AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. What was the other thing you wanted to talk about?”
She laughed. “How not-so-deftly you change the subject.”
“Brute force, baby.”
“Ah. You don’t want to talk about it?”
“I’m at the pub with the guys.”
“Oh. Okay. Sorry. I’ll…we can talk later.” But there was something in her voice that said the other thing was worth talking about now.
“Sweetie, it’s fine.” He shoved away from the table and wandered to the front window of the pub, away from the noise of his friends talking shop. “My lecture went a bit off the rails. It was good, actually, in that everyone was engaged. But bad, in a way, because I said some stuff. About academia being bullshit.”
“Oh my God. For real?” She gasped, then sighed. “Well, it’s kind of true.”
“Right?”
“Of course, right. I’ve got your back. I’m sure you said what needed to be said.”
Her words meant more than anything else. He rubbed his chest. Even after all they’d been through, sometimes he was surprised by the ferocity of her love for him. She was going to be an awesome mom, and she really had no clue that he could see that so clearly. “Okay, I shared. Your turn.”
“Well…” She sighed, sleepiness roll off the single word and turning to a cloud of nothing. He pictured her rolling onto her back and closing her eyes. She lowered her voice and mumbled something.
“What? I didn’t catch that.”
She cleared her throat. “My mom is moving around outside and I’m trying to be quiet. And I’m zonked, even though I didn’t do much today.”
“It’s something you don’t want your mom to know about?”
“Not yet.” He heard rustling. “I’m hiding under my blanket now. So mature. Kyle, they’ve offered me a job. In Bluewater Cove. We can move home.”
At first Laney thought the phone connection had broken, because Kyle didn’t say anything. She tried again. “They’re offering me a permanent staff position, too. Not a locum.”
“A job.” His voice was flat, and she desperately wish she’d FaceTimed him instead of calling. The pub noise in the background didn’t help, either. “Are you serious?”
“Of course.”
“When do you need to give them a decision?”
“We can take our time. Probably a few weeks.”
The silence on the other end of the line wasn’t what she’d expected, and she tried to figure out what the problem was. She gentled her voice. “We won’t move until you’re done school.”
He huffed roughly in her ear. “That’s so far from my thoughts right now, sweetheart.”
“Then why aren’t you…I mean, aren’t you excited?”
“This isn’t a good time to be making drastic decisions, Laney.”
“It’s not a drastic decision.”
“We’d be moving countries.”
She rolled her eyes. That was overstating the situation a bit. “Sure, technically. But we’d be moving home.”
“This is our home now. You’re not thinking clearly.”
