13

PAIGE

"Get ready for Christmas," Laura warns me when there's nobody in the store.

Yeah, I can see that not many people usually come. It's a somewhat expensive store, and mostly people come for special occasion outfits. There are beautiful dresses, and we sell these heels that I'm in love with.

"Is it crowded?"

"Too crowded!" she assures me. "Especially on Christmas Eve, you know, last-minute shoppers."

I can imagine; sometimes I'm like that.

I tidy up the clothes in the stockroom a bit, and my phone starts ringing in the purse I keep in one of the lockers in the stockroom. I enter the combination on the lock of my locker, and it doesn't occur to me that it could be something bad when I see Ashton's name. He's left, and I hadn't prepared Owen; surely now he won't let him sleep because he doesn't have his blanket. Taking him away on a Tuesday? To sleep with him?

"Hello, everything okay?" I ask.

"We're at the hospital, I'll send you the address."

"What?!"

My chest tightens, and it hurts.