“What is there to do?” I feel as bitter as he looks. “There’s no catching up to her now. If she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be.”
My gut still twists with anger. For the money, sure, but more so for the humiliation. The betrayal. For all the ways this woman has made a fool of us over the years. And we’ve taken it. How Evan still thinks, maybe—even when he knows better—maybe this time it’s real. Goddamn Shelley.
“We ain’t licked yet,” Levi tells me. “And we’re done enabling that woman’s bad behavior, you hear me?”
Before I can answer, he signals someone at the opposite end of the bar. “Steve, hey, got a question for ya,” Levi hollers.
Following my uncle’s gaze, I spot the off-duty cop whose uniform shirt is open to expose a sweat-stained white undershirt.
“What do you need, Levi?” Steve hollers back, because in the Bay, everyone knows everyone.
“How might we go about pressing charges against someone who skipped town?”
What? My startled gaze flies to my uncle, but he’s focused on the cop.
Shaking the glaze out of his eyes, Steve sits up straighter. “What we talking about?”
Levi’s tone is grim. Deadly, even. “Grand larceny.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
MACKENZIE
Even Daisy has given up on me. At first, she scampered around my feet as I paced the house, typing then deleting texts to Cooper. Next she sat with her chew rope beside the refrigerator when I compulsively cleaned the kitchen. Which is fucked up, because I’ve never been a stress cleaner. How could I? I grew up in a house full of maids. When the vacuum comes out, Daisy bolts. I don’t blame her. I’m terrible company at the moment anyway. But when spotless floors fail to ease my anxious mind, I end up in Evan’s room, where Daisy is curled up at his feet as he plays a video game.
“Hey,” I say, knocking on his open door.
He pauses the game. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
Evan answers the unspoken question in the air. “He hasn’t texted me back either.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Hugging the doorframe, I don’t know what I came here for, but I was bored of stewing alone. I’m a doer, not a waiter. I hate sitting still. If Cooper wanted to punish me for our fight, this is doing the trick.
“Come here.” Evan jerks his head and picks up the second controller for his console. It’s several iterations old and running on a flat screen that looks like it was pawned after getting tossed out on someone’s lawn. There are dead spots on the picture and a crack in the frame held together by black tape.
My first instinct is that Evan needs a new one. As if he senses the thought, he gives me a knowing smirk that says not to bother.
Right. Boundaries. I need to work on that. Not everyone wants my help.
“You’re going to be this guy,” he informs me, then provides a rapid explanation of the game as we sit on the edge of his bed. “Got it?”
“Yep.” I grasp the gist of it, I think. I mean, my objective and how to move around. Basically. Sort of.
“Follow me,” he instructs, leaning forward.
It does not go well. We’re ambushed, and instead of shooting at the bad guys, I set off a grenade and kill us both.
Evan snorts loudly.
“I like the racing games better,” I confess with an apologetic shrug. “I’m good at those.”
“Yeah, princess. I’ve seen you drive.”
“Bullshit. I’m a great driver. I just prefer to go with a sense of urgency.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
I nudge him with my elbow as the level resets for another try. This time, I attempt to focus. We make it a little further before I get blown up again.
“This isn’t helping, is it?”
I bite my lip. “Not really.”
I don’t know why I thought sitting next to the spitting image of Cooper would take my mind off him. It’s weird, but I almost never see Evan and Cooper as remotely similar, their personalities diverging in so many ways. Yet if I’m being honest, there are times where I imagine how everything might have been different if not for the whimsy of Bonnie’s indiscriminate libido.
Whatever he reads on my face, Evan exits out of the game and sets our controllers aside. “Let’s have it, then. What’s on your mind?”
Though our rapport has evolved over the past couple months, Evan’s hardly the first person I’d turn to for a heart-to-heart. Most of the time he displays the emotional depth of Daisy’s water bowl. At this moment, though, he’s the next best thing to his brother.