AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ted snorts, and I cut him a look. “Hey, she also calls me on my BS, so I’ve been where you are.”
I’m trying not to like Ted. I don’t actively hate him, but I tend to spend time getting to know someone before I accept them. Still, there’s something about how Ted talks about my mother that has me nodding.
“Welcome to my childhood. She was always calling me on my BS.”
“That makes her a good mother.”
I agree, so I nod.
“So, Juniper?” my mother interrupts, her cheeks pink.
“I already told you I have some work to do.”
This is partially true. I have an offer on the table for the company. I haven’t told anyone that it’s under consideration. Trevor Smith is a friend, but this company was my baby, the first thing I ever built. And I did it on nothing but my brain. I had no help from my grandmother, although she tried to meddle.
It’s just lately… I’m not feeling it. Don’t get me wrong, I love my company. I am freaking proud of what we have built. While other tech companies have dealt with scandals, we’ve avoided them by not being assholes and having strict policies that help with diversity in the workplace. It’s that simple.
Women and minorities have been hired and promoted at the same rate as white men, and we have a balanced executive office. If I hand it off to Trevor Smith and his family, that will continue. He revamped his family’s company over the past five years similarly. That had to be more complex because that company has been around for over a century, and he has a board of old men. Old habits die hard.
“That’s partially true, I’m sure. But does this have to do with Sienna?”
I roll my eyes. I would like to date a woman, and my mother not find out about it. Especiallythatwoman.
Before I can answer my mother, the waitress arrives with our orders. Once we’re alone again, my mother gives me a look, and I relent.
“She’s gotten a little out of hand. I broke it off. She keeps telling the paps that we’ve made up.”
“You should get out in front of that, Jon.” My mother’s voice is very judgmental. It’s not that she doesn’t like me dating models, but she says I do it because they don’t challenge me.
Again, Ted jumps in to rescue me. “That won’t help.”
“Why not?” my mother asks.
“You add fuel to the fire that way. Sometimes, it’s best to let the story die away. One good thing about the twenty-four-hour news cycle is that something else always draws their attention away.” He looks at me. “I completely understand. You don’t even want to know some of the things they said about me and my kids.”
I nod, and while I appreciate his support, there is no way I’m not going to still check him out.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll slip into town, get some work done, then go to that party. With that done, I’ll probably have to leave town, but it will give me two weeks of peace and quiet. Nothing ever happens in Juniper.”
ChapterThree
Avery
It’s just after one in the morning, and I can’t sleep. It’s not that the house is new to me. I’ve been here three weeks, and I’ve never felt a connection to a place like I do to this one. The moment I walked in, I felt like I had arrived home.
It might be that I’ve been bouncing around for the last year. My lease had ended, and Grannie Pam suggested I see the world. So, I did. Or I did part of it. I’ve been stuck these last few months hopping between my parents and siblings with an occasional stay at a hotel. It has not been the greatest for my insomnia.
I sit up in bed and look around the massive master suite. The house is old, so a big bedroom like this wasn’t as common back in the day. Estella and her husband lived here before they built the big house just outside the city limits, and since they were loaded, their house was top of the line for the time. I do know that Nancy, Estella’s granddaughter, and her fiancé, Travis, did some renovations. Still, this room was this size from the get-go. I love the wood floors, the massive bay window with the seat perfect for cuddling up to read, and the garden.
I have spent more time outside than inside, which is odd for me. It resembles an English garden, with more gardens than lawn, massive pecan and live oak trees, and seasonally blooming flowers. There are mums blooming like crazy now, but there are other perennials and annuals. I would talk Estella into selling the house to me if I could afford it. Okay, I could afford it, but I would hate to deplete my savings. I love Juniper and being closer to Fritz and Liv, although I miss Cora and her menagerie. However, those kids are getting too old to hang out with their cool aunt.
I would be the cool aunt if you were wondering.
With my sister-in-law expecting and Liv and her two little ones, I can help. It’s what I do to make up for being kind of a diva. Okay, a weird, quirky diva who wears PJs all day and eats cereal for most of her meals. It’s the perfect food. Sure, there might be a tad too much sugar, but most of them have a ton of riboflavin.
Don’t ask me why that’s important, but they all seem to have it.
I’d hoped staying in an actual house and not a hotel for once would help me with my insomnia. It hasn’t. I’ve had trouble sleeping since around the time I turned fifteen. I get bouts of it for a few weeks at a time, but then it goes away. This time, though, it’s lingered.
