The little Brussels Griffon bounced off my legs in the vestibule, and I knelt down to pet him.
“Justin, he’s so cute!” He licked the underside of my chin and I laughed.
“He’s better now that the mange is gone,” Justin said. “I guess he is pretty cute these days.”
Brad lunged to lick me on the lips, and I fell backward on my bottom and burst into laughter. Justin was beaming from his spot by the door. Then I saw the little girl peeking around the corner. She had wispy brown hair and Justin’s brown eyes. She was barefoot and wore a light blue nightgown.
“Hello,” I said.
She pulled back a little, only one eye visible from the doorframe.
Justin crouched. “Chels, come here.” She paused for a moment, like she was thinking about it. Then she darted into his arms. He scooped her up and stood. “This is my friend Emma. Can you say hi?”
She peered at me shyly as I got to my feet. “Hi,” she said softly.
I noticed a Band-Aid on her knee. “Oh, did you get a boo-boo?”
She nodded.
“Emma’s a nurse,” Justin said. “Maybe she can change your Band-Aid for you later.”
“An Elsa one,” she said, quickly.
“We have those,” Justin said, winking at me.
“I can work with that.” I smiled.
She put her head on Justin’s shoulder and my heart melted a little. He was her safe person. The dog was sitting by his feet now too and I remembered what Maddy said about dogs, that they always tell you who the good people are.
Justin nodded toward the back. “Dinner’s ready. Let’s go eat.”
I followed him through the house. It was a comfortable home—the lived-in kind. The living room had a sofa with a gray tweed slipcover, a multicolored carpet. A dark wood coffee table, a toy bin next to a child-size easel. A backpack was tossed onto a chair, framed family photos sat on a buffet table against the wall.
“Did you ever live here?” I asked.
“Yeah, but not until I was sixteen, so only for a bit. Sarah has my room now.”
“So you lived with Brad longer than you lived in this house.”
“I did,” he said. “We had an almost ten-year streak. There was a three-month period where he was living with his girlfriend Celeste in South Dakota, but it didn’t last.”
“He couldn’t quit you, huh?”
“Not until now.”
The kitchen had a stainless fridge with photos and children’s drawings stuck to the front. There was a blue backsplash and a wooden table to seat six in the breakfast nook. Justin put his sister in a chair with a booster seat and pulled one out for me. Then he moved to the stove and started plating pasta.
“It’s nothing fancy,” he said. “It’s jarred sauce. I kinda spruced it up a bit, put in some red wine and some ground beef. But I did make the garlic bread.”
“It smells good.” My stomach grumbled, and I realized how hungry I was. I’d barely eaten at work. The anxiety of finding out about Neil had killed my appetite.
“So tell me about your day,” he said, over the stove.
I scoffed a little. “Guess who I work with?”
“Who?” He put a red plastic plate of food in front of his sister and gave her a fork.
“Neil.”
He stopped to stare at me. “No way.”
“Yeah. He’s a surgeon. Chief of surgery actually.”
“Are you serious? He’s your boss?”
“The charge nurse is my boss, but Neil could still make my life miserable if he wanted to. So yeah.”
Justin set a cup of juice with a lid in front of Chelsea and put a piece of garlic bread on the plate he was serving and placed it in front of me. The garlic bread was a half of a toasted hot dog bun that he’d smeared with butter and sprinkled with dill and garlic salt. It made me smile. The meal was the kind of thrown-together one Mom used to make. It was comfort food.
It was exactly what I needed.
“Thanks,” I said.
“So are you still worried about the Amber thing?” He handed me a Starbucks napkin and a glass of V8 fruit punch and then sat with his own food.
“I don’t know,” I said, looking at the napkin. “It’s not great.”
He nodded at the napkin. “My mom,” he explained. “I never, in my entire childhood, used a store-bought paper napkin. They were all from fast-food places. Not that we’d eaten out a lot. One or two times a month if we were lucky. But Mom was very good at coaxing extra napkins out of cashiers.”
