Chapter 39
Laney
If my mom doesn’t quit fussing over if I have enough pillows under my cast, I’m going to scream. “Mom. Please. It’s fine .”
She and Dad flew home early from Hawaii when they caught wind of my accident on social media. I’ve already had an earful about how I should’ve called, and I’ve already given an earful back about how I can handle having a broken leg all on my own.
Which is maybe an exaggeration, but Sabrina’s around, and our old middle school science teacher is recently retired and bored and has an entire crew lined up to check on me and bring me food at least three times a day, and my poor neighbor who was with me is checking up on me too.
Beauty of small-town living. Even when your blood relatives aren’t around, the rest of your town family is.
“We’ve never had broken legs in the family before,” Mom says. “This is terrifying.”
“The doctor says it’ll heal just fine. I can work remotely for a few weeks.
” And then, when I’m out of this damn cast, I can go hiking again.
Take time off to maybe even do an overnight backpacking trip with Sabrina.
Ask Emma to go on a hot-air balloon ride with me in Denver when she gets back, given that it’ll almost be warm enough by the time I’m cleared for fun again.
Which I’m not telling my mom.
Not today, anyway.
“Are you hungry?” she asks. “Betty dropped off lentil stew for lunch. I can heat it up for you. She makes the best lentils.”
“I’m fine, Mom. I really am.” I’m not fine.
My leg itches, and it’ll be six damn weeks before I can scratch it. The painkillers are working, but there’s still some achiness in my shin. I slept like crap.
And I keep worrying over Emma on her solo honeymoon.
And then wondering what Theo’s doing.
If he’s in town or if he found a place to hide out while Snaggletooth Creek is crawling with reporters who are hoping for an exclusive photo of him.
Freaking Addison posting the video of Emma’s wedding disaster on TikTok.
I hope she gets fleas in a place that she can’t reach to scratch. That video exposed all of my best friends in our worst moments.
Mom purses her lips while she looks at me.
She’s in linen pants and a silk blouse. Pearl earrings. Makeup. The upgraded diamond wedding ring Dad bought her the first year the company had over a million dollars in profits.
“Did Dad cheat on you when I was a baby?” I whisper.
Can’t help it.
Sabrina was right. I didn’t want to know. But I guilted it out of her last night while she dropped everything to sit with me in the emergency room.
Mom gasps and her chin wobbles. “Who told you that?”
“That’s not really the important part, is it?”
She sighs and turns to the window. “Laney, sweetie, life’s complicated, and you need your rest.”
“I need a little more than that, Mom.”
“Rest first.”
“I don’t want to rest. I want to go sledding.
I want to go see a frozen waterfall. I want to race go-karts in the middle of town in the middle of the night.
I want to drink too much and need Sabrina and Emma to carry me home.
I want to learn to scuba dive and go back to Hawaii and dive with the turtles.
I don’t want to be safe . I don’t want to be smart .
I don’t want to wake up when I’m seventy-four and realize my entire life has passed me by with no stories to tell about it beyond that time I had a really hot fling with a funny, adventurous, rules don’t exist guy during the best-worst week of my best friend’s life.
And I want to know how many people in this town know that Dad cheated on you and just don’t talk about it because nobody says bad things about us because we’re the damn Kingstons and we fund too much around town to risk pissing us off. ”
She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I probably have.
And I’m okay with that. I don’t want my mind back.
I want my heart back.
I flop back against the uneven pillow behind my back and stifle a grimace of pain.
Probably shouldn’t do that while my leg’s in a cast. “Never mind. I’ll take a damn nap.”
“You’re upset that we didn’t offer to help Bean & Nugget,” she says quietly.
“Did you know?”
She sighs. “You’re upset that we weren’t asked to help Bean & Nugget.”
“And that’s because…?”
She takes a long time to answer, and when she does, it’s on an even deeper sigh. “Christopher wouldn’t have cheated on you.”
So that’s it.
She picks men for me that she thinks won’t cheat.
Theo wouldn’t have cheated.
Would he?
I don’t know. I don’t know .
Fuck Theo.
Just fuck Theo for making me fall in love with him and not having the balls to love me back.
I turn my head away and close my eyes. “I’d rather not get married at all than get married to someone who has the personality of a shoe insert. So if that’s all you plan on introducing me to for the rest of my life, please don’t waste your time.”
“The gel inserts or the old-fashioned inserts?” she asks.
I glance back at her.
That’s literally the funniest thing she’s said in a decade.
