Fire & Ice (The Locklaine Boys #1) (28 page)

“
I LOVE YOU, DUMPLING
, you know I do…” Tomas started and I knew what was coming next wasn’t something I was going to like, “…but it’s been two days and I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t just say it. You stink.”

“What’d I do this time?” I asked from my place on his couch, curled up in a ball on my side just like I’d been since I arrived two days ago. After leaving my brother’s house, I hadn’t gone home. I couldn’t run the risk of Griffin showing up. Once again I’d fallen on Tomas’s doorstep so he could help heal my broken heart with gossip and tequila. It hadn’t worked. I could only assume his issue with me was the fact that I’d left the running of the boutique to him while I had my little pity party.

“No, not metaphorically, sugar plum. I mean literally. You stink. Like… a lot. Get your ass up and get in the shower. I’m afraid you’re going to leave a ring on my couch cushions.”

“I do not,” I objected weakly. But when I lifted my arm and took a sniff of my armpit, there was no denying that he was right. “Okay, I take that back.”

When I didn’t move from my little cocoon, Tomas stomped over and snatched the blanket from around me.

“Hey!”

“Good Lord, girly! Another one?” Tomas cried as he reached down and grabbed the box of oatmeal crème pies from where I’d been clutching them to my chest like a baby.

Now
that
got me moving. “Gimme that! Those are mine!”

“This is the third damn box I’ve confiscated from you. Where are you even getting them?!”

There was no way I’d admit that I had only left Tomas’s apartment long enough to con his doorman into running out and stocking me up. It was crazy what a man would do just to escape a crying, overly emotional woman in the midst of a breakdown. I wasn’t too proud to admit that I had used that to my advantage.

“Give them back,” I demanded, standing from the couch and giving chase.

Tomas held the box above his head to keep them out of reach. “Get in the damn shower, and I’ll give them back.”

With a
hmph
, I stopped jumping for my box of sugar goodness and glared. “Fine,” I grumbled. “But I want those back as soon as I get out.”

Once in the bathroom, I undressed and turned on the water, letting the steam fill the bathroom before climbing in. I scrubbed with whatever was available before finally just standing there, letting the warm, steady spray wash away the tension of the past few days. I knew it was long past time to pull up my big girl panties and get on with my life. Two days was my wallowing cutoff. I’d reached my limit. It was time for me to go back to my own apartment, wear something other than dirty sweats, turn my cell phone back on, and handle my responsibilities. The real world had been closed out long enough.

By the time I dried off and dressed in another pair of Tomas’s sweats, the internal pep-talk I’d been giving myself had finally started to work.

“Feeling better, sunshine?” Tomas asked. I made my way to where he sat on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table in front of him, ankles crossed, an unwrapped oatmeal crème pie halfway to his mouth. Snatching it out of his hand before he had a chance to take a bite, I plopped down beside him and curled my legs underneath me as I laid my head on his shoulder and ate the confiscated pie.

“Yeah,” I spoke with my mouth full. “Back to the land of the living.”

“Good. Homeless Pepper was not a good look for you, lovely.”

I actually found myself laughing for the first time in two days. “So you’re saying no
The Walking Dead
casting calls for me?”

“Sadly, Rick Grimes will never fall in love with you.”

“That’s okay.” I shrugged as I finished off the last bite. “I’m more of a Daryl kinda girl anyway.”

Tomas’s arm wrapped around my shoulder and he gave me a gentle squeeze. “You gonna be okay?”

My chest rose on a heavy sigh as I answered, “Yeah. I’ll be okay. I’m going back to my apartment. And I’ll be at the shop tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” he said as he placed a kiss on the crown of my head. “You know I’m here for you if you ever need me, but this just isn’t you, babe. You’re tough. You just forgot that for a little while.”

To prove to him
and
myself that he was right, I reached over and picked my phone up from the coffee table and held the power button down, turning it back on. It wasn’t all that surprising to hear the notifications going off, but I hadn’t thought there would be
that
many.

As expected, I had texts and voicemails from Dex, Wendy, and Navie, there were even a few from Harlow and, most surprisingly, Chance. It was the number of calls and messages from Griffin that was staggering. In the past two days alone he’d texted about thirty times and left twelve voicemails, all of which I deleted without answering.

“Oh,” Tomas started in a warning tone. “You should know that Navie’s
totally
pissed you’ve been incommunicado the past couple of days. She came by the boutique today and told me to tell you that if your ass isn’t there when she shows up tomorrow, she was going to hunt you down and sit on you until you told her what the hell was going on.”

“That’s gonna be a fun conversation,” I deadpanned, thinking I’d rather volunteer for a root canal than have to relive the last few weeks with Navie.

“Hey, this is what happens when you keep shit from your friends. I think this might be one of those learning moments you threw in your brother’s face.”

“You know, I really friggin’ hate it when you’re right.”

“What can I say? All this perfection tends to mess with peoples’ heads.”

That earned him a slap, but at least I was laughing as I did it.

“
PEPPER JULIANNE O’MALLEY! GET
your ass out here!”

I could hear Navie’s shrill voice all the way from my sewing room in the very back of Fire & Ice.

“Shit,” I uttered quietly as I made my way to the front of the store. It was still relatively early so the shop wasn’t full, but the handful of customers that were in there had stopped perusing the racks to stare at the powerhouse in a barely-five-foot frame. Navie might have been a munchkin, but I didn’t know a person out there who’d want to mess with her when she was pissed. Hell, Rowan had been the King of Assholes, happily ruling over his entire douche-dome before he met her. She knocked him down several pegs and he was hooked.

