AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Doyou really need all this stuff? I can’t imagine that this will all fit into your apartment,” Shauni said to Teagan as she walked down the stairs with Teagan’s bedside table.
Teagan wanted to tell her mother for the third time today that she indeed needed that particular object that her mother would argue about.
But instead her mother already said, “And what if you want to stay here for a night? Your room would be empty. You wouldn’t have a table to put your alarm clock on.”
“Yeah, that would be terrible, T.”
Teagan grinned at her sister, Emmy. She figured she would get much closer to her now that she would live above the pub, since Emmy worked there as a chef almost every day. If Teagan would have a night off as a waitress, she could still hop into the kitchen and help her sister clean after a long shift. She was rather looking forward to it.
“This is not funny, Emmy Alexia Moore.”
Emmy and Teagan shared a look, and both busted out laughing. Her mother always had to throw in their second names.
It had been only a week since she’d spoken to Pops about the apartment above Lucky’s. Her cousin Keenan had fixed the place during this week, so there were now three bedrooms.
Ryan passed them in the hallway with two stuffed suitcases. “Do you have everything? I think the van is almost full.”
“I think that’s it,” she said as she followed her brother and mom outside. She stopped midway on the porch steps when Mae came up to her and hugged her.
“I’m going to miss you, T.”
Teagan hugged her sister closer and said, “You know where to find me, Mae. I’m only a phone call away.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me staying with you on your first night?” Mae asked.
Teagan smiled. “Nah. That’s okay.”
Mae cleared her throat. “Sis, I hope that someday we can be best friends again. I’m sorry for being so judgmental about everything. I know you didn’t have it easy these past weeks and I just want you to know that I love you no matter what.”
Teagan blinked a tear from her eye and said, “We’ve never stopped being best friends, sis. Friends argue. So did we. I’ll always love you.”
She kissed her sister on the cheek and walked up to the van her father borrowed from a neighbor. He’d already taken a seat behind the wheel and had the engine running.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mom. I’ll come and help you out with Emmy’s vegetable garden.”
Her mother nodded and brushed her tears away. “I can’t believe you are really doing this. All because of my dad and his big mouth,” she grumbled.
Shauni Mills-Moore resembled Pops in more ways than she ever cared to admit. Like Pops, Shauni also spoke her mind. And she had a big heart and was always there for everyone. Teagan just knew that with a little more breathing room between them, she would appreciate her mom even more.
She kissed her mother goodbye and let her brother ruffle her hair before she got into the van. She fastened her seatbelt and her dad drove them away from the farm where she’d spent all of her life.
Teagan searched for the Texas redbud tree in the rear-view mirror. She was going to miss the farm. She had Mae promise her she would take care of Flint for her.
A pothole in the dirt road made her look over at her dad as he cursed. She smiled. Even though he wasn’t very talkative, she knew by his outburst that her moving out today affected him.
“I’ll have to call George about fixin’ these damn roads after I get back.”
She smiled at his grumbling. She figured that if she would come by tomorrow, her father would have fixed the road himself instead of asking the neighbor who was responsible for that part of the road.
She kept her eyes on the green hills, taking everything in like it would be the last time she would see all this beauty. Her father turned on the radio, mumbling to himself whenever the radio host said something he disagreed with.
This wasn’t a trip she would want to repeat anytime soon. She sat next to her father in complete silence except for her father having this one-sided argument with a radio host who had no idea how worked up her father got.
Her father turned off the radio and got behind a long row of cars stuck in a traffic jam. “Great. That’s just great. Why anyone would like to spend more than an hour in this beehive is beyond me.”
“Dad. It’s not the same as the farm, but—”
