CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

 

The lights in the small office at the back of The Perky Cup were low, and the air smelled like blueberry muffins freshly topped with crystallized sugar. Seven spun a plate littered with scone crumbs and finished her final bite. No matter how many times she went over the bank account statements for the month, there was one day that she just couldn't figure out.

This month had a day with astronomical sales. Sidney had more than sold out. But that was the problem—he had more than sold out. It was impossible for him to have made as much money on baked goods and coffee as he had. There wasn't enough flour and sugar in all The Perky Cup storage containers to make that many consumables, and on top of that, he had been short-staffed.

She'd gone through the credit card transactions so many times, she had a headache, and everything matched up. There were no weird charges, which left only cash. Which there was a lot of.

She stood up and stuck her head out the door. "Sidney, can you come back here one more time?"

She stared at the list of everything he said he'd sold and what the bank statement reported for deposits. "I hate to beat a dead horse. Again. But there's no way we sold this much. I'm not sure how you have forgotten making and selling an extra"—she hummed as she calculated in her head—"five hundred pastry items in a day, but if this is some sort of charity or you feel bad about what happened and you're trying to…" She let her voice trail off because she had no idea what to say. He didn't have that kind of extra money lying around. "Sidney, what is going on?"

The bells on the front door jingled, and Sidney turned. "I'm going to go make more mystery money. Try not to freak out when you see it at the bank."

Seven went back to her desk, still confused. She could just roll with it, or perhaps she was hyperfocused on a nonissue to avoid thinking about Jax.

Life lesson number… Oh well, she'd lost count by now. Another life lesson learned in very short order: Mental pain was physically anguishing. It had been far too long since she'd seen or talked to Jax, and heartbreak was a real thing. The stars in the sky had lost their diamond shimmer, colors had gone to gray, and maybe she would even look better as a brunette or a blonde.

The door pushed open, and Adelia popped in. "What the hell? I call, and I text, and no answer." She threw her hands out. "Feeling a little neglected, just so you know."

"You're not the only one I'm ignoring if it makes you feel any better."

Adelia's beautiful dark eyes narrowed. "Oh, sweetheart. I know. That's why I'm here. We're going to talk."

Seven shut her accounting book and pushed her calculator away, giving up on the day. Pretty much giving up on everything at that moment except for sulking. She leaned back in her chair, not wanting to hear what Adelia had to say. Seven's dad had been right. Her mind was focused in too many different directions, and she needed to focus only on one thing—her kids, because she screwed up when she tried to do too much else. They wouldn't have been in danger, they never would have been abducted, if she had just stuck to watching them and earning a living. No Mayhem and no falling in love.

"Oh God, you're going to cry. You're worse than I thought," Adelia snipped. "We need to talk about Jax."

Her desk phone rang, and Seven rolled her eyes, not wanting to talk to a vendor, but that was the only thing she was doing because it correlated to providing for her children. "Hang on." She picked up the phone. "This is Seven Blackburn."

"You are alive," Victoria said. "Put me on speakerphone. I want to hear Adelia also."

"That's right, beautiful." Adelia smirked at Seven. "This is an intervention."

Seven rolled her eyes toward Adelia and groaned. "You guys, you're insane. I've been busy."

Adelia put her hands on her hips and inched closer to the desk. "Victoria gave her supportive 'everybody has their own issues to work through' speech before you went to Vegas. Now it's my turn, and my speech is called 'pull your head out of your ass.'"

"Co-sign!" Victoria said from speakerphone, giving her agreement.

"You don't even know what happened. You have no idea what I think or what I'm focused on."

"Wrong," Adelia said. "You're forgetting that Victoria's a private investigator. Whether or not her hands are in casts doesn't matter. The girl's a first-class snoop. We're going to tell you what we know and what we've decided. Then we're going to help you extract that pretty pink head from your derrière."

Seven couldn't handle this conversation. "Or you can leave because I have some banking issues to work through."

Victoria burst out laughing, and Adelia grinned. "We should just hop to it, then. Seems like the crowd's already warmed up."

Curious, she crossed her arms and decided to listen. "Go on."

"Do you know what Sweet Hills does best?" Victoria asked.

"Yeah." Seven laughed as well, noting the irony. "They get in other people's business."

"Victoria talked to Gennita. Glammas don't miss anything, honey. And when Cullen was dropping his loyalty speech, your neighbor picked up every single, arrogant, awful word." Adelia's smile softened. "You can't just dedicate your life to those kids as an excuse to shelter yourself. You can't make everything perfect for them because of what they went through, and even if you could, it won't make up for what you went through."

"Plus," Victoria added, "you'll miss out on the best things."

A knot formed in Seven's throat. "They are the best things."

"No, honey," Adelia said. "Love is. Family is. Stop suffering to make them happy. Otherwise, you've become Taini, and they've become Mayhem. I don't know what your father is in this metaphor other than your internal self-suffering, but you're creating sacrifice to avoid pain."

Seven tried to swallow. She wanted to defend secluding herself away from the world but couldn't.

"Have you talked to Jax lately?" Victoria asked.

Seven shook her head.

"She shook her head," Adelia said for the benefit of Victoria. Then she raised her eyebrows and put her hands on the desk, leaning close to Seven. "We know."

"Of course you do," Seven mumbled.

"Now for the audio presentation." Adelia grabbed her purse. "There's something you need to hear, and you can thank Victoria for harassing her poor husband."

"Eh, he can take it," Victoria said.

"And you can thank Jax," Adelia continued, "for having an attitude bad enough that Titan tapped his phone lines." She pressed the play icon on her cell phone, and Jax's voice flooded the room. Seven wanted to cry simply from hearing the sound of his voice, but the three of them listened as he put Ingrid in place for suggesting Seven didn't want to come to the nursing home, and then paid Sydney to close down the bakery. Jax took care of the costs so the coffee shop wouldn't suffer and made sure her mom would have a trusted face, and he did it all with a few phone calls never meant for her to hear.

"Now that's a Titan man," Victoria whispered.

Seven sat back in her chair, and it wasn't until Adelia handed her a tissue that she realized the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Oh God, I've made a terrible mistake."