I never outwardly got the feeling that her father approved. But, objectively, I doubted most good fathers ever thought any guy was good enough for their little girls.
He might not have loved me, but he was okay enough with me that he agreed to let Louana—and pay—for us to go to Turks and Caicos on a trip with friends. But, in the end, Louana had her own villa. Which meant I was in it with her. Something I was sure her parents knew, but still were okay with.
Because, as Evan said, they’d trusted me.
And I’d fucked it all up.
“You’ve seen her,” I told Voss, shrugging.
“Think every chick I’ve seen you with is a knockoff of her,” Voss said, surprising me, making me turn to look at him.
“What?” I asked, surprised.
“Oh, fuck off,” Voss said, shaking his head. “You never noticed?”
Not at all, actually.
I always sort of thought of myself as kind of open opportunity, a guy without a type.
But now that Voss mentioned it, and my mind scanned back to faces, yeah, they’d all been dark-haired, deep-set-eyed, and gorgeous.
But none came anywhere close to being her.
No one ever could.
“Damn,” Voss said, nodding. “I’m dense, man, but that puts me to shame.”
He wasn’t dense.
If anything, Voss was probably the smarter and wiser of the two of us. His silence just made it hard to tell at times.
“It was subconscious, I guess,” I said, turning back to the eggs.
“She’s here now,” Voss said as he made his way to the doorway.
“And she hates me,” I agreed, adding the eggs to the pan.
“Figure there’s a reason they say that shit about hate and love,” Voss said before walking away.
I went ahead and… didn’t think about that.
I lucked out a few minutes later as some of the guys started to get up and roll in, a couple of them telling me about the events of the night before, since I hadn’t heard much of it from anyone who’d been there.
They kept my mind occupied while I finished making breakfast.
But then it was time to bring the food into Louana and her mother.
My damn stomach was in knots as I went into the prospect room.
“Oh, good. Her tea,” Evan said, nodding at me.
“I brought her a pain pill. If she can take that with the supplements you’ve brought her.”
“She needs it,” Evan said, gesturing to Louana who was on her side with her bad hip and thigh upward, but with her face buried in a pillow.
“How does it look?” I asked, putting the tray down on the table.
“It looks… alright. For what it is,” Evan clarified. “You were smart not to stitch it. I cleaned it out and used a little salve on it. Hence this,” she said, waving at her daughter who was trying to muffle her whimpers into her pillow.
“You had to do it,” I told her when she gave her daughter a worried look. “But, in the future, if you want, I can be the bad guy.”
“I might need you to on occasion if I can’t be here early in the morning. I just lost one of my favorite employees to a wellness spa in Vermont. So I’m temporarily short-staffed.”
“I don’t mind. Really,” I told her. “I’m sure you know more about this shit than I do, but I’ve done my fair share of wound care over the years.”
“Like that one on your neck?” Evan asked, her keen eyes going there. “Was it bad to start with or did it get infected before it healed, because it is an ugly scar.”
“The former,” I told her. “It healed kind of pretty, all things considered.”
“Don’t make me feel bad for you,” Evan said with a sigh.
“Don’t. You don’t need to. I brought most of my problems onto myself.”
To that, she gave me a nod.
“Is the tea cool enough for her to drink, so she can take the pill?”
“Yeah. And she has an antibiotic too. Again, if it doesn’t counteract.”
“It won’t, but give it two hours before you offer that to her.”
“Okay. Noted.”
“You won’t forget?” she pressed.
“No. I have nothing going on but this today,” I told her since Brooks had gone missing yet again.
“Okay. Good. I am going to come back with her dad later today. Maybe after dinner,” she said. “Before she is due for another pill, so she won’t be out cold. Though, she needs her sleep.”
“She’s not doing anything today but watching movies and staying her ass in bed,” I said.
“The first part she will enjoy. The second part…”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I know. It’s hard to keep her down.”
“The pain is pretty fierce today, so I don’t think she’s planning on getting up for a while unless she really needs to.”
“You don’t have to worry too much, Evan,” I said, giving her direct eye contact. “I am going to keep an eye on her for you.”