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“I know you will, but this is a lot for you to have to take on, Lexa. You should be enjoying your summer off before you have to head back to school.” Her voice turned sad, and her green eyes filled with tears.
Those tears felt like acid being poured right onto my heart. “Mom…I was going to wait until I had everything finalized, but I dropped out of Oregon and enrolled in Trinity. I got my acceptance letter in my email last week.”
If I thought my announcement would dry up her tears, I was wrong. “Really?” she sobbed. “You’re going to stay?”
“You’re not happy?” I asked, feeling tears start to fill my own eyes.
“I’m th-thrilled,” she cried, putting her face in her hands. “I miss you so much when you’re that far away.”
“Mom…” I hugged her again, but I glanced at Dad for help over her shoulder.
His face was tight, his hands balled into fists at his sides, and he couldn’t hide the tears in his eyes. This was killing him just as much as it was me. Mom was so strong, and now her emotions were all over the place, completely out of her control. Dr. Weller had told us this was likely to happen, but I hadn’t really given it much thought. Mom didn’t cry at the drop of a hat. Hell, until recently, I’d rarely ever seen her shed a tear.
Beneath me, she felt small and fragile, and I eased the pressure of my hug, afraid I might hurt her if I wasn’t more careful. But before I could straighten, she wrapped her arms around me, showing me she still had that same strength I’d always relied on. “Thank you, baby. It means so much to me that you’re going to be home from now on.”
A light tap on the door was followed by Aunt Flick coming in with a tray of soup and sandwiches. Walking over, she ignored Mom’s tears as she placed the tray across her lap and then opened the bottle of pain pills on the bedside table.
“I don’t want those,” Mom complained, wiping her eyes as she glared at the little brown bottle. “They make me loopy, and all I do is sleep.”
“Good,” Dad growled, half under his breath. When she shot him a hard look, he shrugged. “You have to stay ahead of the pain. You might not feel any now, but you will soon. Please don’t torture me by having to watch you go through that.”
Her beautiful face softened, and she held out her hand for the pill Aunt Flick offered. Popping it into her mouth, she swallowed it with a drink of the juice on her tray. “Happy?”
“For now.”
While they were distracted, I quickly made my getaway. Walking down the hall to my bedroom, I grimaced when I saw my case full of dirty clothes along with all the new ones I’d bought while in New York. None of them had been purchased by me. Between Anya Volkov and Theo’s mom, Victoria, I hadn’t had to spend a single penny of my own money, even though I’d protested that they didn’t need to buy me anything.
The two women hadn’t taken no for an answer, though, and I knew it was because they thought I was going to be a part of their family soon if they had their way.
Unfortunately for them, this was one thing they wouldn’t be getting their way on. Theo and I were just friends, and that was the way it was going to stay. Not only because I still hadn’t figured out how to turn off what I felt for Ben in the more than two weeks I’d been away from him. But because Theo had his own relationship issues that I wasn’t about to explain to either his aunt or his mother.
Placing my keys by my phone, I started sorting through my case. I hadn’t unpacked when I got home Sunday evening, too anxious about Mom’s surgery scheduled for Monday morning. Then we were at the hospital all day, and I hadn’t gotten back to the house until late last night. I wouldn’t have left when I did, but Dad and the rest of the family had insisted, and I’d driven Max to Tanner and Jos’s before coming home and crashing.
There weren’t just new clothes to be dealt with, but some new makeup and even a few pieces of jewelry. The makeup, I was sort of happy about. After Victoria taught me how to contour to minimize the appearance of my scar, I’d actually started pushing my hair back from my face. I’d never been one to wear a lot of makeup, but after a few lessons, I seriously didn’t recognize myself without the scar being so glaringly obvious now.
Once the dirty clothes were in my hamper, I hung up all the new ones and then grabbed the keys and my purse before heading out. Mom had given me her schedule of when she did each business’s books, and today was Aggie’s normal time.
The parking lot was crowded when I pulled in and tried to find a place to park. The only spot was at the back of the lot near the dumpster. Gagging at the stench coming from all that trash basically cooking in the sun, I hurried into the diner.
As soon as I opened the door, Aunt Quinn was there, asking me how Mom was feeling.
“She’s emotional today. And stubbornly not wanting to take her pain meds, but Dad is watching her like a hawk.” I held up the keys to the file cabinet where Mom kept the diner’s account books. “Hope you don’t mind. I’m going to be taking on some of Mom’s jobs until she’s back on her feet.”
“No, no. Of course not. You go on back to the office, and I’ll bring you something to eat.” She was practically pushing me toward the back now, and I laughed at how strong she was for such a small woman.
“I’m not all that hungry,” I tried to assure her, but she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Okay, okay. But could I use the bathroom first?”
Sighing heavily, she paused and nodded. “Yeah. You might as well. You’re going to see it eventually anyway.”
“See what?” I mused, brows lifted at her.
“He’s in the back,” Aunt Quinn said, as if I should know who “he” was. “And he’s not alone. He hasn’t been alone for over a week now.”
“He?” I muttered, but something clenched in my gut, and I knew exactly who she was talking about—even if I wanted to pretend I didn’t.
“Just put on a smile and don’t let him hurt you,” my aunt commanded as I walked around her.
As I rounded the corner that would take me to the bathroom, I spotted him right in the back. He sat facing the rest of the hungry lunch crowd, but his full attention was on the person sitting in front of him. At my first sight of him in over two weeks, I felt my stomach tighten, and I ached to go over and sit beside him. To tell him how much I’d missed him.
