Austin waits for Duncan to join him, and with awave, the pair disappear from our sight. Levi, who had been standing with his perfect posture looking quite self-assured, suddenly folds in on himself, collapsing onto the counter and putting his head in his hands.
“He hates me, Georgie.”
“I wouldn’t say hate, that’s a strong emotion.”
“He does. He hardly talks to any of us.”
I lean against the checkout counter. “Really?”
“You sound surprised,” his voice oozing with defeat as he glances my way.
“He’s been here talking to me all morning.”
“Stop it.” Levi shakes his head. ”About what?”
“I don’t know. Books, Toto, nothing major. Just talking.”
Levi stares at me incredulously. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I say, noticing he now looks a little…bummed.
“So Duncan talks to you.”
“It’s not like I’m anything special, I’m just the adult who doesn’t know his whole story, at least in his eyes. Maybe you guys are too close?”
Levi opens his mouth to say something, but instead chooses to shrug as his phone chimes. Reaching into his back pocket, he slides it out and his face goes pale. Like ghostly-white pale right in front of me. You know the saying that someone’s had the blood drained from their face? Yep. Like a vampire is actually sucking his life force out of him in front of me.
“You okay?”
“It’s my mom. I need to go now.” Turning on his heel, he heads for the exit, but turns around as he grips the handle. “Thank you, again, for going easy on him.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
With one last wave, Levi sprints out to the waiting SUV and climbs in the back seat. Austin is behind the wheel withDuncan sitting in the front seat beside him, giving me a small wave as they tear off down the street.
And leaving me to wonder if I’ll ever feel like I can step up and be woman enough for Levi Porter or not.
SIX
Levi
“The sheriff delivered them himself?” I hold a pile of paperwork in my hands, waving it in the air. I know I must look like a madman, but I can’t help it. I’m furious. Spitting tacks angry. In the mood to burn something, or someone, down, and we’ll call her Lorna. “How could she do this?”
My mother and Austin have been listening to me rant for the past ten minutes. I’m pretty sure I’ve paced the floor of this converted barn to the point there’s a ditch beneath my feet.
“Levi, take a breath for a second—”
“It’s messed up, Ma,” Austin chimes in. “She agreed with him they should do Duncan’s custody this way.”
“It’s the way Tom and Katie wanted it to be,” I interject. The interrupter is now talking over the interrupter. “They asked me to be his godfather and they took that seriously enough they made me his guardian if anything ever happened to them. She has to see that in the eyes of the law, and her son, I’m the one he’s supposed to be with.”
“I’m not trying to argue the point with you, I just want tokeep you from being so stressed out.” She walks over from where she’s been standing in the doorway of our renovated barn, keeping an eye out to make sure Duncan didn’t accidentally walk in on us discussing him or hear us talking about his grandmother.
Sighing as she collapses into one of the oversized and overstuffed bean bags we have scattered about, she closes her eyes and lays her head back, staring at a row of plants hanging from planters that swing on exposed beams above. “Why can’t we just have a smooth run of things? Why can’t we just raise that sweet boy in peace?”
“This is not the kind of thing that will help him. He barely speaks now,” Austin says as he gets up from behind his desk and walks over to the fridge, pulling out three bottles of beer. He flicks the tops off and walks around, handing one to my mother and me and keeping one for himself.
“Barely speaks to us. Or to his grandmother,” I say, taking a sip of the cold brew. “But, he talks to Georgie.”
