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She’d cried herself into exhaustion yet again, and this time, it was his fault.
“What happened to her mom?” he asked, stroking his thumb over her cheekbone.
“She didn’t say. I didn’t get any updates for a while, but she said her stepfather was giving her weird vibes. She wasn’t returning messages or calls, then yesterday… she was home.” Atticus crossed over to her desk, rummaging in one of the drawers. He brought a bottle of water to the couch. “Sonic isn’t one to divulge much of her private life. I think she only kept in touch as much as she did because I’m her boss.”
Anarchy leaned against the jamb. “I did some digging in between trying to break into her computer. There’s an obituary from a paper in Washoe County for a Crystal Perkins, survived by her husband, Jared, and daughter, Olivia. She died almost a month ago, the funeral two weeks later.”
“Fuck,” Att hissed under his breath. “I should’ve known.”
Zeke echoed his sentiments silently. All the shit he’d dumped on her from the moment she got back, and this was what she was dealing with inside? Her mother haddied; he had firsthand experience in how that felt, the hole it left behind.
How much strength did she have to conceal that pain? What energy was she consuming daily to slot the mask of normality into position? To hold it there without unleashing the torrent of grief and loss on those around her?
Olivia had spent almost a year with him, rarely leaving his side, then traveled to fuckingNevadato do the same for her mother? His thoughts switched to the heap of junk sitting in her driveway, and the idea of her crossing state lines in the fucking thing made his blood boil.
“Get rid of that piece of shit car she drives,” he told Atticus, struggling not to fist his hands when they were so close to her face. “Make sure it doesn’t come back.”
“Zeke, she doesn’t have the money to buy a new one, even secondhand,” Anarchy murmured.
“With what I pay her?” Atticus scoffed. “She can buy a brand new one and not feel the dent in her bank account.”
“Not anymore. She cleared out her savings to pay some of the medical debt. Her paychecks have been going into the rent on her mom’s house, some other bills, and—”
“The medical debt,” Atticus repeated. He breathed in slowly, his jaw tense. When he spoke, his voice was tighter than an overstretched drumskin. “If you don’t spank her, Zeke, I sure as hell will. Has she accrued any of her own debts by paying off her mom’s?”
“It’s a fine line. For the past year, she’s ended each month with a few dollars left before the paycheck went in. A bad month, an emergency… it wouldn’t take much for her to slip into the red.”
As they picked through her life, Zeke opened the bottle of water and touched it to Olivia’s lips. Tilting it enough that only a couple of drops spilled out at a time, he patiently dribbled it until he saw her swallow. “That’s it, angel. Little sips.”
“The house situation is dire. Living there will make her sick.”
“It won’t be an issue,” Zeke said absently.
“But she—”
“It won’t be an issue,” he repeated emphatically.
“I—oh,” Archie purred with satisfaction. “Finally changed your tune. Am I allowed to threaten you with the sadist if you hurt her again? Because my current audience at home has no fear when I tell them Jasper will break his sjambok out of retirement if they’re naughty.”
“Do they even know what a sjambok is?”
“No, but just hearing his name should be enough to strike terror into their tiny, evil little hearts, right? Kaylyn gives me this look that basically says ‘Do I look like I care?’, and then toddles off to suck up to her daddy with angelic innocence.”
Atticus laughed. “I wonder which side of the parental tree she learned that from.”
“If you’re implying that I’m a brat—”
“Not implying, stating. You are a brat, Anarchy Fairfax. Fun, feisty, usually respectful, but a brat nonetheless.”
Olivia’s lips pursed, forming sucking motions.
“You gonna sit up for me, Livvy? Don’t want you to choke.”
Her fingers twitched, her hand jerking forward to brace herself. The muscles in her forearm trembled as she tried to push herself up, working on autopilot. There was still no spark behind her eyes.
Zeke eased his arm under her, propping her up far enough for him to lift off his knees and sit beside her, shifting his arm around her shoulders. She was trembling all over, he realized, and lifted the bottle to her mouth again. A fraction of his guilt faded when her fingers curled around his wrist, clutching him as she drank in long, slow gulps.
Perhaps that was reason enough to hope he hadn’t fucked this up.
