“Okay.” A small frown framed my neighbor’s mouth. “Lemme take that,” he said, even as his hands went to mine.

I shook my head. “It’s fine. I got it.”

The downturned corners of his mouth went flat. Dallas blinked, those eyes of his sliding from one of mine to the other as if he was trying to measure something. Maybe he was. My stubbornness. “I’ll take it,” he finally said slowly, carefully grabbing ahold of the grocery bag handles, wrapping them around his own wrists as his gaze stayed on me.

I couldn’t even find it in me to keep protesting, to tell him I could take the bags on my own and let him know he’d done enough, that I didn’t need his help. He didn’t need to come into my house and feel all weird or make up some other thing in his head about me stalking him. But I didn’t have the fight. I just followed after him, stiff, stiff, stiff. I unlocked the door and watched as he went in while I grabbed the rest of the bags from the car and followed after him.

I was fine. She was never coming to my house again, and if she did, it would be years from now. This was how it always worked with her. She’d show up and years would pass before we ever saw her again.

Dallas was in the kitchen taking things out of the bags when I found him. My heart thudded a little and my stomach was still unsettled. “You really don’t have to do that. I can do it.”

“Okay,” was his simple reply, even as he kept going.

I sighed. “Really. You don’t have to. I don’t want you feeling weird being in here. I swear, I’m not trying to do anything.”

Those big, callused hands paused in their motion. The breath he let out was so deep I could hear it. “I know you’re not.”

I was so distracted by Josh’s mom, I couldn’t even think of a comeback or focus on the strained silence between us. Shame filled me from my belly button to my chin, but I knew I had to say something to him about what had just happened. “Thank you for that out there.” Yeah, it sounded just as awkward as I was afraid it would.

He finally glanced up at me through long, spiky eyelashes I’d never noticed before. “She’d been parked outside your house for a while,” he explained casually. “I thought something wasn’t right.”

His comment only made me feel slightly guilty for eavesdropping on the conversation he’d had with the woman in the red car, his maybe-separated, maybe-almost-divorced wife. I had no business knowing about her, much less thinking about her when I had something genuinely more important to focus on. Fucking Anita.

She couldn’t take Josh. She couldn’t. There was no way, I reminded the lump that had formed in my stomach.

Maybe I should call his school tomorrow or talk to his teacher about the situation so they could be more vigilant with who he went home with.

“Is there something I should know?” he asked quietly, more gently than any other sentence I’d yet to hear come out of his mouth.

Was there? Palming my forehead, I closed my eyes and willed my heart to beat slower.

Something metallic clanked against the kitchen countertop. I could picture him taking cans of soup out and setting them there, keeping those big hands busy. “I can help, if you tell me what you need.”

He was offering to help me after he hadn’t been able to get away from me fast enough. Who would have known? Who would have fucking known?

Tears seemed to fill my closed eyes, but I wiped them away as I dragged my hand down my face. At what point had I turned into such a crybaby? When I opened my eyes again, my attention went to the cabinet in front of my face. The words out of my mouth were the truth. Lies and I weren’t friends. “That was Josh’s biological mom,” I told him steadily.

He didn’t say anything.

Turning around to face him, I found him with his hand on one of the cans I must have heard him taking out of a plastic bag. I met his eyes for a moment as I took one of the bags next to him and started pulling things out of it. “He’s not supposed to see her any more. She tried taking him out of daycare when he was three, and we had to put a restraining order against her. She hasn’t done anything like that since then, but she only comes around every few years.” I shrugged and balled up the plastic bag when I was done with it. I squeezed it in my fist and swallowed as I looked up at him over my shoulder, shrugging again. What else was there to say?

“Okay,” he said, damn near softly. Those hazel eyes locked on mine. There was only a tiny crease between his eyebrows then. “Okay,” he repeated on an exhale that seemed nearly painful. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

My mouth formed the shape of a smile that wasn’t really one. What a mess. “Well, thank you for that. I can’t—” God, this entire situation made me awkward. A part of me still couldn’t wrap my head around her showing up after so long. Why would she do that? When she’d shown up in the past, it had always been to troll on Rodrigo. I genuinely didn’t think that she had some deep love for Josh. Then again, what did I know? I would probably do the same thing if I were in her shoes. We all made mistakes we regretted. “I really appreciate it.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I wasn’t gonna leave you to handle her alone.” His hand went up to touch the back of his neck in a gesture that didn’t seem as casual as it should have. He probably didn’t like getting involved in things that didn’t include him. I couldn’t blame him. But the thing he said next explained it. “I owe you.”