“Evie, my darlin’,” Dad murmured, and I had to give it to him, he sounded mortified.

But he said no more.

“And Snag had some fun things to share while we were enjoying our time together, Dad. Including you and Mick being in a competition to be the worst drug dealer in Denver. Which leads me to ask, does the dispensary know you’re still dealing, Dad?”

“Evan, now—”

“No!” I snapped. “I was kidnapped at gunpoint today!”

My father again fell silent.

I did not return the favor.

“Now, you get on your goddamned phone and you sit down with your loser friends and you share that I do not have that bag. I didn’t want that bag in the first place, but now it’s gone, and it’s got not one thing to do with me. You do that and you spread that wide and you ask them to keep that message rolling through the underbelly of Denver and I keep silent about your extracurricular activities so you can continue to hang with your brethren at the dispensary. You don’t do that, I’ve had occasion to meet a number of policemen during the Adventures of Evie this week. And I think they’ll be very intrigued to hear how my loving father makes his cash.”

He assumed his not-oft-used stern fatherly tone.

“Evan, listen to me—”

I didn’t listen to him.

I carried on lecturing.

“And one last important note, your line of credit at the Bank of Evan Gardiner is closed. I need a new mattress and a new couch and new plates, but I also need to ascertain if Mag actually is into women wearing high heels, because if that leads to sexy times, I’ll consider it.”

Before he could say a word, I disconnected.

I then blocked his number, after which I scrolled up to my mother and hit go.

She answered with, “I am not talking to you.”

“Good,” I retorted. “Because I’m no longer listening to your abuse, but I have a few things to say.”

“My what?” Her voice was rising.

“I was kidnapped at gunpoint today, Mother.”

Another moment of absolute silence.

“I was tied to a chair, interrogated and hit,” I shared. “The man I’m seeing, a man I’ve come to care about a lot in a short period of time, was shot. He’s fine. He then went on with his friends to rescue me. But that was my day, the culmination of a week of having to deal with the shit that Mick landed me in.”

“Jesus Christ,” she whispered.

“Your son is a drug dealer, and if you choose to champion him regardless of the ridiculous and felonious decisions he makes about how he’s going to lead his life, then fine. That’s your choice. But I’m no longer going to bail him out and I’m no longer going to bail you out when you overspend and use me to continue lying to your husband. It is truth that betraying the trust of intimacy between spouses is the worst betrayal you can make. But sustained and deliberate lying is also the betrayal of intimacy spouses share, so I do not condone Rob fucking you over, but wake up, Mom. Not only did you start it, you keep doing the same.”

With that, I hung up, and since she was already blocked, I didn’t have to complete that chore.

So, I stopped pacing, stood there and stared unseeing in front of me, remembering my conversation with Mag while I was making us hamburgers.

It had been on the tip of my tongue to ask him how you scraped off family that was bleeding you dry.

At that time, I hadn’t been ready for his answer because that would lead to expected action and I wasn’t ready for that either.

Now, apparently, I’d figured it out.

And I didn’t know what to expect, but my hope was, it would make me feel free.

It didn’t.

It made me realize in a profound way what I did not have, all they’d taken from me, my complicity in that, and the fact those conversations were utterly no fun, and having them might just be the last thing they’d forced my hand to do.

I felt something land on my head and I jumped.

When I looked up and around, I saw it was Tex’s hand.

“That wasn’t easy,” he low-boomed. “But you stuck to your guns. I’m proud of you, girl.”

His words.

Those words.

No one had ever said them to me.

And so, in hearing them for the first time at age twenty-seven, I couldn’t stop it.

I burst out crying.

But unlike the many times I’d done it before, the instant it started, I was engulfed in a bear hug that communicated caring, warmth and pride.

Which made me cry even harder.

Those arms didn’t loosen.

My phone in my hand rang and they still didn’t loosen when I forced it between Tex and me to look at the screen.

It said “Stepdad Rob.”

“It’s my stepdad,” I mumbled.

“I think you’ve had enough for today, darlin’,” Tex advised in what I read as a Tex Gentle Tone. And I read that because it was kinda loud, but it rumbled in his chest in a way I just knew, if a baby was resting against that chest while he spoke in that voice, the noise would make no difference. That baby would be lulled right to sleep.

I looked up at him. “I don’t think I should draw it out. I just want to have it done and move on.”

“Your call, Evie,” he said.

I nodded.

He let me go.

And, swiping carefully at my eyes with one hand (because I felt I had a shiner, maybe two), I took the call with the other.

“Rob,” I greeted and didn’t let him get a word in, especially when I heard my mother wailing in the background. “No offense, but I said all that needed to be said to Mom.”

“Okay, Evie, all right, sweetheart.” He was speaking fast. “But please don’t hang up because I don’t know what’s happening. She’s in a state like I’ve never seen and she’s sayin’ you been kidnapped and shot at?”

“No. I was just kidnapped while cleaning up my apartment that was searched, nearly everything in it destroyed, and the man I’m seeing who was helping out, he wasn’t only shot at, he was shot. Through and through to the shoulder.”

“Holy fuck,” Rob breathed out.

“And I’m in a mood, so take this as you will, I wouldn’t normally get involved, but Mom knew. She knew my apartment had been destroyed and she didn’t give a fuck. She phoned me and hurled words at me, ticked I didn’t keep those drugs safe for Mick. They got them, after jacking up my car to steal them from my trunk. I’ll grant she couldn’t know that would move onward to me being kidnapped and Danny shot. But since Mick is a drug dealer and he involved me in his work, it isn’t a big surprise either.”

“Did you know?” he asked, not me.

“Is that her? Is that my Evie?” I heard Mom ask in the background. “Let me talk to her.”

“Did you know about her apartment and those drugs being taken?” Rob pushed.

“Let me talk to her, darlin’. I gotta know where she is. I gotta see with my own eyes my baby’s all right,” Mom pleaded.

“Woman!” Rob roared so loud, I had to take the phone away from my ear. “Did you know she was in this kind of danger?”

“Rob—”

“Answer me, goddamn it!”