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But she got one thing wrong.
“I do like the city, actually.”
She looks a little surprised, so I add, “Really. It’s…exciting. I don’t know. I’ve never lived anywhere like that before.” Even the art college I went to was tiny and rural, with an enrollment of only five hundred students a year.
“So you’ve been enjoying your time there? You like it?”
She sounds so hopeful that it breaks my heart all over again. A large part of me also feels guilty because Ihaveenjoyed my time in the city.
It dawns on me that I’d been enjoying my time with Jenson.
Every frustrating, stressful, ridiculous, tempting minute of it.
All of a sudden, all I want is to sink into his arms. To vent about how worried I am about Jodie, but also…just to go home to him. He makes me feel safe and excited all at the same time. He’s familiar, but I want to have adventures with him.
Home.
Jodie isn’t the only person who feels like home.
Pushing dinner aside, I look at Jodie dead-on, finally ready to tell the whole truth. No matter how old I get, I’ll always ask her advice, and I’m in such a deep hole right now that I have no idea how to dig myself out of it. Hopefully she does.
Chapter26
Jenson
The little town of Dawson is…little. Not even an exit off the highway, but a series of backroads out of a main town to the outskirts of meadows and forests. A smile slowly spreads as I realize this makes sense. This is exactly the kind of place Jodie would want to settle down in.
And we’re only an hour outside of New York.
Something in my chest twists at the memory of Giselle’s words.Family emergency.
I haven’t heard from Mel since the day she broke it off.
I also haven’t asked Giselle for any more information, choosing instead to focus on repairing my attitude and reputation at work. I apologized to a few people in person, and many more in a company-wide memo. It was appreciated and acknowledged but blew over quickly with Zach’s HR debacle finally reaching court.
He has twelve women going up against him.
Word is, some even have blatant evidence—in the form of texts and pictures—of the harassment. Roy has been tight-lipped, but I don’t think Zach will be lingering around Dupont Analytics too much longer, whether I become the new owner or not.
Jodie’s gravel driveway crunches under the tires as I pull in. The house is cute and small, reminiscent of her place in Harwinton. It makes me a little homesick.
Stepping out of the car, I take a deep breath and mutter to myself, “You owe her this much.”
The package I pull out of the back is unwieldy, wrapped in butcher paper and surprisingly light, but bulky and a bit awkward. I lean it against the front railing and knock on the door.
The curtains in a side window twitch. Then the door opens just slightly, and those eyes—
It’s like a punch to the heart.
I actually rock back on my heels at the sight of Mel’s eyes, her pursed lips. She looks tired, but calm, her brow raised.
“Jenson?”
The door is pushed open wider and Jodie, the same height as Mel, stands at her niece’s side. She looks older than I remembered in a lot of ways, but her smile is still the same.
“Jenson!”
She pulls me inside, my body brushing against Mel’s and sending a shiver of longing through me.We belong together,it seems to say.
