Page 54 of Made for Mayhem

A single nod was safer than saying anything that might crack her open.

I walked off the porch and into the truck, helping Junie buckle in before pulling out of the driveway.

The plan was simple—drop Junie at the rink, head to the hardware store, keep moving.

But my chest stayed tight the whole way, my thoughts stuck on Daisy Winslow standing on that porch, smiling too hard, insisting she was fine.

And hating that I was leaving her alone with the day anyway.

“Knock knock,” Emmy’s voice said from the open door to my office.

Rowdy lifted his head from where he’d claimed the rug by my desk, tail thumping once when he saw her.

“Thought I’d come check on you,” Emmy added, already stepping inside. “And I brought lunch.”

“Those are the magic words.”

Rowdy stood, did a slow, hopeful circle, then sat again when I nudged him back with my boot.

I shoved a stack of invoices aside while she unpacked a brown paper bag from Slice & Spice—the local Mexican-Italian hybrid that somehow made both tacos and pizza work. She set the food out with practiced ease, popped the lid on a bowl of salsa, then slid into the chair opposite me, tapping her Diet Coke with a peachy-pink fingernail.

The office at Hudson Hardware hadn’t changed much. Two dented filing cabinets. A scarred wooden desk. A pegboard wall cluttered with outdated calendars and tools I didn’t remember ever using. One narrow window looking out toward River Street.

Everything was how my dad had left it. Same smell of sawdust and oil. Same expectation that I’d sit here and just pick up where he stopped.

“How was my girl this morning?” Emmy asked, too casual to be casual.

I grabbed a barbacoa taco, more out of obligation than hunger, and leaned back in my chair. “Fine.”

She didn’t buy it for a second.

“You know I once had an eight-year-old, right?” Her brows climbed. “That kid was exhausted last night, and that’s before factoring in everything else in her life right now. I’d sooner believe the Earth was flat than this morning went smoothly.”

I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my jaw. My gaze drifted back to the papers—numbers blurring together, dates I’d already checked twice and somehow still didn’t trust. “There may have been a meltdown over a shirt.”

She winced. “Bad?”

“I mean… it wasn’t great. But she’s clothed, fed, and at the rink. So I’m calling it a win.”

A corner of her mouth lifted. “Did Daisy handle it?”

That made me pause.

Because, yeah—she had.

And I still wasn’t over how fast she’d stepped in, how effortlessly she’d read Junie and flipped the whole morning on its head with a dance party and a hairbrush microphone. Five minutes, tops.

“She did,” I admitted, unwrapping my taco. “She’s good with her.”

Emmy watched me for a beat longer than necessary, her gaze drifting from my face to the untouched paperwork, then down to where Rowdy had settled against my leg like an anchor. Like she could see the way my mind kept slipping sideways—back to the rink, back to the porch, back to a woman insisting she was fine when she clearly wasn’t.

“And you?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

I nodded automatically, then stopped. The lie felt too easy. Too practiced. Just like sitting in this office, pretending the weight of it all didn’t press in on my ribs.

“I’m here,” I said instead. Which wasn’t the same thing at all, and she knew it.

Emmy watched me for a long second, as if she was lining something up in her head. “Why haven’t you sold it?”