Pawsitively in Love (23 page)

“I know.”

EVAN KNEW
he needed to have a talk with Della. She couldn’t stay at his house. He was about to go insane. He had a rare quiet afternoon since she was at the job he’d helped her find—bagging groceries at the local organic market that she probably hated. There was a quiet knock on his door.
Austin
, Evan thought for a moment, but he knew it wouldn’t be him. Evan had effectively closed that door weeks ago. Still, he dragged himself off the couch and went to answer the door. If it was a salesman, he was going to have to try really hard not to rip their head off and dropkick it to the next block for ringing his doorbell. He was
exhausted.

It wasn’t a salesman, or anyone there to talk to him about their religion, which was another common visitor lately, there to try him obviously. It was Peggy. And Evan was strangely relieved to see her.

“Hey, Peggy.”

“Evan, I’m so glad to see you. It feels like it’s been ages.”

He gave her a rueful half smile. “It’s been a very interesting month. Let’s just say that.”

“No kidding. You’ve dropped off the face of the planet. I haven’t even seen Austin stopping by.”

Ouch. He didn’t want to say it out loud. “You won’t be seeing Austin dropping by anymore.”

“Oh
no
. You two were so adorable together.” Peggy cringed. “Sorry, that was insensitive.”

“You want to come in? I can make tea,” Evan said. Seemed like it was his remedy for everything.

“Sure.” She looked in gingerly, like she was afraid of what she was going to find.

“It’s just me and Dexter.” He nearly chuckled, but it wasn’t funny. Peggy had to have seen and heard Della ranting. The whole neighborhood had to have seen it. And all of a sudden, Evan had gone from the quiet neighbor who kept his yard neat to the one where there were people screaming in the house at night. He felt guilty for being embarrassed by it. But he was.

Dexter chose that moment to come padding out from his pillow, where he’d been napping.

“Awww, hi, little guy.” Peggy leaned over and petted him. “I thought he’d be bigger by now.”

“Yeah, me too.” Austin leaned over to pick up Dexter. “The vet says he’s perfectly healthy. He might just end up on the small side for a typical pug.”

“You’re a very adorable boy,” Peggy said and rubbed Dex’s belly again.

“C’mon out to the kitchen.” He had four hours until Della was off work. He just prayed she made it all the way through her shift. He needed to relax for a while.

“You wanna tell me about it?” Peggy asked once she was seated with a cup of tea in her hand.

Weirdly, he did. “I don’t know if I told you I had a sister before. But Della, my sister, she just… came here. I was eating dinner with Austin one evening, and she just showed up on my front steps.”

“Where did she come from? New Mexico?”

Evan nodded. “It was unexpected. She’s always been, well, troubled, I suppose you could say. I don’t know what her actual diagnosis is since she hates talking about it and pretty much refuses to see a therapist, but she’s angry a lot. It doesn’t take much to get her going.”

“Evan, from what little I’ve heard, this isn’t something you can handle. I’m sure you’re a great brother, but you’re not a psychologist. I’m worried about you. Are your parents aware that she’s here?”

Evan shrugged. “She’s thirty. They’re not in charge of her anymore. Besides, my dad has been gone for years, and my mom is still around, but she might as well not be. It’s always just been me and Della.”

Peggy made a face. “I know I’m being pushy here, and I’m sorry, but she needs to find help.
You
need help. I’ve never seen you look like this, and you’ve just withdrawn from the world.”

“Like I said, Della doesn’t like to go to the counselor. Or take medication.” Evan felt like all the pressure and the sadness and how much he wanted his life back came bubbling up, like the dome of some dormant volcano rising up, barely holding in waves of exploding lava. He started shaking. “I can’t… I can’t have her here anymore, Peg. I feel so horrible saying it. I just don’t know what to do. I can’t live my life like this forever.”

“She can’t stay here, babe. Not if she won’t get help. I know I’m just your neighbor, but someone needs to say it, and it looks like I’m the one who’s around to do it.” She looked vaguely disapproving, like she thought Austin left when the going got tough. Evan felt like he had to defend him.

