Page 52 of Single Girl in the City
“I’ll get my things tomorrow.”
Dotti looked torn. “You don’t have to move out that fast. I know it will take a few days to find a new place.”
“Tess at the tea shop said I could crash with her if I ever needed to. I’ll call her after my shift ends.”
“If we could afford to buy a new place that’s bigger, we would. But unless Hank gets this promotion at work, we’re priced out of better school districts.”
Abi’s heart stopped—right there in her chest. “You’d sell Mee-maw’s house?”
“We were going to talk to you about it, but there was no point until Hank finds out about the promotion.” Dotti stopped. “You know, if we did sell, you’d have a good nugget to buy something of your own. Maybe pay off your college loans. Do something with your life besides working at a bar.”
Abi stepped back. “Speaking of, I better get back to work. My break is almost up.”
Her sister said something very olive branchy, very Dotti-like, but Abi was in too much pain to listen. So she smiled when she was expected to smile and even waved goodbye when the Tesla pulled out of the parking lot, kept it together until the brake lights blurred in the distant drizzle.
And that’s when Abi squatted down and pressed her palms to her eyes, forcing the tears back inside. Her heart felt heavy in her chest like it was dipped in cement. A wave of cortisol, the stress hormone, began to rise like the tide.
“I’m going to focus on things that make me happy to get me through this.” She whispered the phrase her app taught her. “I’m going to think of things that make me happy. Ice cream. Doughnuts. The feel of the sand in my toes. Puppies. Litters of puppies. Jenny.”
God, Jenny.
“Puppies.” Wiping her nose on her sleeve, she ducked under her hoodie. “A golden retriever puppy named Waffles.”
“Or Cheddar,” an unwelcomed voice said, and Abi sighed. She looked up and what she found looking back left her breathless.
“Everyone knows that waffles are the second-best food on the planet.”
“What’s the first?”
“My Mee-maw’s chili.” She turned around. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough.”
“She’s just under a lot of stress,” she heard herself defend her sister, something she’d spent a lifetime doing.
“My brothers and I fight all the time, but we’d never kick someone out.”
It was said as if that were the standard for families everywhere and that she deserved to live in a family like his, who had this fierce protective streak when it came to each other. At that moment Abi felt as if it extended to her. And she didn’t know what she thought about that.
“Not all families are like yours. In true Woods family tradition, she kicked the bird out of the tree and hoped I knew how to fly.”
He stepped out into the drizzle and locked gazes. “Do you?” he asked quietly.
“I used to,” she said honestly. “Now I’m lucky if I can put one foot in front of the other without tripping.”
“I can name a dozen people just tonight who would disagree.”
“Would you be one?” She wanted to know how he saw her. A girl who was scared of her own shadow or a warrior who could slay her own dragons.
“I’d be the biggest one.”
She swallowed hard. “Thank you.” She didn’t know why, but at that moment she needed to hear that. Especially from him.
“There’s an apartment upstairs,” he began, and she felt the tears threaten again. “Okay, maybe an apartment might be an oversell, but it has a bedroom and bathroom and its own entry. The only thing it shares with my loft is the kitchen. It’s yours if you want it.”
It took a moment to speak. That he was offering to do something her family couldn’t was humbling—and embarrassing.
“Thank you, but Tess from work already offered.”
