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“Me neither. Even less now, though.”

Once our coffees were gone, Mike said, “Do you have plans yet? For what you want to do?”

I did the seesaw motion with my hand. “Actually, let me ask your opinion on something.”

We stood and we started to go toward the back of the house. I could hear Mr. Gardner before I saw him.

He was bitching to Dave about the lunch. Jesus Christ.

I stepped into his view and Mike hung back. I appreciated that.

“If you have something to say, you can say it to my face,” I stated calmly.

The man snorted, then spat on the ground and shook his head. “You come here with your money and start demolishing your family’s property? I know your parents—”

“My parents are in Kentucky. Where they wanted to move. They were going to leave this place to rot and use their savings to go, and I offered to buy them out. Above market value, mind you.”

He scoffed. “You flounced out of town and left your poor parents—”

“You know nothing about how my family was. You know nothing about how my parents were behind closed doors.” I could feel myself starting to shake. “You should call them. Ask how they’ve been doing, how they gladly took the money I gave them. Because I’m sure you have their numbers, being that you’re such good friends.”

Something about that made the old man sputter and get red in the face.

I lifted my hand up to stop him from talking. “You know what? You can fuck all the way off my property. You’re not welcome here. Dave can oversee everything about this job. If you come here again, I will make sure I use the fame I have and let everyone know that you’ll gladly take my money but don’t give me any respect back.”

I turned on my heel and walked back around the corner, knowing he wouldn’t dare follow me.

It was a blessing that the workers couldn’t see me, because there were definitely tears running down my face when I got out of the old fucker’s view.

To my surprise, I collided with Mike. He pulled me into his arms and let me fall apart.

It wasn’t a full-on breakdown, I’d done that so many times before in the past, when it came to all the memories of this place. I just let go of the anger and tension I’d carried since the first time Mr. Gardner had sneered at me when they came to survey the job site.

I didn’t mind small towns, but this was the bullshit I couldn’t stand. The knowing everyone’s business while not actually having even half of the details because people, including my parents, put up fronts to look better than they were.

“Thanks,” I said eventually as I got my breathing under control. “You didn’t have to—”

“Wren, you’re one of mine,” Mike said in an incredibly firm, yet gentle, fatherly tone I’d never, ever heard from my dad.

I chuckled wetly as I dug through my pockets for a tissue to clean myself up a little.

“Don’t you have enough kids?”

He laughed. “Yes, definitely. But to be fair, I didn’t have this many when I adopted you.”

When I looked at him, I could see he meant it. That he considered me one of his kids.

I blew my nose and took a deep breath when I was able to, then blurted out, “You know I’m not Wren Paxton, right?”

He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed affectionately. “I know, son. Jenn and I were waiting to see how long you could keep it all up. As amazing as you are at what you did, you kind of fell into it, didn’t you? Picked the first thing you were good at and ran with it to get away from here.” He tilted his head toward the wall next to us.

I put my hand on the chipped paint and sighed. “Yeah. I… it’s not me. Not anymore, at least.”

We heard a truck door slam and the engine start. Good fucking riddance.

“So, what did you want to me to look at?” Mike asked, gesturing behind me.

“Right. Let me show you….”