Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Moon was chewing on a dill pickle, talking with his mouth disgustingly full. Maybe FaceTiming him wasn’t the best idea. “Well, Mom and Dad were talking about seeing if you two wanted to move down here. Or close by, anyway.”
Crescent and I shared a look before I focused back on the screen, tilting my head. “Why’s that?”
“For starters, you’d be close to us again.
And your apartment is pretty damn small.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but if Elio keeps painting, you’ll need some more room.
” He finally swallowed and wiped his mouth.
“But, also, you wouldn’t have to worry about Dipshit causing any problems. You’d be away from him. ”
I was already shaking my head. “I don’t think moving out of our home and town just because of one person is the wisest decision.”
He hummed, just before obnoxiously slurping through the straw of his fountain drink. “If I ever see that fucking asshole, so help me, El, I will tear his head clean off.”
“You and me both,” Crescent chimed in.
Moon glared at him before continuing. “But it isn’t just one person, El, it’s your abusive ex-boyfriend. And it’d be okay if it were. You guys don’t have any support or family there.”
“Come on, guys.” I rolled my eyes. “We have our therapists and Sarah—it isn’t like we’re completely without help.”
“Sure, yeah, you guys have that, but think of how fun it’d be to live close to us again. And I wouldn’t have to murder a man in cold blood for fucking with my baby brothers. It’s a win-win situation.”
I furrowed my eyebrows at him. He was shrugging as if that wasn’t one of the worst things he could’ve said. “Stop incriminating yourself for a crime you haven’t, and wouldn’t, commit.”
Crescent was looking off to the side. “I mean, it isn’t a bad idea, but I don’t want to leave the bakery. Or my therapist who I just started working with.”
“Valid point, little bro. Just think about it, okay? I worry about you—both of you.” Moon shifted, his tone going softer. “We all really missed you while you were gone, El. Like, a lot.”
“Yeah. I missed all of you, too. Like, a lot.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t notice.” He sounded so sad and dejected, full of blame he was putting on himself.
“No, Moon, it’s nobody’s fault but Jude’s. Jude is who we should blame. Not me, not you, not Cres, not anyone.”
Crescent wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me against him. “That’s really great that you can see that, baby.” He pressed a kiss to the side of my head.
“Ew.” Moon opened his mouth, sticking his tongue out. “Get a room, guys. I don’t need to see none of that PDA.”
“Oh, shut up. You know you’re just jealous.” Crescent stuck his tongue out, too, blowing a raspberry at the screen.
Moon put a hand over his heart dramatically. “Me? Jealous of my itty bitty brother? No fucking way.”
I leaned over, grabbing the phone away from the stack of books it was propped up against. “Okay, that’s enough. We love you, Moon. We’ll think about talking to Mom and Dad.”
“Fine. I love you guys too. Just let me know when we can get together again, yeah?”
“Of course. Bye.”
I hung up the phone and handed it to a giggling Crescent. He looked far too charming for what had just happened. “What are you laughing at?”
“Just how much I love you and how good it feels to hear you and Moon talk again. And at how relentlessly my parents are trying to get us back in their lives.”
Rolling my eyes, I leaned against him, laying my cheek on his shoulder. “I’m glad to be back in their lives.”
He hummed, rubbing his hand up and down my arm. “Do you think it’d be worth it?”
“What, moving to Heaton Springs?”
“Yeah.”
Sighing, I took a moment to think it all through.
Crescent had some really good points about leaving the bakery and our therapists behind.
Moon had some good points too, though. I couldn’t say I didn’t like the idea of being closer to all of them, either.
“I think if we did, it’d have to be for good reasons.
Not just because of Jude or anything like that.
I mean, what would we do about our therapy? And you, with the bakery?”
He grabbed me by the waist, his palm touching the skin my crop top wasn’t covering. “Okay, let’s think about it objectively. Like a pros and cons list. I wouldn’t say I’m the most excited about the idea, but I’m willing to go through the list.”
“That could work. Do you want to do cons, or pros?”
“Let me flip a coin.”
I looked around, trying to find a coin, but I couldn’t see any.
“Heads or tails?”
Still a bit confused, I pushed past it. “Um, heads.”
He pulled his phone out, typing something into it. “Okay, I have Google ready. I’ll be tails. If it lands on heads, you’ll be the pros; if it lands on tails, I’ll do the pros.”
Peering over his screen, I noticed the little coin in the middle of it.
It all sounded far more complicated than it should’ve been, but I let him do his thing as he touched the coin on the screen.
A little flipping animation started, going back and forth for all of five seconds before landing on tails.
“So, you get to do cons, and I’ll do pros. But you can go first.” He was smirking as he said it.
“Seriously? You went through all of that only to make me go first still?”
“Maybe.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, pushing my body further into his side as I huffed.
“Okay, fine. For starters, you’d have to find a new job, and we’d have to find a new apartment, along with moving all our shit down there.
That requires money, too. I mean, what if we don’t find a job for you?
Or what if we have issues finding a place to stay?
And then, our therapists, of course, which we both desperately need in our lives.
And don’t forget that I don’t want Jude to run our lives, and what about Sarah? ”
“Okay, all of those are good points.” His head suddenly turned to the side, right toward one of the corners.
“You okay, honey?”
He jumped a little, bringing his gaze back to me.
“Yeah, thought I saw something. Anyway, those are some really good points. There’s a bakery just a town over from Heaton Springs I used to go to a lot.
It isn’t too far, and I can just see if they’re hiring.
Do I want to move away from Love ’n Sugar?
Not necessarily. I like my coworkers, and I like the management, but I guess I could get over that.
I don’t know. Money isn’t really that big of a concern, though.
I was living with Mom and Dad until I moved here, so I have a good amount saved up.
