I was sleeping in my old room at the house, but I felt more like a guest than a resident. I walked around those halls like a visitor these days, only there for a short amount of time.
Everyone else had found their place in life and here I was, still wandering around looking for mine. In a nutshell, my time home had truly sucked so far. There was no elegant way to phrase it.
These had been some of the loneliest weeks of my life—even if I had been surrounded by family and people who loved me.
Every morning when I woke up, for just a split second, I’d forget that I wasn’t in Arizona anymore and I was happy. I was burning for news from there, desperate to know if Raquel and Avery had saved the shop and if Clyde was doing okay. I worried about Frieda and the maintenance I hadn’t gotten around to. My loyalty card for the hardware store was gathering dust in my wallet, but I hadn’t even taken it out yet. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to just chuck it away, and instead, I was carrying it around like some kind of talisman.
Most of all, however, I thought about Raquel. I missed her something awful and I wanted to call her so badly, even if just to hear her voice, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, so I swiveled toward the window again.
Severing all ties with her felt like cruel and unusual punishment. I knew it was better this way, for both of us, but shit. This cold-turkey stuff was hard.
Almost every night, I lay awake, scrolling through the pictures I had of her on my phone, and honestly, I’d almost cried a few times. I’d never known it could hurt this badly to lose someone who was still alive.
That was probably the worst part. Raquel was still out there, living her life, only a phone call away, but I couldn’t talk to her. I couldn’t be with her. It was fucking awful.
If I knew how to play the guitar, I’d have written a dozen sad country songs about her. As it was, however, I was just sad. Nothing musical or country about it.
I spun back to my computer, but a notification popped up on my phone, so I reached for that instead of getting back to work. As soon as I saw the alert waiting for me, I froze. A hundred thousand dollars had just left one of my accounts.
Realization hit just moments later. Raquel had finally cashed the check.Thank God.
I felt a slow grin creep across my lips as my head dropped forward, my hands coming up on autopilot to scrub across my face.She finally cashed it. Hell yeah.
All this time, I’d been so worried about her, Avery, Clyde, and Quartz Pass Autobody, but the money being withdrawn told me she was moving forward. It was a massive relief.
In fact, it made me feel better than anything else these last couple weeks, because even though I was sitting in a glass tower thousands of miles away, I knew she was using that money for something important.
A few hours later, I was still relishing the relief when my phone rang and Frieda’s name popped up on my screen. I grinned as I picked up, wondering if she was going to try to find a way to boss me around despite all the states between us.
“Hey, Frieda,” I said. “This is a surprise.”
“Theodore.”
I sighed. “Nobody calls me that unless I’m in trouble.”
“Who says you’re not?”
“Fair enough.” I leaned back in my chair, my eyes on the city I was suddenly wishing more than ever had been a desert. “How are you?”
“Terrible.”
Alarm swept through me, my chest constricting with worry. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“You left without finishing your to-do list,” she said as if it should’ve been obvious. “How the hell am I supposed to get up on a ladder? I’ll break a hip.”
I smiled as the worry eased. “Yeah, that’s probably not the best idea.”
“The gutters on the east side of the motel still need to be painted,” she said. “Are you coming back, or am I going to have to do it myself?”
“Don’t do it yourself,” I said immediately, but I wouldn’t put it past her to attempt it anyway. “I can’t really drive across the country to come paint gutters for a weekend. I’m sure there’s someone else in town who can help.”
“Why is it that your generation doesn’t know what it means to take pride in your work?” She let out a heavy sigh. “Leaving things halfway done is not how we used to operate in my day.”
“Sorry.”
“You should be,” she said, but then launched into town gossip without even pausing to take a breath. “Mrs. Delgado’s grandson got engaged. They’re having the reception at the cafe. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
She didn’t wait for me to respond. “Harvey finally convinced Eric at the hardware store to expand their gardening section. They’re trying to get Randy to help with the new fencing that needs to be constructed, but you know Randy.”
