AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But why? Why Mom? Why now?”
His father’s head dropped. “I don’t know, Son. I just don’t know.”
For the first time in a week, Alex looked at his father.Reallylooked. His clothes were wrinkled, his jawline scruffy with more than a single day’s growth, and his shoulders were slumped. Their family patriarch, who had yet to meet a battle he didn’t think he could win, looked tired and defeated.
And the last thing he probably needed to deal with in the midst of his personal hell was a defiant son refusing to listen. Alex resumed his seat beside him.
“We’ll find a way to fight this,” he said, pulling his father into a tight hug. “Whatever it takes, whatever we have to do, we’ll help Mom fight this.”
His father nodded, his grip tightening around Alex’s back. And for the first time in his life, Alex Wellington heard his father cry.
*
Mia looked upfrom the spelling quizzes she was grading at their dining room table, hearing her cell phone buzz with a new text alert. Hopefully, this one was from Alex. She was anxious to hear how his mother was doing.
After digging under several stacks of papers, she located the phone but found the latest text wasn’t from Alex. It was from Brooklyn. Again. She’d sent Mia several throughout the morning, all containing varying degrees of the same question: when she would be allowed to drive home. Those didn’t bother her. In fact, texts like that warmed her mama’s heart. The texts from three of her coworkers, however, had her feeling like the town spotlight was fixed on her.
Is it true you’ve had a man staying at your place the past two weekends? Inquiring minds want to know.
Who’s this out-of-town Romeo we’re hearing about and when do we get to meet him?
Rumor has it you’ve fallen for a guy from Indy. Please tell me you’re not leaving us!
She should have known it was only a matter of time before the rumor mill started churning with Alex news. Guess it hadn’t done them any good, hiding his car in her garage. But how to respond? If she said nothing, they’d just pounce on her at school tomorrow.
She thought about asking Del for advice, since she and her rebel ways had been regular gossip fodder for years, but then opted against it. Del didn’t care what people thought of her and did as she pleased. Mia wasn’t wired that way. So, she called the only other person in town who’d known Alex back in the day: Robyn.
“Girl, you have the town all abuzz right now. You got three texts, and I got even more.”
“You know I hate being in the spotlight,” Mia said. “So, how do I get out of it?”
“That depends—are you staying in Bourbon Falls or moving to Indy?”
Mia snorted. “Can you seriously see me living in Indianapolis? I’d get lost on a daily basis in a city that big.”
“True. You struggled enough on campus, and that was a fraction of the size. And I’m glad to hear you’re not planning to go, because I’d be all sorts of unhappy if our favorite two babysitters skipped town.”
“Favorite and cheapest.” Mia laughed, pushing back from the table. “No, Brooklyn and I aren’t going anywhere. Heck, I don’t even know if this thing with Alex will even last.”
She rose to look out her kitchen window, smiling at the pristine snow in her backyard. Not a single footprint to mar the surface, just a blank canvas, waiting to be used. Just like her future with Alex. Well, until she’d seen that text yesterday. Now she wasn’t so sure everything was as picture-perfect as she’d thought.
Robyn’s voice softened. “Are things not going well?”
“Actually, they’re going really well. Almost too well.” She turned from the window and walked down the hall to her bedroom. Everywhere she looked, she saw Alex. Where he’d held her, where he’d pleased her. Where he’d slept, and even where he’d shrieked about the tiniest spider that’d snuck past the hall. “What if it doesn’t last, Robyn? What if something goes wrong and I’m stuck with nothing but a handful of memories again?”
“Girl, I stayed quiet while you put yourself in solitary confinement these past few years. Listened while you tried to justify why getting back out there was a bad idea. That you shouldn’t date because you needed to protect your reputation or spare Brooklyn from awkward introductions. I know, you needed time to heal. Some time to find yourself and rediscover the amazing, beautiful, smart, caring woman we all grew up with. And you know what? I didn’t fully see her again until a week ago, when romance walked back into her life and relit the spark that’d grown dim inside of her.”
Mia’s vision swam at her dear friend’s words. She sank down on the edge of her bed, grappling with the idea that she was truly ready to give relationships—and in time, love—another try. “Really?”
“Really. So, stop your worrying about all the what-ifs. Alex is the fire to your spark, sugar. He always has been.”
Is that why things had always been so easy with him? Because they had some sort of connection that was stronger than the rest? That would certainly explain why their parting in college had hurt her so deeply—and why she was hesitant to put her heart in danger of it happening again.
She’d allowed herself to let loose and enjoy his company the past week, but what would happen when the fun wore off? Or if this Jennifer was actually competition for her down in Indy? She almost brought it up but stopped herself. There was no sense in tarnishing Robyn’s view of Alex if Mia was just being overly paranoid. The town gossip, however, was something they both knew about.
“But what about the rumors?”
“I don’t say this often,” Robyn said, a smile in her voice. “But for once, I’m suggesting you take a page from Delaney’s playbook: You do you, and let the talkers talk. When it all works out in the end, you can say ‘I told you so.’”
