My suspicions were further heightenedwhen we got in the truck, and I found a coffee for me and a smoothie for Waylay.
“What’s your game?” I asked Knox when he slid behind the wheel.
He ignored me to frown over a text.
There was something about the way he hesitated that gave me a bad feeling. “Is Liza okay? Did something happen at Honky Tonk?”
“Relax, Daisy. Everybody and everything is fine.”
He fired off a response and started the truck.
We headed east and joined the slog of Northern Virginia traffic. I checked my tidy stack of cash again while Knox and Waylay made small talk. I tuned them out and tried to squash the anxiety. Yesterday at the library, I’d logged into my accounts to confirm some budget numbers. Money was tight. The bar shifts and free rent were helping. But my income wasn’t enough to impress any judge in any court, especially not if I added a car payment into the mix.
I had three options: 1. Find a day job while Waylay was in school. 2. Borrow against my retirement savings. 3. Sell my house on Long Island.
Inwardly, I cringed. It had represented so much more to me than just three bedrooms and two baths. It was a gratifying step that was part of a larger plan. I’d landed a good job at Warner’s family’s investment firm, fallen for him, and bought a nice house to start a family.
If I sold it, I was officially saying good-bye to the dream. Then where would I go after my six months of temporary guardianship with Waylay were up?
By the time we got to the mall, I was marinating in the misery of regrets and failures.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said to Knox, who was now on his phone carrying on a conversation that seemed to consist of monosyllabic questions and answers. I hopped out, still clutching my coffee.
Waylay climbed out of the backseat and slammed her door.
I expected him to accelerate away, leaving us in a cloud of fumes, but instead he got out and shoved his phone in his back pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“Are you shopping with us?” Waylay asked. She didn’t sound horrified—she sounded excited.
Damn you, Knox Morgan.
“Got some things on my own shopping list. Figured you ladies could show me the ropes.”
We entered the air-conditioned mall, and with a cursory glance in my direction, Waylay made a beeline for an accessories store.
As soon as she disappeared into the store, I grabbed Knox’s tattooed arm. “What. Are. You. Doing?”
“Shopping.”
“You don’t shop. You don’t go to malls.”
He rolled back on his heels, looking amused. “That a fact?”
“You’re the kind of guy who wears his clothes until they disintegrate, and then you either start wearing something some female relative got you for Christmas or you order the same exact thing you wore out online. You do not go to malls. You do not shop with girls.”
Knox moved into my space. Those eyes, more gray than blue today, went serious. “You got a problem with me tagging along?”
“Yes! What are you doing here, Knox? I’m trying to bond with Waylay. Everything else I’ve tried so far hasn’t put a crack in those walls. She’s got a poker face at age eleven because of the amount of disappointment she’s already faced. I want to see her smile. A real smile.”
“Jesus, Naomi. I’m not here to fuck that up.”
“Then why are you here?”
Waylay knocked on her side of the store window and held up two pairs of earrings to her unpierced lobes. I gave her a thumbs-up and mentally added “Pierce Waylay’s ears” to the list.
“I got my reasons. Just like I got my reasons for not telling you.”
“That’s not an acceptable answer.”
We were almost touching now, and my body was getting confused between the cold air conditioning and the heat pumping off his spectacular body.
“Only answer you’re getting for now.”
“This is why you’re single,” I pointed out. “No woman in her right mind would put up with that.”
“I’m single because I wanna be,” he countered.
I was mid eye-roll when he decided to change the subject. “So you’re trying to buy your way in with Way?”
“Yes, I am. Girls like presents.”
“Do you like presents?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, Knox. I don’t. I freaking love presents.”
It was true. I did.
Warner had half-assed his way through the past few years of Christmas and birthdays, making me feel materialistic when I’d shown any disappointment at the thoughtless gifts in the wrong sizes.
Knox cracked a half smile. “So, where’s the funding coming from for this spree? I know what you make at Honky Tonk.”
I craned my neck to make sure Waylay was still inside. She was trying on a braided headband in pink and purple. It looked freaking adorable, and I itched to go in and drag her to the counter with it.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I sold my wedding dress.”
“Things that bad?” he asked.
“Bad?”
“You just sold a wedding dress to pay for your niece’s back-to-school shit. You don’t have a phone. And you don’t have a car.”
“I have a phone,” I said, digging out Liza’s old Blackberry and holding it up in his face.
“The letter E just fell off the keyboard.”
Damn it. E was in a lot of words.
“I don’t need your judgment. Okay? Today, the priority is school stuff for Waylay. I’ll figure out the rest. So you do your thing, and I’ll shower my niece with stuff.”
That half smile was back and it was wreaking havoc with my nervous system. “Deal.”
I headed toward the store, then stopped short to admire the window display. A wall of hot, hard chest crashed into me.
“Problem?” Knox asked. His beard tickled my ear.
I turned around to face him and gritted my teeth. “You’re not going to leave us alone today, are you?”
“Nope,” he said, walking me backwards into the store with a hand spread across my stomach.
* * *
I thoughtfor sure we’d lose him in the first tween store, but he’d stuck through all of them. Including the shoes. He’d even voiced a few opinions when Waylay asked for them and he’d made faces at her to keep her entertained while she got her ears pierced.
She was glowing. Her frosty “don’t care” demeanor had started to thaw on the second pair of shoes and had melted into a puddle when I insisted she get the sundress with pink and yellow flowers. And that was before Knox had whipped out his credit card when she gasped audibly over a pair of hot pink sneakers with bedazzled flowers.
“Why do you keep feeling your forehead, Aunt Naomi?” Waylay asked.
“I’m trying to see if I have a fever because I’m definitely hallucinating.” The only alternative was I’d accidentally managed to fall into an alternate timeline in which Knox Morgan was a nice guy who liked to shop.
We ran into Waylay’s friend Nina—with the nice breath and black hair—from school. I was happy to be introduced to her dads, Isaac and Gael, who seemed to accept it when Knox introduced himself only as our ride. Nina asked if Waylay could go to the arcade with them. I gladly said yes and was exchanging phone numbers with Isaac when Knox pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet.
“Go wild, Way,” he said.
“Wow. Thanks!”
“Don’t buy too much candy,” I called after her. “We haven’t had dinner yet!”
She waved over her shoulder, a gesture I assumed meant she had no intention of listening. I turned on Knox.
“Why are you still here? You’ve shadowed us to every store. You keep checking your phone like you’re a teenager. And you haven’t bought yourself anything. You’re very confusing and annoying.”
His face remained stony, and he didn’t answer.
“Fine. I guess I’ll just finish my shopping.”
Since I was living out of a suitcase, I really did need new underwear. Ducking into Victoria’s Secret wasn’t exactly a ruse to get rid of him. But I figured there was no way on earth Knox Morgan would follow me inside.
I was shuffling through the sale bin when I felt a grumpy, looming presence. He was standing behind me, arms crossed over his chest. I rolled my eyes and decided to ignore him.
What I couldn’t ignore was the fact that every time a woman entered the store, she stopped in her tracks and stared.
I couldn’t blame them. He was unfairly gorgeous. Too bad about the whole terrible personality thing.
I’d narrowed it down to two pairs of normal ol’ briefs but kept coming back to sigh over a silky pair with lace cutouts on the side and back when a sales associate appeared.
“Can I get a dressing room started for you?” she asked.
I thought about it. At least Knox couldn’t follow me into the dressing room.
“She’ll take these,” he said, snatching the briefs out of my hand and pushing them at the saleswoman.