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(laughing girl GIF) It’ll be written on my gravestone that Hudson loves Palmer.
She’s always been so hung up on us, even though I’ve explained a million times that Hudson and I were a one-and-done.
Hate to break your heart, but Hudson’s with Theresa and things are getting serious.
Lately I’ve realized how much one of us meeting someone we’re serious about can change our family dynamic. It scares me. I felt the tension radiating off Theresa last night and with good reason. Adley and I bulldozed our way in there, and that was unfair. Maybe we need to set some boundaries. Boundaries have never been an issue before, but maybe this is just the reality of how things need to be.
He’ll break up with her before they get that serious, you watch.
She seems to make him happy.
Not as happy as you.
I open my laptop, staring at my blank screen, then I glance at the time on the top right corner.
OK I gotta go write this book. Thanks for the distraction.
Happy to be a distraction. We need to get together soon.
I’ll text you.
Remember, a hot snowboarder is a great hero.
Bye, Harper!
(laughing girl GIF)
I put my phone on vibrate and shove it under my leg, turning off my cochlear implants. I close my eyes, inhaling and exhaling, trying to ignite something in my mind, some spark of inspiration.
My fingers start typing without me looking at the screen.
He’s the hot up-and-coming Olympic snowboarder, and she’s the reserved single mom. Both are only looking for one thing…
I open my eyes and read the paragraph I wrote, but something feels off. So I grab a notebook from my bag, hoping to sketch out the storyline, see how far I can get it.
I use my usual methods, writing everything and anything that could happen. All the what-if scenarios. I can’t believe Harper got me on this line of thinking. I mean, Matt was great, but he’s not the “hero of a love story” kind of guy. He’s the guy who broke the girl’s heart, so the hero has to mend it and make it whole again.
I press the delete key until I’m back to a blank page.
Blowing out a breath, I think about all the tropes I love. Those are always easier to write.
When nothing helps, I shut my laptop, toss it on the adjacent chair, and walk around the small space, hoping Great-Grandma Dori channels something inside me that will help.
I open drawers and cabinets, not finding much except evidence that Rylan and Calista spent some time here. There’s some Wok For U chopsticks and fortune cookies in a drawer with takeout menus. They love the orange chicken like most of the Bailey clan, but they practically live there during Rylan’s off-season, saying they’ve never found any better Chinese takeout than here in Lake Starlight.
The bedroom is small, with only room for a bed and a dresser. The dresser drawers are all empty, but the closet has poster boards in one corner, slides in another. Being nosy, I go through them and laugh.
Each board is Great-Grandma Dori’s mission board on how to get one of my aunts or uncles together with who she thought was the love of their life. I dig deep into the back and find my own parents’ board. Front and center is a picture of me at only eighteen months.
Sedona and Jamison
Palmer needs her daddy.
It goes through all the steps to help push my parents together. A story I learned as a teenager that made me loathe my parents for keeping it from me all those years. Ultimately, I understood as I got older that relationships are complicated. Especially, since I returned to Lake Starlight much like my mom did—pregnant. The only difference was that my baby daddy was with me, whereas my mom was alone.
Great-Grandma Dori sure went to a lot of work, but her and her best friend Ethel’s planning was flawless. Everything is detailed, all the way down to what they expect will happen to break them up—or what I call the black moment in my books. I wonder who she would’ve seen for me and what her plan would have been. There’s a sad tug on my heart that I’ll never know.
Of course, it would probably be Hudson. Everyone in this town thinks Hudson and I are stupid because we should be a couple. As if it’s that easy to be a couple. Not to mention, I’m not looking for a forever man. I like my life the way it is, and if Hudson and I got together and things went south, there’s no way we could still have the easy co-parenting relationship we do now.
