Then he was gone, leaving me feeling like I’d just taken a compliment when he should be kicking my ass for dropping his daughter like I had.
Like I hadn’t wanted to, but had done anyway because my sister had ghosts in her past.
I clenched my jaw and looked down at the rest of my food.
I wouldn’t be eating it.
Rolling it all up into the massive piece of paper that came wrapped around their so-called sandwiches, I got up and threw it into the trash before walking straight out the door.
My brother would understand.
Sabrina wouldn’t.
CHAPTER 13
Places you can stay absolutely free: your lane.
-Coffee Cup
SABRINA
“I’m sorry… what?”
“There’s a man here that would like to talk to you,” an elegant female voice said.
I scrunched up my nose in confusion. “What?”
“A Mr. Cole Swanson,” the woman said. “He’s in the Smith County Jail at this time, and would like to talk to you.”
I laughed.
Literally, I outright laughed. “Um, no. No, thank you.”
There was a pause, as if the woman was surprised that I’d said no, and then, “Well, okay. Are you sure?”
“I’m more than sure,” I promised.
In the last few weeks that I’d been home from Florida, I’d been able to do a lot of soul searching.
And in that time, I’d realized that in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t all that broken up about Cole.
More, I was broken up about the time that Cole made me miss out on when it came to Faye.
More so, I was broken up about the fact that I couldn’t ever get that time back.
“You okay?” the woman asked.
I realized that I hadn’t said goodbye, and instantly said, “I’m sorry. Yes, I’m okay. Thank you for calling.” I paused. “Why is he in jail?”
There was a pause and then, “He was caught with a prostitute down at the city park.”
I made a noise in the back of my throat that made me sound a bit strangled. “Oh, shit. That’s gold.”
There was a short laugh at the end of the line and then, “Have a good one, ma’am.”
Then I was staring at my phone, grinning wider than I’d ever grinned before, shaking my head because I couldn’t quite believe what I’d just heard.
Then, as if my day couldn’t get any better, I looked up to see a cute little kitten on the grass not too far from me.
I tilted my head, remembering a time when I was younger when I’d tried to touch another stray kitten.
It’d bitten me and I’d had to have rabies shots in my wound.
Let’s just say I’d learned my lesson touching strays.
But this one didn’t look like a stray at all.
It looked like it’d escaped its handlers.
I crept forward, my butt slipping from the park bench to come to a rest on the back of my calves, and stared at the white little fluff ball.
The white fluff ball had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen and had very small ears.
It reminded me of a ferret.
“What’s going on, handsome?” I cooed at the kitty.
The cat’s head whipped around toward my voice and started to walk toward me.
I tensed, hoping that I hadn’t just made a mistake and called this vicious animal toward me, even though I knew better.
But a blade of grass that was halfway between him and me caught his attention, causing him to dart toward it instead.
So there I sat for the next five minutes or so, contemplating whether to pick it up or not.
In the end, my traumatic childhood experience was enough to have me looking longingly at the kitty before I left it behind.
• • •
PRICE
“I saw that,” Easton grumbled.
I flipped him off. “I’d give her a dog, but after my research, I learned that she’s allergic to them.”
Allergic bad, too. As in, full-on anaphylactic shock if she so much as walked into a house with one. Which was scary seeing as all of my family had dogs.
Together we watched as the kitten caught Sabrina’s attention.
She tensed, her eyes going round as saucers, and stared at the cat so hard that I knew that she wanted to go pick it up.
“She isn’t going to get it,” Easton mused.
I wanted to punch him in the throat. “I noticed.”
“She’s still not going to get him,” Easton continued.
I sighed. “Maybe she’s just cautious.”
I’d spent a couple hundred bucks on this cat.
In fact, the reason I’d spent so much on this particular cat was because I’d wanted it to look approachable and sweet. I’d also bought it from this breeder chick that I knew who usually sold her cats for a couple thousand dollars a pop.
Sure, I knew there were hundreds of cats in the shelters surrounding my area, but I’d looked within fifty square miles, and short of taking one too early from its mother, there’d been none available and over two pounds. And the poundage made them ineligible to be adopted from our shelter.