Moon was—and it hurts to say this, so don’t ever tell him—kind of right.
We do have a small apartment, and I’d like to get you your own room for painting.
Hell, maybe you could start selling some if we moved.
Therapy, well, let me look up their website to check something. ”
I watched as he pulled up the company’s website, searching through it.
He pointed to a paragraph of text. “They do telehealth, so maybe we could do it over a video call until we figured something else out, or indefinitely. When you think about it, I don’t think either of us has much here.
I mean, we have Sarah, and I like James quite a bit, but I guess we don’t have much else. ”
“Who’s James again?”
“He’s my coworker. We work in the kitchen together.”
“Oh, yeah, you’ve mentioned him before.” I thought about it a little longer, weighing every option in my mind. “So, you’ve given some possible solutions to each one of the cons. I guess, logically, it doesn’t seem all that bad when you put it out like that.”
We started to fall sideways as Crescent shifted onto his back.
I curled on top of him as much as I could, pressing my head to his chest. “Yeah, and none of those things have anything to do with Jude. Is it a plus we won’t run into Jude?
Sure, but it isn’t us letting him run our lives.
No matter our decision, it’s never been about that.
The idea is nice in theory—it’s just a bit scary. ”
“Definitely scary. But leaving Jude was also scary.”
I closed my eyes as Crescent rubbed circles over my exposed lower back. “Mhm. Getting back in contact with me was scary. Going to therapy was scary. When you think about it, we’ve done a whole lot of scary. Maybe it’s worth thinking more about.”
Yeah, we had done a whole lot of scary. Enough for three lifetimes worth, it felt like. “Doing the scary isn’t as scary when it’s with you.”
“Whatever we do, we’ll be doing it together. We’ve got each other.”
I nuzzled deeper into his chest, inhaling the scent of everything Crescent. “And we’re never letting go.”
My head was in Crescent’s lap, his fingers slowly carding through my hair. He scrolled through some more options, both of us agreeing the price range was way too high. “Set the max lower in the filters.”
“Forgot I could do that, honestly. Thanks, baby.” He didn’t have his earbuds in this time. I hadn’t seen them in a while, which made me hopeful about his hallucinations.
Once we were in a more comfortable range, we sifted through a few houses and apartments in or around Heaton Springs.
They were cute, but they weren’t exactly what we were looking for.
We hadn’t even decided if we were going to move, but it was fun to look through everything without any pressure to decide on a time limit.
After the third page, I sighed. “Jeez, there’s not a lot out there, huh? At least not any I think we’d like.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit less than I expected to see.” He swiped his thumb, stopping on a particular house.
It was beautiful. The front windows were massive, and it had a wooden arch above the front door, a dark oak shade as an accent to the lighter-colored wood surrounding it. “Let’s look at that one.”
When he tapped on it, I took note of the address.
It was only about twenty minutes away from the Millers’ house, and not too far from town, while still being secluded enough to not feel suffocating.
There was a big backyard for if we ever decided to get a pet, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms, all modernized without being too over the top.
One of the rooms had both of us pausing. It was large and fucking gorgeous. Natural lighting filtered through the windows, which were the same sizes as the ones out front. There was plenty of floor and wall space, and even a walk-in closet with shelves.
“Oh, that would be perfect for your art. It’s apparently supposed to be the master bedroom, but we don’t really need that big of a room.” Crescent was talking as if we had already made a decision.
And honestly, I couldn’t disagree with him. “That really would be beautiful to work in. Imagine the view during winter when all the snow is falling.”
“Yes, that’d be amazing.”
“And it isn’t ridiculously priced, either.”
“Right? I need to save this for later.”
“Save what?” A new voice joined our conversation, making Crescent and me both jump.
I looked up at Sarah, who was standing by the arm of the couch. “Sarah, holy shit. You can’t scare us like that.”
She frowned, plopping onto a chair. “Sorry, I used my key. I didn’t see Crescent’s car out front, so I thought maybe you were in here painting or sleeping alone.”
Crescent laughed. “You really did scare us, but that’s okay. Maybe knock next time. You never know what you’ll walk into if you don’t.”
“I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again. What were you going to save for later?”
I settled back into Crescent’s lap, listening to him from below. “Well, we’re looking at houses and apartments. My parents want us to move closer to home with them.”
“Move?” Sarah’s eyebrows pulled together in concern. “I didn’t know you guys were going to move.”
I shrugged. “We aren’t completely sure we will yet, but we’re definitely looking at options.”
“Oh. That kinda sucks. I’d miss you guys.”
“Aw, Sarah.” Crescent was frowning with her. “You’d be welcome to visit us any time. But like El said, we aren’t sure if we will or not.”
“It just feels like it was yesterday when I saw you guys for the first time. And when I brought Elio here. You two have been such awesome friends. You’ll have to tell me if you decide to go.”
My heart ached for her. “You’ve done so much for us, Sarah. We truly appreciate you more than we could ever express. I mean, you saved my life.”
Shaking her head, she held a hand up. “I didn’t save anyone’s life. Don’t thank me for that. I’m just glad I’ve gotten to know you.”
Crescent was petting my hair, the movement and warmth of his hand soothing me with each pass. “We’re glad we’ve gotten to know you, too. I promise we’ll keep in touch.”
“Don’t worry about that, guys. You never know where life will take you.” She paused for a moment, Crescent and I giving her time to continue if she needed to. Instead, she put on a big smile, though it seemed a little sad. “So, do you guys want to watch something on the cooking channel?”
We did just that, laughing together through every challenge the contestants faced. Life felt easy and complete in that moment. Having fun with our friend, a TV show we all liked playing in the background.
But throughout the show, I still couldn’t get that house out of my mind. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea at all.