Out of Focus #SYTYCW15 Top10 Finalist! [COMPLETED]

8| Puppies

Eva rolled her shoulders, shook off the old ghosts that always sprung up whenever she'd had these calls with Jerry. Those calls had grown less and less frequent over the last two years. Soon enough they'd be a relic, tucked away in the awful mess of the past and all her blunders.

Enough, she thought. No good could come from beating herself up over what couldn't be helped or changed. If she was to be punished, she'd certainly paid her dues by now and then some.

Let it go, she mused. Let it go, indeed.

As she pulled into the drive and her girls climbed out the backseat of the car, Eva looked up as Kevin waved, Peter and Tracy in tow and veered their way.

"Hey. Did you hear about Ji Kim's pups?" he asked, squinting against the glare of sun in his eyes. "They're showing them off in the yard today."

"Puppies?" Lucy bounced at her side, pigtails flopping over her shoulders with each spastic movement.

"That's right. They're eight weeks now and ready for homes. We're going to take a look, aren't we?" he said to his own children. "You guys want to join us?"

"Momma, can we go see? Can we, can we, can we?"

Eva might have been tempted to say no, to pass on the offer and haul her girls inside, had it not been for a soft, hesitant voice. One she didn't hear very often, speak up from behind her. A sound almost swallowed up entirely by Lucy's giddy squeals.

"I'd like to go."

Eva whipped around and Payton took a quick step back, eyes lowering to the tips of her feet. Of her three, Payton was the shyest, most gentle and kind. Three months away from turning ten, she was starting to lose that childlike roundness in her cheeks and taking on the awkward, gangly lines of a kid about to shoot into adolescence.

Outside of school, when answering a question in class, Payton was painfully quiet and said one word to Lucy's dozen.

"Alright, sure. Why not? Let's drop off your stuff inside first, okay? Kevin, no sense waiting on us. We'll see you there."

She caught the look in his eyes, the hesitation, but thankfully Peter and Tracy piped up, too eager and excited to be held back much longer.

"Yeah. Okay guys, okay. We'll...see you." Eva didn't have to look back to know that Kevin was frowning after her. She could feel the weight of his eyes-a skill she'd learned out of necessity. He'd thought to use this opportunity to create a tag along situation, a chance to worm his way into spending time with her and the girls, obviously with the intention of working her in to finally taking him up on an offer of a date.

He wasn't the first to try and fail. But the man was certainly persistent. Many had slammed into the high walls of her stubbornness and limped off, never to be seen or heard from again. Not Kevin. What the hell he saw in her, she couldn't begin to fathom.

Between the ill-fitting wardrobe and god-awful haircut, Eva had done everything she could make herself as unappealing as possible to the opposite sex.

Alyssa probably would have liked him, might even have tried to talk her into giving him a chance. But Eva couldn't justify stringing him along merely because he was...safe. Decent. A good dad. No, avoiding men was safest. Best.

She'd dipped her toe in the pool once, and look what that got her? A couple of times Eva had been tempted to slip out for a night to the mainland and indulge in heated, reckless, anonymous sex.

But paranoia was a bitch, and an effective cure to kyboshing her libido.

She'd skilfully used the ploy of snacks and bathroom breaks to stretch out another twenty minutes of insurance before they headed out, catching Kevin and his kids on the way back, as she'd hoped.