Tomas, to his credit, didn’t help matters at all, only throwing fuel on the fire by mumbling the stupid score to
Jaws
, getting louder as I got closer. “Shut up, or I’ll kill you,” I whispered to him before turning back to Navie.

“You owe me an explanation,” she demanded. “You don’t just disappear without a word. I was worried about you. Now I kinda just want to kick your ass.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, feeling like a complete ass for upsetting my friend.

Her shoulders squared and her chin tilted up in the air as she crossed her arms over her chest, and I knew she was working hard to hold on to her mad, even though she was one of the sweetest, most forgiving people I knew. “Yeah, well… don’t let it happen again,” she replied lamely, and I knew I had her back.

I tipped my head toward the hall I’d just come from. “Come on, let’s go talk. I promise I’ll tell you everything.”

I led her to the office I rarely ever used, usually choosing to handle paperwork for the boutique from the comforts of my own home as opposed to being stuck at a desk for hours on end. Once I closed the door and we were sitting on the old, faded, yet still comfy couch against the wall, I dove right in. There was nothing I left out. She got the good, the bad, and the ugly, starting from my pre-teen crush up until just three days earlier.

The only time she’d interrupted was to yell, “I can’t believe that asshole never told me!” when I got to the part of the story where Griffin entrusted Rowan with our little secret.

“Oh my God,” she gasped once I’d given her all the gory details. “I can’t believe I never suspected anything! I mean, Harlow and I always wondered why you two seemed to hate each other so much, but I never would have guessed… Holy shit! Your virginity, Pep. That’s huge!”

“I know.”

“And then he just up and left…” she trailed off, giving the story some serious thought before finishing with, “what a douche!” I opened my mouth to defend him, for some insane reason, but she held up her hand to silence me. “Look, you know I love Griffin, and I get his reasons for everything he did, I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that there were about a million different ways he could have handled that situation.”

“Believe me, you aren’t saying anything I haven’t thought at least a million times over the years. I thought I’d gotten over everything that had happened back then, but after seeing him with that woman…”

“You relived it all over again,” she answered for me, her dark blue eyes growing sympathetic.

“It was so much worse this time,” I told her, my voice embarrassingly small.

“Oh, honey,” Navie whispered, leaning in and pulling me into her arms. For someone so small, the woman gave seriously strong hugs. Some of the tension began to ebb away as I relaxed against her, absorbing her warmth. That was, until Navie voiced her next question. “Sweetie, are you sure you
really
saw what you think you saw?”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I pulled out of the hug, my brows dipped in incredulity. “I told you what I saw… what happened a few days after our first time. I mean, what else could it have been?”

“I know, I know,” she offered pacifyingly. “But…”

“But what?” I demanded to know when she trailed off.

“But he didn’t fight to try and get you back the last time,” she responded, her words a punch to the throat, not because they were cruel, but because they were true. At that very moment, my cellphone rang from my backs pocket, Griffin’s name displayed like a beacon. “And I’m willing to bet that’s not the first time he’s called you since that evening. Hell, I’d be surprised if that’s the first time he’s called
today
.”

Damn her and her intuitiveness
. The only response I had to give was an aggravated huff. And that damned knowing grin of hers was only leading to further aggravation. “I’m totally right, aren’t I?”

“You don’t have to be so smug about it,” I grumbled, flopping against the back of the couch on a pout.

“So…” Navie said, resting next to me. “What are you going to do?” My phone started ringing again before I had a chance to answer her. “’Cause I’m pretty sure
that’s
not gonna stop,” she giggled.

I didn’t have an answer for her. The truth was, I didn’t have a damned clue what I was doing. I’d spent the majority of my first day back at work simply going through the motions.

We each sat in silent contemplation for what felt like forever before I finally stood. “I need to get back to work.”

“Yeah, same here. You’ll call me if you need anything, right?” she asked as we headed out of the office and down the hall. In my rush to get to a yelling Navie earlier, I’d completely forgotten to close the door to my sewing room. It hadn’t dawned on me that I’d left it wide open until Navie’s entire body froze, mid-step, on a loud gasp.

“Oh, uh…” I stumbled when I caught sight of what had grabbed hold of her attention and refused to let it go. “That’s just something I’ve been working on in my free time.”

“You
made
that?!” she asked in awe. “What’s it for?” As she spoke, she headed straight toward the mannequin that held the wedding dress. Her fingers ran across lace bodice so gently her touch seemed almost reverent.

“Well, I don’t have any
definitive
plans for it. It’s just an idea that popped into my head when Rowan proposed to you. It’s not finished—”

I was interrupted by an eardrum-piercing squeal. “You mean that’s for
me
?!” She hopped from foot to foot as she stared at the dress adoringly. “I actually get to wear that on my wedding day?”

“I guess… I mean, if you want to. Like I said, it was just an idea. I didn’t expect—”

She cut me off again, shouting “I want to!” so loudly I had to take a step back.

“Well, okay. Then I guess you have a wedding gown.”

She pulled me into another tight Navie Hug as she danced around excitedly. Her enthusiasm was so contagious that I actually found myself smiling broadly, the sour feeling that had been lingering in my stomach since sitting down to talk about Griffin began to shrink.

By the time she left, after setting up a time to come in for a fitting, I felt better than I had in days. Where I’d been walking around on autopilot before, I was beginning to find myself actually engaging with the people who came in and out of Fire & Ice.

At a quarter to three the bell over the door chimed and I turned on my heels to great the latest customer. My eyes grew round in surprise and Tomas chuckled from somewhere behind me, his tone hushed as he stated, “Well this day just got
a lot
more interesting.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.