Chapter 35
Nic grabbed his bag and left the extra keys in the office. He’d come back and clean out the whole thing in a few weeks. The new head chef would be taking over tomorrow.
He was moving to St. Clare Circle, but he had to make a quick trip to the East Coast first.
With Courtney and Thea settling down there, and the other connections he had made over the last year, he had stopped feeling like Texas was his home.
It was time for a fresh start.
Step one was to be brave in another way.
He had left Jeannie two days ago, and despite her worries, he had made the drive in one night. His brain had been wide awake, hard at work on a decision.
Nic checked his phone to make sure the flight was still on time, but he couldn’t decide if he was happy or disappointed that the unsettled weather rolling in hadn’t canceled it. If he left right now, he’d have enough time to run by his house and get the box before he needed to be on the plane.
He couldn’t ask a sick old woman to be braver than he was.
He’d waited long enough.
Ad astra per aspera.
It had become a chant in his head.
Even thirteen years later, he wanted a chance to know Felicity more than almost anything. Just a chance at it.
This might be scary and hard, but nothing worth having was easy.
He would give her a call when he landed. Say that Courtney gave him her number. She’d be pissed. Maybe they’d catch up.
If it felt right, he would give her the box. If it didn’t feel right, or it seemed like he was interrupting her life, he’d leave. No matter what, it would have just been a casual thing between two people who met once a long time ago.
The fact he’d changed his shirt six times spoke to exactly how casual he was.
The definition of casual.
Writing in a journal had been a suggestion of his first therapist, to help him sort out all the thoughts and feelings about his childhood.
He had been five years into filling spiral-bound notebooks with his dumbass thoughts before he realized that when he wrote, it had always felt more like letter than diary.
And he was writing it to her.
Not that he would ever inflict his rambling drivel on her, but the thought had stuck with him.
In the end, he started writing her a single letter.
Every year, he’d wake up at 2:17 in the morning on May first. He’d sit on his porch.
And he’d write her a short letter. Every letter was folded into an old wooden box he’d found at a thrift store when he was putting together his first restaurant.
He knew he had to have it when he saw the burned wood constellations across the lid.
Nic had never learned much about tools, but he knew how to use a screwdriver.
Fanny had long outgrown that green wooden cage Felicity had built her, so Nic had taken the plaque off the back and put it in the box.
He was bringing it with him.
He still didn’t have an actual plan beyond that phone call.
No grand gestures. That would be selfish.
He just wanted to say thank you, and maybe catch up. No pressure. No strings. No expectations.
Aaaand he was panicking again. Maybe this was a stupid idea.
He pushed the back door open too hard and it smacked into the wall behind it. After making sure he hadn’t broken the hinge on that damn thing, he headed for his car.
Courtney sat on the back of his truck with a distinctive dark purple orchid in her lap. Thea was beside her, holding her hand. He’d bought enough flowers for events at the restaurants to know from the first second he had seen it two days ago that it wasn’t a cheap grocery-store orchid.
He was heartily confused by their arrival—until he came around the truck to face his cousin.
“It had your name on it, Nicky.” Courtney’s eyes were wet and bloodshot. Her mouth was a trembling line. “I wanted to tell you in person.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
The weight of the loss sent him to his knees. He’d seen Jeannie and sat beside her basically hours ago. She’d said Maybe tomorrow. Gravel carved circles into his palms as he wept in a way he never had before.