“We used to laugh all the time. Now it’s all about work and responsibilities and what’s right for a family like us .
I know you and Dad worked hard to build all of this, and I love our mission and our purpose at work, but at home…
at home, I want to be happy. I want to laugh.
I want to love my life and know that when I’m seventy-four, I might have regrets, but I don’t want them to be that I sat on my couch being boring and afraid of what may hurt me outside my doorstep. And that includes sex.”
She wrinkles her nose and goes pink in the cheeks.
And my doorbell rings.
I sigh and pull up my phone to check and see who’s there, and the minute I catch sight of what the doorbell camera is recording on my porch step, I gasp.
“What?” Mom lunges across the room like she’s a freaking mountain lion. “What is it?”
It’s Theo.
It’s Theo, but it’s not just Theo.
It’s Theo, in baggy jeans and a thick Carhartt jacket and a black beanie, like he’s in disguise, with what looks like a cat carrier hanging on his shoulder.
He shifts his weight and stares at the door for a minute, then looks down at the doorbell. An old beater truck sits in my driveway behind him.
That’s so Theo.
Have half a billion dollars in the bank, still drive the truck that grounds him.
“What’s he doing here?” Mom asks.
“ Shh .”
He squats down in front of the doorbell camera and looks straight at it.
“Hey. I don’t know if you’re in there,” he says.
“I don’t know if you can hear me. But in case you can—I get it if you don’t want to talk to me.
I was an ass. I was a certifiable ass, and you deserve so much better than that.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Laney. So I brought the kittens.
I don’t have to stay. I’ll go if you tell me to.
But if the kittens would make you feel better, if they’d cheer you up—they’re yours.
For today. For tomorrow. For forever. You can have my kittens for as long as you want them.
If you want them. If you’re not here, and you see this later, the offer still stands.
Send Sabrina to get them if you don’t want to talk to me.
I just—I just want to do something—anything—to help you get better.
And this is the best thing I could think of. ”
“Kittens?” my mom says. “Kittens are?—”
“Let him in.” I swipe my eyes and cheeks. That asshole . He’s bribing me with his kittens. And I know how much he loves his kittens. “ Let him in . Or I’ll do it myself.”
I don’t have to ask her twice.
“I’ll hang out and wait for a few minutes in case you’re seeing this,” Theo says over the doorbell camera. “But if the kittens get cold, I’ll—Gail. Hello.”
My mom doesn’t immediately answer, and when she does, I brace myself.
But there’s nothing cool in her polite, “Please come in.”
It’s warm.
Kind, even.
I wouldn’t know she didn’t like him if I were a random fly on the wall. I do know she doesn’t like him, and even I can’t detect any lingering animosity.
I kill the stream on the video as Theo steps inside the door. My foyer is small, so it’s only a moment before Mom leads him into the living room, where I’m propped on the couch.
His brown eyes land on me, and I’m so mad that I’m crying right now.
I don’t want him to see me cry.
I don’t want him to know he hurt me.
Fuck Theo.
But I love Theo .
No matter how much I don’t want to.
He lowers his gaze and crosses the room to drop to one knee in front of me, setting the cat carrier gently on my rug. “Kittens?” he asks quietly.
“I will accept kittens.”
“You feeling okay?”
“I am so mad at you.”
He winces as he opens the carrier and lifts a gray kitten out.
Jellybean.
It’s Jellybean.
And she’s meowing as he sets her carefully in my lap.
“I left Fred home with Miss Doodles, but the rest of them are here. Litter box is in the car. I’ll come clean it. Or send someone else over if you don’t want to see me.”
“Why are you still being a dick?”
This is not me. It’s not. I’m the polite woman my mother trained me to be.
But I’m so angry with him. And I’m so glad to see him. And he looks so damn right in here. Like he’s the touch that’s been missing against the sage green couches and the lavender walls and the ivory brick fireplace.
Like he’s what makes it home.
His gaze wavers as he looks at me again. “I’m really bad at hope. Much better at action.”
“And self-sabotage.”
“Not mincing words today.”
“Should I be?”
He drops another kitten in my lap. Jellybean’s crawling up my chest to lick my chin. I close my eyes and let her while I order the tears to stop.
But Jellybean’s licking them all away, and it’s so sweet, and it’s making my heart all kinds of soft and open and vulnerable.
I can not be vulnerable to this man again.
Not if he’s only here out of guilt or obligation or anything other than because he wants to be here, with me, because I matter to him enough to have the hard conversations.
“I’m sorry, Laney,” he whispers. “I’m an ass.”