Page 13 of Single Girl in the City
Then there was the time Dotti had asked Abi for a favor. A simple, easy to execute, no-way-to-mess-it-up favor. Only Abi managed to mess it up.
Hank’s company was throwing a family picnic and it was important that Dotti made an appearance. But it was the same day as preschool sign-ups for Koi. It was one of those snooty, glorified daycares for tiny tots that cost as much as college, but it had been important to Dotti. All Abi had to do was get to the school’s office by three, stand in line and hand in two forms.
Abi was teaching summer school full-time to get in her student-teacher hours, so she knew that making the cutoff time would be hard. But Dotti never asked for anything, so Abi wanted to come through—she really did. But a parent had been late for pickup and Abi wasn’t going to leave a five-year-old alone in an abandoned parking lot, so she’d missed the deadline. Koi didn’t get into the preschool, Abi felt like shit, and Dotti never asked her for a favor again. Didn’t talk to her either—not for a long time.
While Abi had been trapped in that bus, surrounded by chaos and tragedy, she thought about that day and other days like it and took stock of her life. She revisited the things she was proud of, the things she wished she’d done differently, and imagined the way a person like Jenny would live her life. Only now that she was home, she realized she needed to find some balance with the universe. No one had ever blamed Abi for switching seats, but Abi blamed herself. A part of her always would, which was why it was so imperative to replace some of the good vibes that vanished the day Jenny died.
Jenny had been on Abi for years to reconnect with her family. And that started with Dotti. This was her chance to push the restart button on her life and she wasn’t about to fall back on old habits and run because she was scared.
So she thought to herself, “WWJD?” Jenny would find her own ride home and save an overworked, underappreciated mom of two tantrum-throwing terrorists from leaving her house after bath time.
Abi: Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.
She hit Send and then grimaced. Jenny would have done the same, only she wouldn’t have laid on the guilt. As if Karma were doling out punishment, the side door of the bar opened and out walked the exact person she’d been avoiding all week.
Owen was dressed in his standard uniform of dark jeans, a black tee that was in a losing battle with his biceps, and a ball cap that had the bar’s logo on it—flipped backward. He also wore a dark-blue tradesman jacket and a sexy smile that had her belly quivering.
Not wanting to see him when she looked as if she’d survived the Great Flood, she moved closer to the building, to hide in the shadows. Wrong move since she only brought attention to herself.
He turned around and the light from the lamppost lit his face and that smile. It was warm and real and a little amused, but it softened his entire face. And it made her good parts tingle.
He walked closer, his broad shoulders blocking the light the closer he came. “Why are you lurking in the shadows?”
She shot him aDon’t mess with meglare. “I’d say I’m lurking to shank you, but I left all the wooden stirrers back in the tea shop.”
He took in her white work shirt—her very wet and very see-through work shirt—black work pants, and lack of jacket and then back to her shirt again. She crossed her arms. “They’re just boobs, get over it.”
“They’re never just boobs.” As he said it, he shrugged out of his jacket and slid it over her shoulders. Abi opened her mouth to tell him that she was drenched and would get his soft and fuzzy and incredible-smelling jacket wet when masculine hands settled on her arms and gave them a warming rub. Up and down until her body heated to furnace levels.
“You need another ride?”
“Just waiting on my sister. Who should be arriving on her broom any moment.”
He studied her and she knew when he figured out that she’d likely be waiting indefinitely. “Then why don’t you wait for her inside.”
“She’s almost here.”
He clearly didn’t believe her. “Call her,” he baited.
With a dramatic eye roll, she pulled out her cell, then turned away so he couldn’t hear. “Hey, yeah, it’s me,” she said to no one. “Oh, you’re almost—”
Her phone rang in her ear and when she looked over her shoulder, Owen had a single judgy brow raised.
“We got disconnected,” she lied, then answered for real. “What?”
“You don’t get to ‘What’ me. The whole ‘I’ll work it out’ was a S-H-I-T move,” Dotti lectured, and Abi could hear her narrowed glare through the phone. “Bless your heart.”
“How is this my fault?” Abi whispered. “I would have taken my bike, but you said you were going my way and we both know that a bus isn’t happening.”
Her sister’s car wasn’t really happening either. But it was either face her fear or walk home. Something she normally wouldn’t have minded since it gave her a chance to clear her head, but it was 40 degrees and raining and her bumblebee galoshes had a hole in the toe.
“Well after tonight, I’m not happening anymore. Oh, and by the way, ran into the landlord, so I need your half of the rent.”
“You’re the landlord and Grandma left me half the house too.”
“What do you want me to do? Draw a line down the middle and move my family to one half?”
“For starters. Then there’s keeping my nephew’s naked bum off the couch during his ‘screen time,’ plus being forced to sleep on said couch is an S-H-I-T move.”