“Austin wanted to be here.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “He tried.”

“What happened there?”

“I… couldn’t let him see this. It’s so messy. It’s not what anyone wants to get involved in only a month or so into dating someone. This is my life, though. I told him to leave. He tried to come back, but….” Evan choked on a sob. He was
crying.
The dome of the volcano had finally broken, for the first time in years, and he didn’t know how to stop it. “I’m so sorry. You asked for tea, and I’m such a big mess. You can go if you want. I’m….” He could barely breathe, let alone keep talking.

“I’m not leaving, babe. I’m stubborn, and I’m going to help you fix this.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I’m not sure yet. But we’re going to do something, and you’re not going to do it alone.”

OH GOD.
Evan didn’t see her until she’d already seen him. He’d been browsing listlessly in the cheese section, even though nothing really seemed interesting anymore. And there she was. A very pissed-off-looking Mary Beth. He debated pretending that he’d suddenly gone blind and couldn’t see her at all, but it would’ve been stupid to do that. She was looking right at him, and it was obvious that he was looking right back at her.

And there she was, stalking toward him. Jesus. The last thing Evan had energy for was a confrontation at the grocery store. Another one. He wondered if he was going to have to start shopping somewhere else.

“Hey, Mary Beth.” He winced when he said her name. Probably because he knew what was about to come next.

“You raging
asshole.
”

Evan noticed the guy who worked the deli staring. He’d helped Evan multiple times to find the perfect artisan cheeses and imported salamis. Evan was definitely going to have to move.

“Please, can we not do this here?” he asked.

“Right. You break Austin in half, and you don’t want me to embarrass you at the grocery store. Pardon me if I find that incredibly rich.”

“H-how is he?”

“Fine. He just needed to realize that you weren’t the right guy for him, or anyone, and he needed to move on.”

Move on?
Stab, stab, stab
. Evan had literally zero idea how much the idea of Austin with someone else was going to hurt until those words came out of Mary Beth’s mouth.

“I, um, hope he’s happy,” he mumbled. “I’m just going to get out of your face.”

“No way.” Mary Beth stepped in front of him. She was at least whisper-shouting, so there were fewer people looking at him than if she’d raised her voice like he knew she was very capable of. “You’re going to tell me what happened. Austin was falling in love with you, and I saw your damn face. You felt it too. What happened?”

“It’s private,” Evan said. “It just wasn’t going to work out.”

“I can’t believe you. You have no idea what you let go.” She gritted her teeth. “I’ve never wanted to punch anyone before, but I sure as hell do now.”

That was the worst part. He knew exactly what he’d let go. Evan backed away. He didn’t know Mary Beth well yet, but it was always the prissy ones. They had all that anger underneath their buttoned-up exterior or something. “I’m going to go now.”

Evan escaped into the fruits and turned down the middle of the next aisle so he could hide in peace and fall completely apart. He hadn’t thought it through when he’d told Austin he couldn’t do what they were doing—at least not until he got his life together. He hadn’t thought about how the city wasn’t that big and they would probably run into each other. How Austin was cute and charming and would have a new guy after him in three seconds flat, and Evan would have to
see
it. All it took were those two words “move on” to know that he was going to be an absolute disaster when that day came.

“OKAY, SO
don’t kill me, but I might have just run into Evan at the Met Market, and I gave him a piece of my mind.”

Talk about a greeting. Austin had just walked into his parents’ house to find a red-faced Mary Beth half cowering behind their granite-topped kitchen island like it was some sort of barricade for his imminent attack. It took a second for what she said to sink in.

“You can’t be serious. What did you say?”

“That he was an asshole. And that you were moving on.” She smiled. “I might have heavily implied that moving on meant dating someone else.”

“That’s not true.”

“I know. But he doesn’t. He didn’t take that so well.”

“What have you done?” Austin slid down the refrigerator until he was sitting on the maple floor.

“It’s not exactly a disaster.” Mary Beth rolled her eyes.

“What happened to you being sorry? That lasted about ten seconds.”

