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“Looks to me like you’re thinkin’ of somebody.”
“He’s not mine, though.”
She hummed but didn’t challenge me. There wasn’t much else to say. Ryan had taken my dreams and listened and talked as if they would undoubtedly happen. But hadn’t he shot down what Darlene wanted to do?
No, I remembered. She’d made that decision on her own, and he’d supported her. So maybe they had both made their own choices and did what this woman was talking about. They’d adapted to the change because they had to. Because they’d each chosen a path with the resolve to stay on it.
“Most of the time, you gotta have the money to have the power to do what you want. Otherwise, all the things you wanna do are like secondhand shopping. You get what you can get and don’t complain ’cause at least what you got don’t have a bloodstain on it.”
My brow wrinkled as I considered that last part. She was right, though. You had to have money to do what you wanted how you wanted. Would I have made worse choices for the sake of money? I hadn’t with Andrew, but this job wasn’t about money but my life. If I already had the life I wanted, would it be about money then? Maybe after we were done chasing dreams, money was all that was left. And when money is all there is to think about, maybe we forget to think about what it meant in the first place.
Her laugh stole away my train of thought. It was a loud one.
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine. Just stick to it. Make a decision and don’t look back, or you’ll find a lot more regrets followed you on the way.”
The voice over the intercom announced boarding for a flight, and the woman beside me glanced upward with pursed lips and listened. She smiled softly. “Better go,” she said, “but I’m sure you’ll be fine. Follow your heart and never think twice once you make your choices, or you’ll end up like me.” She flicked red-painted nails up in a flourish at her polished face. “Gorgeous, of course, but wasting away after years of chasing regrets.”
“Is your boyfriend that regret?”
She winked. “Maybe not for much longer. Take care now.”
When she walked away, I stared at her blonde hair swishing across her back and wished I’d asked for her name. She hadn’t given me a straight answer, but I at least felt more confident that I could make the right decision for myself. I’d headed for Dallas thinking I had all the answers ready and just needed the question, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe I knew exactly what I was looking for and was just looking for the right person to ask.
My phone vibrated with a text, then almost immediately after, another came through. The first one came from Ryan, but I marked it as read and opened the next. It was from my mom.
“I’m here.”
Chapter 22
Ryan
“I don’t want to hear it,” came the voice on the other side of the door.
“Hear what?” I asked. “I just said we need to talk.”
“Yeah, and what good has that done us in the past?”
I suppressed a groan and reminded myself that banging on the door wouldn’t do any good either. “Please, Darlene? I need your help, or I swear I’m going to do something we’ll both hate me for.”
That got her attention because the thump of her bare feet reached me from outside and got louder until she stopped at the door. When it opened, she wore a bored expression bent on finding something to say, but without the fuel for her torch, I at least had a chance to remain civil.
“We really need to talk.”
“You said that already,” she said and stepped onto the porch. As the door closed, I wondered what happened to the part of me that used to love her. It was real for a long time. “What?”
“When did our love turn into hate?” I hadn’t hoped to open with that, but the surprised look on her face gave me hope that it was the right place to start. The beginning.
She sighed. “This isn’t about that girl, is it? You can date whoever you want, you know. We’re divorced.”
The mention of Christie made my gut twist, but I ground my teeth together to withhold the initial thought that they’d plotted behind my back. If that were true, I owed it to my family to find out for sure. “So youhavemet her.”
“Yeah, sure. Did she not tell you or something?”
“I found out last night.”
“So? You weren’t cheating. What’s the problem?”
I followed her to the bench but didn’t sit when she did. With my arm braced on the pillar, I leaned into the stretch and exhaled slowly. “I guess nothing. I found out and said some things I shouldn’t have.”
