Chapter 26 Mom?
Mom?
We’ve received another offer.
You’re our first choice. We looked you up and saw your vision for Cocoa Loco! If you want it our little shoppe, it’s yours.
Tossing my cell phone onto the bed, I lay back against the pillows and stared out the window into the darkness.
In Sage Ridge, they rolled up the sidewalks early.
With Aunt Anita long gone home, the sidewalks empty, and no Kian or Isaiah to distract me, my anxieties popped online one after the other.
Melancholy clung to me like a shroud. And it pissed me off. I was no longer a woman who would put all her eggs in some man’s basket, yet here I was. Fucking pining. Because other than a brief morning or evening check-in? I’d barely heard from Kian since he left.
I wasn’t a clingy sort of girlfriend. Oh my God, was I even his girlfriend? Partner? What the hell were we?
Maybe now that he’d reconciled with Aaron, he’d want to take Isaiah back home to their family. I couldn’t blame him for that. Isaiah deserved that big, happy, loving family clamoring around him.
A choice between that and just me? There was no contest.
If he wanted me with him, he would have taken me, too.
The truth was, Kian came to Sage Ridge to reconcile with his son.
Mission complete.
Maybe it was time for him to go home?
“Ugh!” I knew better than to get involved with a single dad! Even a good man, like Kian. Because he was such a good man, he would put his kids first.
And I knew, I fucking knew where that left me.
Why didn’t he ask me to go with him?
I picked up my cell phone and opened my contacts. My thumb hovered over Kian’s name. It wasn’t like I hadn’t spoken to him at all, I could call and ask him what’s going on. It was simple. I tapped on his name. My thumb hovered over the call button. So simple. But impossible.
Even before he left, he’d been working all hours which meant we’d seen each other less and less. I accepted it as part and parcel of his business, but what if it was something more?
Though it pained me to admit it, I was scared.
Scared of crowding him.
Scared of pushing myself into a space I wasn’t fully, truly, completely and utterly wanted.
Emotionally, I was back at our beginning when I wasn’t sure if he wanted to spend time with me at all.
I closed my eyes.
We don’t want to pressure you with another offer coming in, but we need to know whether you want the store or not?
Opening my email, I scanned their letter.
24-48 hours.
Where did things stand between me and Kian? Would he even be back before then?
Once again, I was putting my life on hold for someone else’s wishes and wants. I needed to make this decision on my own.
Though it was twice the size of Sage Ridge, their little shoppe was still in a small town, which I loved. The finances for the chocolatier were impeccable, and they seemed to have a healthy regular clientele as well as contracts with several businesses in the area.
But if I took it, I wouldn’t be here to see Harley’s baby born, or Noelle’s, or Nadine and Aaron’s.
Chances were I’d barely see them at all because retail hours were brutal.
And what about Jakey?
This would put another two hours between us. Based on that alone, I couldn’t do it.
I wouldn’t do it.
Which led me back to my first question.
Folding my arms over my head, I leaned back on the pillows and squeezed my eyes shut.
When my cell phone rang, I snapped it up hoping it was him. “Hello?”
“Mom?”
My stomach twisted violently. “Jakey?”
“I’m at the train station.” He hesitated. “I know it’s late, but can you come get me?”
I rolled off my bed and grabbed a hoodie. “Tell me exactly where you are, and I’ll be on my way.”
I looked at my watch. By the time I got there, it would be close to midnight. He’ll have been sitting at the train station by himself in the middle of the night for over an hour.
With that thought, I was mentally back at the zoo, running from one security guard to the next, screaming about my missing child.
“It’s okay,” I murmured to myself as I grabbed the nearest pair of shoes I could find. “He’s not a baby anymore.”
Knuckles white on the steering wheel, my mind blanked. I focused on the road ahead as I drove to pick up the child of my heart.
Which brought to mind the little Iceman who melted it. Because with Jakey here? Gary was soon to follow. How could I bring Gary’s toxicity into Kian and Isaiah’s life?
And Kian just got Aaron back in his life. Would he have room for Jakey who’d been toyed with like a pawn his entire life? Jakey couldn’t take more rejection.
Considering how little I’d heard from Kian, was it even an issue?
Spotting Jakey’s lanky form slouched on a bench, his baseball cap pulled low over his face, I pulled over to the curb, jumped out of the car, and ran around the front to embrace him.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
Pushing him back, I looked him over.
He grabbed my hands and squeezed. “I’m okay, Bridge.”
Back to Bridge.
“Where’s your car? Why didn’t you drive?”
He looked at me quizzically. “That was my buddy’s car, not mine.”
Between the shock of his phone call, my disbelief that he was here, and the certainty that I could feel Gary breathing down my neck, I didn’t breathe easy until I got him in the car. “You want to tell me what happened on our way home?”
“Home,” he scoffed. “I don’t even know the meaning of the word.”
His words gutted me. Body taut, I wrapped my hands around the steering wheel and pulled out.
The story burst out of him in one harsh breath. “It’s the same stuff all the time. My grades aren’t high enough. I’m too thin to play football, too short to play basketball, and too slow to play baseball.”
“Are you still playing the guitar?”
At my question, he turned abruptly and looked out the window.
“Jakey?”
“It’s Jake, now,” he replied softly. “He tossed it yesterday.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in between grieving the child that was almost a man and processing my shock.
My voice rose alarmingly fast. “He what?”
Facing front, he repeated, “He threw it away.”
The blood drained from my face. That was a $4000.00 guitar.
“He said it’s a waste of time and he’s sick of my nonsense dreaming.”
“But—”
“If you’re going to say Keith and Alan both have guitars, you’re wasting your breath. You know the rules have always been different for me.”
I clenched my jaw. It was because I bought it, giving it to him shortly before Gary kicked me out.
He continued quietly, “But I got you and they didn’t. It was a better-than-even exchange.”
The realization that Gary was still punishing Jakey hit me hard. It took everything in me to control my voice.
“Do they know where you are?”
He shook his head. “But it won’t take them long to figure it out. He knows I emailed you.”
I glanced over at him, his expression muted by the dim lighting in the car. “Did he give you a hard time?”
He offered me a half smile. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
I frowned.
He spoke quickly. “I just need a few days. And I wanted to see you before I moved on. I’m going to get a job and find my own place but I—” He cut himself off. “It’s okay if I can’t stay with you. You can just drop me off—”
“I’m not taking you anywhere except home with me, Jakey.”
“Jake,” he whispered.
“Jake,” I acknowledged. “Are you planning on going back?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
“You’re going to try to emancipate yourself?”
“I don’t have to,” he murmured. “Once you reach the age of 16 in Ontario you are legally allowed to decide where you want to live.”
“Okay, Jake.” The shortened form of his name stuck in my throat. “We’ll work it out. Together.”
After Jake fell asleep in the guest room, I opened my laptop to find out just how much trouble I would be in for having Jake with me. Pleasantly surprised to find Jake was right, it didn’t alter my certainty that Gary would show up.
Knowing him, it would be soon.
No matter what was to come, I needed to be there for Jake.
And keep Gary away from Kian and Isaiah.
This time, I wouldn’t have to do it alone.