“I just.” She made a growling noise. “I hate him. I hate him for you.”

“I don’t.” It was the sad truth. Austin wasn’t going to make a move to see Evan. He’d decided that what happened between them was over, no matter what he wanted. But he didn’t hate him. And he missed him every damn day. “I thought he was just ending it because… well, because he’s educated and intelligent and has all this stuff going for him. It hurt.”

“You think he dumped you because of your job?” Mary Beth looked incredulous. And more than a little pissed.

“I said I
did
.” Austin sighed. He remembered that day on the porch, how it stung when Evan had said he couldn’t do what they were doing anymore. “I don’t know what I think it was about now.”

“What did he tell you?” Mary Beth asked.

Austin sighed. “His sister…. You know she’s in town right?”

“Yeah, you said something about that.”

“This is about her. Evan told me once that she was the reason he didn’t get close to people. I didn’t take him all that seriously at the time because we
were
getting close. I could feel it. But it took one afternoon of her being here to wreck everything we were starting to build. I get why.”

He hadn’t wanted to talk with anyone before, but coming to the realization that there wasn’t anything wrong with him, that it was Della and Evan’s relationship with her that had broken things… it kind of felt good. And it felt even better to talk to someone about it.

“How did she wreck it?”

Austin tried to decide how to say it without sounding mean. “She has problems, like emotional problems. Evan said she doesn’t like to go to counseling or take anything, so he’s been kind of like her crutch all these years. It’s the only thing he knows how to do.”

Mary Beth nodded. “And if he’s her only support system, I’d imagine she wasn’t too happy to see you when she got here. It must’ve scared her.”

“Yeah.” Austin’s throat felt tight.

“And she probably would’ve tried her hardest to make it impossible for Evan to keep seeing you.”

Austin shrugged. “Don’t you think he’d have tried more if it was important enough to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, me neither. I wish I did.”

Mary Beth came around the counter and wrapped her arms around him. “Hey, Bro?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Literally no guy on earth is too good for you, you got that?”

Austin chuckled against his sister’s neck. “Yeah. I got it.”

EVAN COULDN’T
get his run-in with Mary Beth out of his head. It had been four days, and it had been nearly all he thought about. It seemed like he went through his days on autopilot—cleaned, did yard work, walked Dexter, thought about Austin.

Things weren’t getting any better with Della since Austin had left. She was still angry and then sweet, combative and then generous with her affection. She’d only been in town a little over a month and already he was completely exhausted. Evan couldn’t do it. He couldn’t live like that once classes resumed in the fall. He couldn’t live like that another week. Peggy had been right. He just hadn’t wanted to face the actual doing part of it.

And then he’d seen Mary Beth. And she’d been so angry, rightfully so. When she’d told him that Austin was moving on, it was like a fucking stab wound right to his heart. He didn’t know if Austin was already seeing other people or just trying to stop thinking about seeing him, but Evan couldn’t lose him. He’d thought he was prepared to put his life aside to help his sister… but he wasn’t. Not anymore. He poured the rest of his lukewarm tea down the sink and looked out to where his sister was watching daytime television. She had work soon, and Evan felt awful, but he was relived. He couldn’t wait any longer.

“Della. You and I are going to have to talk.”

Evan sat down on the couch next to her and took the remote. He turned off the television. He didn’t want any distractions. Anything she could use as an excuse not to pay attention to him. Dexter jumped up on the couch and crawled immediately into Evan’s lap. He considered putting his dog back on the floor, but somehow that didn’t appeal to him. He liked the thought of Dexter’s company.

“What’s up, Evan? I was going to take a nap before work. That job’s too tiring. I think I’ll quit soon.”

“Della, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I need you to keep your job.”

“But I don’t like it.”

He didn’t know how to even begin. “I love you. You know that, right?” he asked. “And you know that I love having you nearby.”

He wasn’t sure he did love that, but he felt so awful even thinking it that he had to make sure his sister never knew that their relationship was easier for him from a distance.

“Why does that mean I need to keep my shitty job?”

“Because I need you to start looking for an apartment.”