She took Belle down the hall and into her office, where she closed the door to shut out the craziness.
“Wow, it’s messy in here,” Belle said.
Gypsy leaned back against the door and took a minute to breathe. She hadn’t had time to clean or organize or generally keep her own shit together, and here she was corralling Wyatt’s shit. Nothing had made her this angry in a long damn time. “Yes, it is.”
She forced her mind off Wyatt and onto the candidates coming in for interviews tomorrow. She was beyond fried, and if something didn’t break soon, she was going to end up in a pink padded room.
Belle wandered the office looking at the supplies lined up on the shelves and checking out boxes of promotional material, then made her way to the box of toys Gypsy kept for Cooper. Gypsy searched her desk, dug around, and uncovered her laptop. “Okay. Beauty and the Beast.”
She searched Amazon Video for the “real” Beauty and the Beast. Maybe, with Belle absorbed in the movie, Gypsy could get some paperwork done. That might distract her from the hard-liquor cash sliding down the drain in the bar.
“Gypsy,” Belle said, “can we play diner instead?”
Gypsy glanced at Belle over the laptop. “What?”
Belle held an order pad and a pen, and the girl had the same damn smile as Wyatt—the one that could melt steel. “Diner. I’ll be your waitress.”
Wyatt’s voice permeated the walls as he warmed up his crowd with chitchat. Followed by laughter and cheers.
Gypsy rested her chin in her hand and sighed. She was too tired to focus on paperwork anyway. “A princess waitress. That’s original.”
She stood and looked around. Gypsy picked up an apron and knelt in front of Belle, tying it around her little waist. Wyatt’s acoustical guitar pierced the walls, followed by the rich sound of Wyatt’s voice. A voice that could turn everything inside her into marshmallow.
“There you go,” Gypsy said. “You put the pad and pen in this pocket, and let’s get you some straws to put in this one.” Belle’s eyes sparkled with excitement, and Gypsy’s heart squeezed. She couldn’t fathom a mother being so messed up she would abandon this beautiful creature. “Do you and your mom play diner?”
Belle’s smile faded. “Not anymore. She’s always tired, and she sleeps a lot. Playing just makes her sad.”
Gypsy chastised herself for judging Belle’s mother. Francie had been raising Belle mostly on her own, and as soon as her husband finally came home to stay, he killed himself. Gypsy couldn’t begin to understand what toll that took on a person. Wyatt hadn’t ever shown her the depth of his pain. She’d only caught glimpses of it over the last year.
Tonight was the first time she’d seen beneath that protective mask he kept on at all costs. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the exposure, but she sure didn’t like the way he’d come to her for help as soon as that mask slipped.
Fucking men.
She really had to work on being less…approachable, dependable. Or maybe just less of a sucker.
“Okay,” Belle said, “you go sit at your desk like you’re working, and I’ll come take your order.”
Gypsy pushed to her feet and rounded her desk. Belle went to the door and disappeared. Gypsy barely got into her chair before Belle reentered the office, chin high, step fluid and slow, as if she were walking the red carpet. She came to a stop beside Gypsy and broke out her biggest smile yet, complete with dimples and sparkling blue eyes. She curtsied, which was both adorable and amusing. Then she poised her pen over her pad and gave Gypsy an all-encompassing attention that reminded Gypsy of Wyatt—when he wanted something. “What may I get you, ma’am?”
The twang in ma’am made Gypsy laugh. The girl had the same charismatic, likeable energy as her uncle.
Gypsy rested her chin in her hand and glanced at the ceiling. “Let’s see.” A massage. Forty-eight hours of sleep. Two uninterrupted days on the beach. “I’ll take a grape Nehi.”
Belle made a face so funny, Gypsy laughed. “All right, how about sassafras.”
The girl’s nose wrinkled. “Sass-what?”
Grinning, Gypsy reached out and stroked Belle’s perfect cheek. “I’ll take a Shirley Temple, please.”
4
Wyatt’s set had only taken about an hour, but the autographing session afterward had taken just as long.
He’d escaped in a lull between people approaching for autographs and swaggered down the hall toward Gypsy’s office with his guitar strapped to his back. And, yeah, he was admittedly swaggering, because nothing made him feel as high or amazing as performing. Especially when he got to see Gypsy in the same night.
But as he laid his hand on the knob of the office door, he thought of Belle, and his heart sank. Then he thought of Gypsy, and it fell another notch. She had every right to kick his ass.
All his air rushed out of his lungs. He took a step back, pulled out his phone, and dialed Francie’s number. But her phone was either off or her battery was dead, because his call went straight to voicemail.