Finally (Neighbor from Hell 12)

“She did the same thing when Grandma Bea started getting sick. She was terrified of losing her. I used to have to sneak into her room at night and hold her because nothing else worked. She’d cry until even that was too much and then she’d simply lay in my arms trembling. She’s terrified of losing the people that she loves and do you know why?”

Grinding his jaw, Devin shook his head once, not sure that he wanted to hear this.

“Do you know what happened to her mother?” Ben asked, tossing the rag in the trash as Devin stood there feeling sick to his stomach.

“She doesn’t know,” Devin said.

“She doesn’t remember, which is for the best.” Ben said, sighing heavily as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“What happened to her mother?” Devin asked.

“She tried to kill Charlie,” Ben said, shaking his head in disgust as all the air in Devin’s lungs left him in a rush.

“Holy shit…” T.J. said, looking like he was going to be sick.

“She doesn’t remember that though. The only thing that she remembers in the generic tale that social services told her, that her mother abandoned her on her grandfather’s front step. What they never told her was what her mother got sick of having to deal with a small child and tried to get rid of her,” Ben said, shrugging it off.

“What happened to her mother?” Devin found himself asking because he honestly wasn’t sure that he would be able to handle hearing what her mother did to her.

“No fucking clue and it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that Charlie deserves better than to be treated as an afterthought,” Ben said, getting back to the matter at hand.

“I don’t treat her like an afterthought,” Devin bit out.

“No? Then what would you call the way that you’re treating her? You didn’t think that she had the right to know that she was never going to have a child of her own? Are you fucking kidding me? This is Charlie we’re talking about here. Do you have any fucking idea what she’s gone through? Do you have any idea what it means to belong to someone? What it would mean to Charlie to have a child? To be a part of someone like that? Because I’m going to tell you right now, that if you had any fucking idea what that would mean to her then you never would have fucked around with her head,” Ben said, shaking his head in disgust.

“I love her,” Devin said hollowly even as Ben’s words hit and when they did…

He’d fucked up.

“She deserves to be happy,” Ben said as Devin’s phone rang.

Biting back a curse, Devin answered his phone only to shove it back in his pocket less than a minute later and move his ass.

“What’s wrong?” T.J. yelled after him.

“Something happened to Dustin at school,” Devin said, rushing into his office and noticed that Charlie still hadn’t come in as he grabbed his keys and ran for the door.

He was in his truck a minute later and five minutes after that he was throwing his truck in park and racing inside the school. Before the front door had a chance to close behind him, he heard it.

“I want my mommy!” came the hysterical scream that had him frowning as he made his way to the front desk, because that sounded like Dustin only…

He’d never heard his son scream like that before.

“I want my mommy!” came the scream again, drawing his attention to the right only to find Dustin sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, one of his hands over his ears and his eyes squeezed shut tightly as he continued to scream, “I want my mommy!” while Abbi sat next to him, crying as she held onto his other hand.

“Oh, thank god, you’re here,” Mrs. Haskins said, looking relieved when she spotted him.

“What happened?” Devin asked, walking around the front desk and headed towards his children.

“We don’t know. The children were making Mother’s Day gifts and their teacher was trying to do something nice for them. She brought in something special for them to make for you and he got upset,” she explained, wringing her hands together as Dustin continued to scream.

“I-I want my mommy!” Dustin got out around a sob.

“That’s because they have a mother,” Devin said, feeling his heart break for his children as he knelt down in front of them.

When Abbi saw him, she released her brother’s hand and threw herself in Devin’s arms. He wrapped one arm around her as he reached for his son, but Dustin wasn’t having it.

“I just want my mommy,” Dustin said as his small body trembled. “I have a mommy. Tell them that I have a mommy…please!”

Swallowing hard, Devin said, “You have a mommy.”

“I just want my m-mommy,” Dustin said, crying as someone reached past him and-

“I’m right here,” Charlie said, pulling Dustin into her arms.

“Mommy,” Dustin mumbled, crying harder as his small arms wrapped around her and held on tight.

“Shhh, I’m right here,” Charlie said as she carefully stood up with Dustin in her arms. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she promised Dustin as Devin stood up, adjusting Abbi in his arms as he watched Charlie walk away for the second time that day and realized just how badly he’d fucked everything up.

He also realized that he needed to do something about it.

Chapter 42

“I need fluffiness in my life, mommy,” Abbi said, making Charlie’s lips twitch despite the fact that all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry.

“You have fluffiness in your life,” Charlie said with a pointed look at the small kitten trying to attack her feet beneath the blanket and the bunny currently snuggled in her arms, eating a carrot.

“I need more,” Abbi said, nodding solemnly as Bradford, whom Charlie would like to point out she’d only jokingly suggested calling Bradford when they got him, jumped onto the couch near Abbi’s feet and curled up, looking appropriately pitiful as he waited for someone to give him another treat.

“I tell you what,” Charlie said, pausing to kiss Dustin’s cheek as he continued to sleep, “if you can be good and super quiet so that your brother can take a nap, I will seriously consider asking your daddy if we can go to the zoo this weekend.”

“The zoo with the small petting area or the one where you can walk with the deer?” Abbi asked with a calculating look in her eye that let Charlie know that she was probably already making plans to try to steal a deer, again.

“The one with the deer enclosure, of course,” Charlie said, somewhat offended that her baby girl would think that she would settle for anything less than the best level of fluffiness.

Nodding, Abbi said, “That might be acceptable.”

“And if you are super good and let me get some work done while your brother naps, I might order Blackjack’s pizza for dinner,” she said, unable to help but smile when Abbi said, “I’ll be super good.”

“Okay, we have a deal then,” Charlie said, pointing to her apartment. “I’m going to leave the door open in case you need anything.”

“When’s Daddy getting home?” Abbi asked, absently petting her bunny while Charlie forced a smile on her face.

“Probably after dinner, sweetie. He had to run back to his shop and finish a project,” she said, repeating what Devin told them after he’d dropped them off.

“Okay,” Abbi said, shifting her attention back to the movie that she was watching as Charlie ran her fingers through Dustin’s hair one last time before she forced herself to walk into her apartment.

She told herself that she had absolutely no reason to be upset, especially not after today when the kids had called her mommy, which meant more to her than anything in this world. She loved them and that was more than enough, Charlie told herself as she grabbed her camera off her bed and headed to the office and-

“I’m sorry,” came the unexpected words that drew her attention to find Devin sitting at her desk, waiting for her with a bouquet of white roses in his arms.

“There’s nothing to apologize

for,” Charlie said, forcing the words out that she hoped would end this conversation as she walked out of her office and headed for the kitchen, deciding that this would be the perfect time to clean her camera.

“Then why do you look like you’re about to cry?” came the strained question a moment later as she laid her camera on the kitchen island and grabbed her kit out of the bottom cabinet.

“Just leave it alone, Devin, okay? I’m fine,” Charlie promised him as she tried to remove the lens, but her damn hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“I’m not,” he said tightly as he laid the flowers on the kitchen island in front of her.

Slowly exhaling, Charlie closed her eyes and said, “Please,” because she wasn’t sure that she could handle this right now.

“Baby, look at me,” Devin said, but she didn’t want to look at him, not right now when she was struggling not to lose it.