Free Coming Home- Rock Bay 1 by M. J. O’Shea

smiled. “Why don’t I put both of them on the table?”
“Wanna cookie?” Emmy asked when he’d come in from the dining room.
“No, thanks.” He’d lost all of his chubbiness junior year when he shot up six inches in a semester, but he still had the memory of how it felt to be teased for it.
“You look skinny,” his sister told him encouragingly and pinched his side.
“All work, no time for eating,” he joked.
“Lex, you know that’s not good for you,” his mother called from the kitchen.
“Mom, I’m kidding. I eat all the time. I just run around the shop constantly and burn it off.”
“Speaking of the shop, tell me about this Tally.”
“You mean Tallis Carrington,” Emmy singsonged.
“I’m going to get you,” Lex whispered and waited for his mother’s guaranteed tirade. He wasn’t disappointed.
“You hired Tallis Carrington?” she screeched. “Lex, don’t you remember what that awful boy did to you? I’d heard he was back in town and, oh, the nerve! To ask you for a job, of all people. I can’t believe he even considered it; I can’t believe you did, either, for that matter!”
“He doesn’t know who I am, Mom, and really, you should see him.” Lex paused, then spoke almost to himself. “He’s so different.”
Emmy whipped her head around. “Oh, Lexie,” she whispered. “Not again.”
Shit. Sometimes it sucked having a sister who knew him so well.
“What do you mean he doesn’t know who you are? He spent months terrorizing you, and he doesn’t have the decency to remember it?” His mother’s face had turned an odd shade of hot pink.
“No. I mean, well, I don’t know if he remembers that, but he seriously doesn’t know who I am. The first day he asked what I’d heard about him, like I was a newcomer. Besides, he called me James in high school, because that’s what it said on my ID card, or sometimes Jamie because he could tell it pissed me off. He’d have never known that I went by Lex—never bothered to ask. And you have to admit, I couldn’t be recognized by looks. I look nothing like I did back then.”
“You don’t. Your face is so thin now.”
Lex rolled his eyes. His mother was always on her own personal crusade to feed the world.
“Emmy, can you go get dad? I better eat before I waste away to nothing.”
Lex’s mom swatted him with a towel. “Bring the lasagna in, and I’ll grab the garlic bread. Then we can eat.”
They thankfully dropped the subject of Tallis Carrington for the rest of the meal. Lex could tell it was on his mother’s mind, though. Her face showed it. He was grateful that she’d let it rest but knew that a shop visit wasn’t far off. If there was one thing his mother was, it was protective, and she had a very clear memory of Lex’s year as Tally’s number one victim. He shook his head a bit at that thought. No, he was never Tally’s victim.
Tally was a different person than the dick who’d ruled the school with his gang of apes in lettermen’s jackets. Tally was… real and hardworking and interested in learning new things. Lex couldn’t believe how much the new Tally had superimposed itself in his mind over the old snarling image that had been imprinted there. Now all Lex could see was the way he smiled or how he went out of his way to help as much as he could… oh Jesus. It’s too late.
Lex excused himself soon after dinner was over, claiming early mornings and breakfast rushes as he backed hastily toward the door before another well-meaning intervention could start. In the peace and quiet of his car he admitted what he’d been avoiding all week, especially during the tenseness of Friday night.
“I want him,” he muttered, testing out the words to see how they felt in his mouth. “I want my straight employee who also happens to be the same guy everyone in town hates. Except me.”
Oh, God.
Chapter Five
     
T
HEY ’ D done it. Tally had spent his first afternoon alone at the shop,
    and everybody had survived. Lex had gone