I mean, he showed up on the ranch with his daughter in tow, talking about how he enrolled her in my camp. Then he told me, yet again, how he doesn’t plan on leaving. I swear to God the universe is gaslighting me.
Rachel
How did you not know he’d signed up? You’ve been monitoring that list like a hawk.
Cleo
Apparently, he used her mom’s last name.
Rachel
Ah
Well
Cleo
Very insightful. Thank you for your wise words. *eyeroll emoji
My phone vibrated in my hand, and I quickly swiped to answer it.
“Okay, you can’t just drop that on me in a text message,” she said, huffing slightly. Her voice was breathy and low, like she’d just gotten done running a mile. “I don’t know what you expected.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, looking at the time. It was well past ten, which wasn’t late per se, but Rachel was almost always in bed by this time. She’d always been an early riser. “You sound a little?—”
“I’m good,” she rushed out, cutting me off. “Now give me a rundown on everything that happened today.”
So, I did. I told her every single detail from the moment I looked up and saw Grady standing there with Charlie in tow, to the moment I watched him pick her up, scanning the front lawn and leaving with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes when he didn’t find what he was looking for.
When he didn’t findme.
The thought alone nearly made me laugh, because all of this was beyond insanity. Why couldn’t I just suck it up and put the past behind me? Why did he still have this freaking pull on my heart, the capability of turning me into a bumbling idiot who couldn’t stop sweating at the mention of his name?
Honestly, I was overreacting. He wasn’t looking for me. He wasn’t sad. No, it was just my mind giving me the slightest hintof hope so I’d be disappointed yet again when he packed up and left in his stupid, shiny new truck.
It was hard for me to unblock his number. I didn’t know why I’d felt so embarrassed when his call went straight to voicemail. We both knew it wasn’t going to go through, but that knowledge sat unspoken between us like a bomb waiting to go off.
Now that nothing was keeping him away, I was all too aware of the silence on his end. There’d been no texts or calls to make sure they’d go through. No bullshit questions about the camp to get me to respond like I thought there would be.
It was silent, just like this stupid house.
“Wow,” Rachel said. “That’s… a lot.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered, reaching for the worn daisy on my desk. I squeezed it, feeling the dried edges crack beneath the pressure.
The silence lingered for a moment before she hesitantly spoke again. “Maybe this is a good thing.”
My laugh was hollow. “Yeah, okay. In what world is Grady freaking Wilde showing back up in my life a good thing?” Surely, she was joking, right?
“I dunno, Cleo. Maybe the universe is giving you a chance?—”
“A chance at what?” I asked, instantly wincing at my tone. It was harsher than I intended, but I didn’t apologize.
She sighed. “Aren’t you tired of spending your life hating him?”
I shook my head. “There’s no way?—”
“Nope. Stop,” she said sharply. “Think about it, Cleo. You’ve been hung up on this man for over twenty years. He was your first love. Your first everything. Don’t you think it might warrant a conversation?”
