Page 110 of Holding on to Chaos
“Like what you see, Evangelina?”
She walked smack into an open cabinet door before he caught her.
“Oh, my God. It should be illegal to smell that good,” she breathed.
He took the bowl from her. “Table?” he asked.
She nodded, nervously fingering the tie to the apron.
She’d already set the table, he noted. And the fire in the living room was crackling away. There were lit candles dotting window sills and table tops.
“Where are my parents?” he asked, realizing they weren’t in residence.
“They’re doing an overnight at Seneca Lake with my parents,” Eva called from the kitchen where she wrestled the sauce pan off the stove.
Envisioning a night in the ER with second degree burns, he took it from her and placed it on the hot pad on the table.
“I had a long talk with Phoebe and my dad today,” she said, taking the garlic bread sprinkled with—dear God, was that real mozzarella? —cheese out of the oven. “And then I had another one with your mother when I showed up here.”
Donovan’s eyebrows winged up. “How did those talks go?”
She took a deep breath as she quickly transferred bread to basket blowing on her finger tips.
“Baby, please use tongs,” Donovan said, slapping a pair down next to her.
“You can take the salad in,” she said, jutting her chin in the direction of the fresh greens on the counter.
He did as he was told and waited patiently for her to fill him in.
They sat and dished out the food, Eva handing him shaved Parmesan before he could even scan the table for it. “My father, being the perfect human being he is, was incredibly supportive and forgiving. Phoebe, on the other hand, nailed my ass to the wall for being ‘selfishly and unnecessarily independent.’”
Donovan, convinced his mouth was about to meet heaven, twirled his fork into the obscene pile of spaghetti on his plate. “She did, did she?”
“You’re not going to give her a black eye, are you?” Eva asked, sipping her wine.
“I hit Beckett for a different reason,” Donovan argued. He put the fork in his mouth and let his eyes roll back in his head. “My god, woman.”
“Told you,” she said smugly. “Now, back to you punching Beckett. You hit him because he yelled at your woman?” Eva guessed.
“He kicked you when you were down. Granted, he was scared, and you did endanger his family, but—” he caught her wince, “you thought you were keeping everyone safe by putting yourself between Agnes and them.” Donovan snuck another bite of literally the best spaghetti he’d ever had in his life.
“I really did. It seems stupid now, but I thought she’d ruin everyone else’s lives like she’d ruined mine.”
He covered her hand with his. “She didn’t ruin anything. You’re here now. Aren’t you?”
“If you’ll accept my apology and let me stay tonight.”
Tonight wasn’t enough in Donovan’s book. He wanted forever. “Well, let’s try it out. See how good your apology is. And just so you know, you’re important to me, Eva. And I’m not going to let anyone, even one of my lifelong best friends, kick you when you’re down.”
“I’m sorry you and Beckett fought because of me. And I’m beyond sorry that I didn’t come clean with you. I never told anyone about Agnes. She taints everything she touches. I’ve dreaded the sound of my text alerts since I was nineteen years old and she found me the first time.”
She played with her pasta on her plate rather than eating it.
“She showed up on campus with some down-on-her-luck story about trying to get enough money to get away from the drugs and the bad people in her life, get into a program. I gave her everything I had. Forty-two dollars. And as she was leaving, she told me I’d done the right thing since it was my fault she left anyway.”
Donovan’s hand tightened on his fork. “It wasn’t the first time she’d said that to you,” he said recalling the retelling at Beckett’s.
Shamefully, Eva shook her head. “She used to tell me when I was a little kid that I’d ruined her life. Every time she’d cry or yell, it was because of me. My fault. I couldn’t behave or I couldn’t be what she needed.”
