“I’m not going anywhere until I know Grandma is okay. I can spare some time off,” Mya continued when she saw her aunt about to protest. “I’m between shows right now, and anything else I need to do can be accomplished via email.”
Maureen shrugged her shoulders as they exited the privacy room. “I won’t waste my time arguing. Lord knows you’re just as stubborn as Elizabeth.”
Mya gasped. “You would compare me to that woman?” She put her hand to her chest as if covering a wound. “Now that’s just mean, Aunt Mo.”
As soon as they reentered the waiting room, Corey shot up from his seat. “Is everything okay? I came back from Drusilla’s and you were both gone.”
“The doctor took us to another room to update us on Mama’s status,” Aunt Mo answered. “She’s fine, but they want to keep her to run additional tests.”
Mya saw the way his shoulders wilted with relief and she was struck again by this complete one-eighty. Fifteen years ago, Corey Anderson was enemy number one in her grandmother’s eyes. She’d claimed he was only after one thing and had forbidden Mya to see him. It hadn’t stopped her, of course. Mya had been intrigued; she had craved the taste of trouble.
As a cocky seventeen-year-old, Corey had done everything he could to live up to her grandmother’s low expectations of him. He’d encouraged Mya to sneak out of the house at all hours of the night. He’d snuck liquor from his daddy’s liquor cabinet and gotten her drunk on more than one occasion.
And let’s not forget the biggest trouble of all—her brush with the stork.
Corey had never learned of the pregnancy and, as far as Mya knew, her grandmother still thought the two nights Mya had spent in the hospital was from a vicious stomach bug that had been going around. Aunt Mo was the only one who knew about the baby she’d miscarried at seven weeks. She doubted her grandmother and Corey would be so chummy now if either of them knew about that little incident.
Mya pushed back against the wave of shame that threatened to crash through her whenever she thought of the child she’d never told Corey about, and the heartache it still summoned. It was too long ago to even matter anymore.
Corey’s cell phone trilled. He held up a finger and answered. “Yeah?...Tell me you’re lying.... Damn.” He pocketed the phone. “I need to go.”
“That’s fine, honey,” Aunt Mo said, giving him a hug. “Thanks for bringing Mya.”
Her aunt turned to her. “They’ll probably put Mama in her own room soon, so I’m going to run back to the house to get some clothes, and then come back here for the night. They’ll only let one family member stay, though.”
“I know,” Mya answered. “I’ll go home once visiting hours are over.”
“What time do you want me to come back and pick you up?” Corey asked.
“I’ll call Phil,” Mya answered, knowing her best friend, Phylicia, would drop whatever she was doing to be at her side. “I don’t plan to leave the hospital anytime soon anyway,” Mya said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
A smile, subtle though it was, inched up the corner of his mouth. “No one ever doubted you’d be fine, Peaches.” He kissed Aunt Mo on the cheek. “I’ll see you later. You tell Mrs. Eloise not to scare us like that anymore.”
Mya watched as Corey left the waiting room. She waited until she was sure he was out of earshot before turning to her aunt. “What’s going on here?”
“What?” Aunt Mo asked.
If Mya didn’t spend her life around the theater, she would have bought the innocent act. “Don’t even try it,” she said. “When did you, Corey and Grandma all become best friends? The two of you both hated him.”
“We did not hate him,” her aunt protested. “At least I didn’t. I was just concerned that he was a bit too fast for you. With good reason,” her aunt added with a pointed look. “But all of that is beside the point. Corey’s not the boy he was when you two were in high school.”
“How do you know that? He’s been gone from Gauthier nearly as long as I have.”
“That’s not entirely true,” her aunt said. “Corey visited several times a year when his daddy was still living. He moved back last year to coach the high school baseball team.”
“You still haven’t explained why he’s all of a sudden your new BFF,” Mya said.
“My what?”
“Forget it.” Mya sighed. “I just think it’s strange. Grandma thought those Anderson boys were nothing but trouble back when I was in high school, and now she’s got one cutting her grass? Why didn’t she ever mention him when I called home?”
Her aunt hunched her shoulders. “Maybe she didn’t think it was a big deal to you. As far as Mama is concerned, everything between you and Corey ended after you graduated from high school.”
“It did end after graduation,” Mya stated. “Still...”
Was there a “still”? Corey was nothing more than a guy she’d dated a long time ago. It had been years since she’d seen him, since she’d had anything to do with him. Why should it matter after all these years that he’d moved back to town and ingratiated himself to her family?
A nurse entered the waiting room. “Dubois family?”
“Right here,” Mya called. She and Aunt Mo sprung from their seats like coils in a new mattress. “How is she?” Mya asked the nurse.
“She’s doing well. She’s in room seventeen. Follow me—I’ll take you to her.”
Chapter 3
Corey pulled into an empty parking spot between two Gauthier P.D. cruisers. He noticed his friend Jamal’s shiny silver-and-black quad cab parked a couple of spaces down. He walked through the front doors of the brick building and was greeted by Manny Gilbert. Manny, who had spent his last two years of high school as shortstop for the Gauthier Fighting Lions baseball team, was now a cop.
“Where are they?” was Corey’s greeting.
“In the back. We left them in the cell.”
“Good,” Corey said. “Safer for them to have bars between us.”
“Don’t be too hard on them. We did much worse when we were on the team.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t coaching the team back then. Any stupid crap they get into reflects on me.”
By the time they reached the cell area, Corey could feel the vein in the middle of his forehead throbbing. The three knuckleheads sat shoulder to shoulder on a bench inside the cell. Jamal Johnson stood just outside the cell door.
He and Jamal had been friends for years, ever since they’d played collegiate ball together. Jamal had decided to make Gauthier his new home earlier this year, and he had offered to help Corey out with the baseball team since the school district had turned down Corey’s request to hire another assistant coach.
“So they called you first?” Corey asked Jamal.
His friend shrugged. “Guess they thought I’d go easier on them.”
He nodded toward Manny, then stood to the side as the man disengaged the lock. Corey stepped into the holding cell, bracing his feet apart and crossing his arms over his chest.
“You three really thought I wouldn’t hear about this?”
“Sorry, Coach,” they said in unison.
“What did they do to the house?” Corey directed his question to Jamal.
“Took the porch light out with a BB gun. Covered a few of the windows with black paint. Pissed on the back