Fate Interrupted (20 page)

 
She sent an irritable sounding breath into the
phone.
“I wanted to apologize about my
father stopping by your work like that today.”

He glanced out
the patio door, praying Evy would be standing there, looking at him with those
big green eyes, unable to stand another minute apart. Instead, twilight was his
sole visitor. “It’s no big deal.”

“It is a big deal!”
Megan curtly
countered.
“That is so embarrassing. I’m
a big girl and can take care of myself.”

Dean rolled his
eyes.

“But don’t
worry,
he won’t
be doing that again. I gave him fifty shades of hell for it and he apologized
over and over.”

An uneasy laugh
slipped from his mouth and dove into the cell phone, snaking down his ear. His
eyes dropped to his black Adidas, the walls around him bowing in his peripheral
vision as if they were breathing. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine. Maybe a little tired but other than
that I feel good.”

“That’s good,”
he said, praying she would absolve him from his taxiing duties tomorrow morning
like any normal person in their right mind would do. Dean shifted on the couch
and turned to the TV without registering what was on.

“It also wasn’t right of him to ask you to take me
to the doctor tomorrow morning like that.”

He pulled the
phone from his mouth, her words forcing a much needed sigh of relief. Her
breathing grew louder in the quiet that stretched between them. Suddenly, he had
the eerie feeling it was Megan standing outside his window, not Evy, watching
him with her cell phone pressed to her ear. His eyes snapped to the patio door.
Still empty.

“
Soooo
, did you want to take me to the doctor’s
tomorrow?”
she asked, trying to mask a hopeful tone.

He pressed his
eyelids together until he saw stars. Agony coursed through him like a black poison,
corrupting his soul.

“I mean, you don’t have to by any means, but if you
wanted to be part of…”

 
“Actually, that’s why I’m calling,” he said, cutting
her off before she could mutter the word
conception
again. “One of my cases was bumped up and I have to be in court tomorrow
morning.”

“
It’s
okay, Dean,”
she said,
saving him with a surprisingly pleasant tone
.
“It was short notice and rude of my father to ask in the first place. I can
find someone else to hold my hand
.”

Relief spilled
over him like a Costa Rican
waterfall,
cleansing his tortured
thoughts long enough to afford him a genuine smile. Maybe he had read her all wrong.
“Are you sure?”

She paused
before answering, shooting his nerves in the foot.
“I’m sure,”
she said, sounding a bit dejected and sinking his blossoming
smile.

Despite that, he
refused to say anything else that could feed this conversation into living any
longer than necessary.

“Well, I should probably let you go, but I just
wanted to apologize for my father. He can be a real jerk sometimes.”

“No need to
apologize. He’s just worried about his daughter, which is understandable.”

Another hesitant
response made him get up from the couch and start pacing. He was ready to get
off the phone before something worse than a doctor’s appointment came up.

“
Sooooo
, I’ll see you
around?”

He stopped
pacing, trying to decide if it was a question or a statement. His free hand
balled into a fist. He opened his mouth to tell her
sure
but it wouldn’t come out. His gaze dropped back to his gym
shoes, pages of delicate language flipping through his mind.
“Yeah,
sure.”
He winced with the lack of conviction in his voice and returned
to wearing out the carpet.

She cleared her
throat and Dean wasn’t sure if he heard a sniffle in there or not. Time slowed
to a crawl. The fact that she couldn’t take a hint and just say goodbye made
his blood boil. Instead, she insisted upon sucking up as much of his time as possible
and that scared the hell out of him. His patience ran thin. For all he knew,
she wasn’t even pregnant. And even if she was, there was a litter of guys out
there to choose from. He kicked a dress shoe across the room and clenched his
teeth, mentally willing her to hang-up so hard he thought he would get a nose
bleed.

“Talk to you later, Dean.”

He stopped
moving, unsure if had been a question or not. “Bye, Megan,” he said, hanging up
before she did and staring at the phone for a few seconds before daring to
breathe again. His eyes roamed the room’s potted plants and IKEA furniture,
unsure of how that whole call just went. He checked his nose for blood and
started pacing again. The crumpled sheets on his bed quietly reminded him of another
night of tossing and turning waiting for him like a monster in the closet. He
turned back to his phone and flipped to Evy’s name, unable to take it any
longer. He needed to hear her voice. His thumb floated above the green button
as he imagined what she was doing right now. He grunted. Maybe she was the one
who had met somebody new, putting Dean in the rearview mirror where he would
fade further into the horizon with each minute that passed. Time was money. He
couldn’t afford letting it slip through his fingers. Grudgingly, he tossed the
cell onto the couch where it came to rest with a soft bounce. At this point, he
would only make things worse. His best friend now was time.

Dean glanced at
the TV and saw Megan telling her father that Dean wasn’t taking her to the
doctor tomorrow morning. He could see rage hardening the lines in Clay’s face,
his hands tightening around the chair’s arms. Dean dropped onto the couch and
stared at the wall, a ball of gloom growing in the pit of his stomach.
 

***

The next day, the
clock in Dean’s office inched closer to five o’clock like the hands were
turning through cold molasses. Following his absence yesterday - and in light
of making partner - he was determined to stick it out until the end today.
Fortunately, he had an interesting case with a new client to keep him busy. Despite
that, he still found plenty of time to keep glancing at the door, imagining
Clay barging in and unleashing hell.

Dean wiped his
clammy palms on his black slacks, unable to stop envisioning what it would have
been like this morning. A snapshot of images flickered through his mind: taking
Megan inside the clinic, everyone assuming he was the happy father, running
into someone he knew, trying to explain his way out of the unexplainable,
seeing it get back to Evy.

