
And if he hated me, that’d make things easier between us.
“Is your mother home?” I asked, my voice falling flat even in my ears.
“What?” he snapped as he frowned.Yeah, this wasn’t awkward at all.
“Is your mother home?” I repeated and enunciated every word loudly to make sure he heard me.
“Uh…no,” Harley whispered. He shook his head, his jaw working as if he was trying to untangle thoughts that wouldn’t cooperate. I stood my ground because I recognized the spiral, but I refused to help. That was a line I wouldn’t cross, even if some twisted, masochistic part of me wanted to. “I’m sorry… it’s just been a long fucking day. No, my mother is in an assisted living center.”
My heart stuttered.She was what?
“So, she’s not here?” I replied. Maybe I’d heard him wrong—I’d probably heard him wrong.
“No, she’s not here.”
Apparently not.
“And she’s not coming back?” A little shred of hope flickered to life inside me. Maybe this whole thing wouldn’t fuck me over, and I’d be okay.
“God, I hope not,” he muttered. “Sorry, that was… no, she’s not coming—I’m sorry, the kitchen is flooding, did you want… you’re the repair guy, aren’t you? I called Frank.”