His cell phone
vibrated on the desk, jerking him from his thoughts. He squinted at the unfamiliar
number, wondering if it was Evy calling from Sugars or some other phone. His
thumb lingered above the answer button as the phone angrily vibrated in his
hand. Or maybe it was Megan calling from her house phone or God knows where.
The cell kept vibrating, demanding attention like an infant child. In a few
seconds, it would go to voicemail and if it was Evy, maybe she wouldn’t have
the courage leave a message and he would never know how close they had come to
reconnecting.

He held his
breath and answered with his thumb. “Hello?”

The sobbing on
the other end made him sit up straighter in the chair, making it creak.

“Hello?” he
repeated.

“Dean?”

His heart nearly
burst through his ribcage. “Evy!”

A wet sounding
sniffle caused him to swell with joy. She had finally come to her senses. He
ran a hand through his hair, his wild eyes sweeping the room, overcome with
emotion.

“No, it’s Brooke.”

His heart sank
with his posture. “Brooke?”

“Evy gave me your number.”

“What’s wrong?
Is she okay?”

Brooke cleared
her throat.
“She’s fine. Well, sort of.
We have a serious problem and need your help. Can you come to Sugars?”

His blood pounded
thickly in his temples.
“When?”

“Now, if you can,”
she sniveled.
“It’s important.”

His mind scrolled
through a million different scenarios as quickly as his heart was beating. “I’m
on my way.”

***

The bell rang
and Evy’s pulse quickened when Dean pushed through the door. The world stopped
turning as their eyes met for the first time in what seemed like years.
Everything else faded into the background, just like it had during their first
kiss, and she cursed under her breath. Despite his tailored suit and swept back
hair, he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. She wanted to jump into his arms
and hug the daylights out of him but she refused to get up from the table. He came
closer and, somehow, she managed to look away.

“Thank you so
much for coming over on short notice, Dean,” Brooke said, gesturing for him to
join them at the table up front. “But we didn’t know who else to call.”

Dean tore his
eyes from Evy long enough to acknowledge Brooke and Ben. The setting sun sliced
through the front window, leaving stripes of light across the empty tables
around them. “Are you closed?” he asked, pulling a chair back and taking a
seat.

Brooke dabbed at
her nose with a wadded up napkin.
“For now.”

Ben slid a piece
of paper across the table, his eyes firmly fixed on Dean.

Dean assessed
the grave look hardening Ben’s face before slowly lowering his narrow eyes to
the paper. “What is this?”

“They t-took our
liquor license,” Brooke stammered, bursting into tears.

Evy squeezed her
hand, her eyes wandering back to Dean. He looked like she felt. After everything
they had been through, she was embarrassed telling him about any of this but Brooke
didn’t care. Her insistence was as relentless as a Wisconsin winter. Evy
watched Dean scan the document, praying he couldn’t hear her heart racing like
a team of wild horses.

Dean looked up,
a heavy frown stealing his good looks. “Why?”

“Said we sold to
the same minor on two separate days, which is complete bullshit,” Ben said,
sparking up a cigarette.

Brooke didn’t
protest.

“Who said that?”

Ben shrugged.
“Some bald asshole in a suit.”

Dean sharpened
his gaze.

“I checked the
video,” Ben continued, exhaling a rolling cloud of smoke through the sunlit
eatery. “Whoever their
minor
is, they
never came in here.”

“How can you be so
sure?”

Ben tapped the
paper with the two fingers clutching the cigarette, spilling ashes onto it.
“Says right here they were in yesterday and two days before that.” He nodded to
a dome-shaped camera hanging from the ceiling. “I went through all the video.
That
minor
never happened. Besides, we
ID anyone who looks under thirty.”

Brooke rested a wet
hand on Dean’s. “The majority of our income comes from liquor sales, and if we
lose this license…”
 
She trailed off and
shook her head, squeezing more tears onto the table.

Dean exchanged a
troubled glance with Evy and tried to keep his mind on the business at hand.
His eyes skimmed the official document, moving back and forth across the page
like a laser scanner. “Did they give you a warning after the first violation?”

“
Alleged
violation,” Ben corrected him.

Brooke shook her
head. “No warning. A man came in about an hour ago, handed us an envelope and
took our license right off the wall.”

Dean followed Brooke’s
gaze to a blank space near the cappuccino machine. “What the fuck?” he muttered
softly.

“That’s what I’m
sayin
!” Ben said, taking another long drag.
 
He leaned forward, blowing smoke out his
nostrils like a pissed off dragon. “Listen Dean, I know you and Evy have been
through some weird shit recently but we really need your help on this. We’re
all fairly new to town and have no idea who to turn to.”

Evy and Dean
swapped a fleeting look. She wanted to keep eyeballing him but wouldn’t afford
herself the quiet pleasure. It would only make things worse. Regardless, she
lost control and stole another glance, her heart beating like a bass drum. He was
busy going over the notice again so she took the time to indulge, wanting to
kiss his lips and hating herself for it. The last thing she needed right now
was more drama.

There was a
singe when Ben
ashed
into a plastic cup lined with
water. “For whatever reason, the city council has it in for us and I want to
know why.”

Dean tried to
swallow the lump in his throat but it wouldn’t budge. He squinted at the
signature at the bottom of the page and tried to act normal while his breath
left him.

“What’s wrong?”
Ben asked
,
following Dean’s flustered gaze to the
piece of paper.