Chapter 41
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
Joey lay in bed, her back to the window with the light streaming in behind and over her.
She hadn’t slept great, because it had been her first night of truly living all by herself.
When she’d moved to college, she’d had roommates, and she had in New York City too.
Then, she’d been living with Grams and Gramps since returning to town.
A new place always unsettled her a little bit, and this house was no different.
It wasn’t brand new, and they had just done some plumbing repairs.
The young family that lived upstairs had two children, and while Joey was used to other units’ noise, she always had Grams and Gramps just across the hall.
Her eyes burned, even though she had her phone on dark mode, and she set it down and closed them, the stinging sensation somewhat welcome as tears wetted her eyes. She looked over to the empty corner of her room, a space she’d saved for a big pink, fluffy bean bag that Adam had not brought.
Her phone suddenly felt hard in her hand because he’d texted a bunch last night, giving Joey all the updates of digging out the warehouse in Jackson Hole.
About ten-thirty in the evening, he’d sent her a picture of the lights he needed for Monday’s concert, and he told her he’d be staying the night in Jackson Hole.
She reached up and wiped the tear as it trickled down the side of her face, and she closed her eyes again. “Which means he won’t be here in Coral Canyon for church today,” she told herself.
She hadn’t reminded him that he’d agreed to come to church with her that morning. He was a grown man and surely remembered. “Maybe,” she muttered. She admired his dedication to his responsibilities, but it still stunned her that he had completely forgotten about her moving day.
Her alarm went off. Joey opened her eyes and lifted her phone to silence it.
Church started in an hour, and either she was going to go—or she wasn’t.
She didn’t particularly want to walk in alone, and she would have been more comfortable with Adam at her side, but she heaved herself out of bed and into her bathroom to brush her teeth and braid her hair back.
She could call Grams and ride with them. She lived five minutes away from her parents now, and she could easily park in front of their house and ride with them.
After stepping into a denim skirt and buttoning up a blue striped blouse, Joey padded into her kitchen and opened the fridge. She didn’t want to show up and explain to Daddy or Georgia that she couldn’t walk into a church building by herself.
“Because you can,” she said out loud to herself.
The bright winter sunshine shone throughout the apartment, and Joey turned toward the back windows, feeling more powerful with every breath she took.
She could go to church by herself.
She had survived her first night on her own in her new place.
She lived alone now, and a newfound sense of freedom threaded its way carefully through her, reminding her of how capable and amazing she had become.
So she didn’t need to call Grams, and she didn’t need to drive over to her parents’ place.
She made herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table, which had once belonged to Cheryl’s mother.
She ran her fingertip along the maple leaf carving in the corner, thinking of the man who had lovingly poured his energy and time and love into creating this table.
Cheryl’s daddy had been a master woodworker, and Joey adored old things.
The two combined into a sense of wonder and fulfillment in her life, and she lifted her head to look out the window again.
“What am I going to do about Adam?” she asked. She hadn’t broken up with him because she didn’t want to. She’d grown up watching her father have an important job that took him away from his family sometimes, and that didn’t bother Joey so much.
“So what does bother you?” she asked. “What would be a deal breaker for you and Adam?”
So far, it hadn’t turned out to be their age difference, or the fact that they liked different things, or that she ran late sometimes, and he absolutely didn’t—
“Except for when he does,” she said.
A small smile touched her face as she thought of yesterday and how he’d been over an hour late to her apartment. She ached to show him around this place, though it was five simple rooms of used furniture.
It certainly wasn’t as impressive as his mansion in Dog Valley, but it was hers, and she had worked hard for it.
She took a sip of her coffee and flipped her phone over, tapping to get to Adam’s string. He had not texted that morning, and she wondered if he was still in Jackson Hole, still cleaning up the mess in the warehouse.
When he’d shown up at the apartment yesterday, he’d been wearing slacks, of course, and a pale yellow polo. She had no idea if he’d packed a bag, but the man had a credit card. Jackson was a massive tourist destination.
Joey finished her breakfast of peanut butter crackers and coffee and got up to get her shoes. She was going to go to church today all by herself because she was strong and capable and wonderful and amazing.
She didn’t have to have someone at her side to do the things she wanted to do—and she wanted to have a relationship with God and Jesus Christ. She wanted Him to know that she could do hard things so she could feel His spirit.
She stepped into a pair of white heels and put on her absolute favorite coat—the one that made her feel the brightest and shiniest: her pink, glittery, puffy coat.
She looked at the scarves hanging on the hooks that Daddy had put beside the door, and she chose the one that Adam had given her for Christmas. With that, it almost felt like he was with her.
Properly bundled against the weather, she left the basement apartment and got in her car. “You’ve been good to me,” she said as the vehicle started. “And I don’t want you to think I’m not appreciative, but my next major purchase is going to be a new vehicle.”
She smiled at the thought, now knowing that if she needed some extra money, she could earn it.
Her pies had done very well, and while she wasn’t sure if she would be able to continue to sell them throughout the year, she could certainly try.
She’d ended up doing eighty-four for Christmas, and her forearms ached just thinking about rolling out all that pie dough.
But she’d done it with Adam acting as her chocolate croissant errand boy—a fact that made her heart flop and tears press into her eyes.
She’d text him back when she parked at the church. Yes, that was what she would do.
She didn’t want to break up with him, and he’d apologized twice already. She had been angry, and when the last jar of the spaghetti sauce that she had worked on that fall had been dropped and she’d lost it, Joey had cried.
She’d vowed not to cry on moving day, but it had still happened.
She told herself the same thing that she told Adam yesterday—not everything could be fixed, and she didn’t need to be fixed anyway.
It was okay that she got mad sometimes. It was okay that she cried sometimes, just like it was okay that she went to church alone sometimes.
“But overall,” she whispered to herself so as not to have her voice be so definitive. “You don’t want to do everything by yourself.”
She turned into the church parking lot and went up and down a couple of rows until she found a spot. She parked facing the church, the tall steeple rising above the cars blocking the lower level.
“You want a life with Adam because…you love him.”
Joey didn’t like that it had taken his absence yesterday for her to finally realize that she was in love with him, but it had.
She knew better than most that God worked in mysterious ways, and perhaps He had caused that roof in Jackson Hole to collapse, so that Adam would have to choose something over her.
A sense of peace filled her, though she didn’t expect it to. She felt like everything and everyone had been chosen over her for most of her life, but Adam had always put her first.
“That was why it hurt so much yesterday,” she said, just now realizing it. “But you can’t always come first.”
The fact that Adam had stopped by her apartment and hung his head and apologized before rushing off to take care of his problem told Joey that he wanted to put her first in all things, but in that one thing yesterday, he hadn’t been able to.
A smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “But he wanted to.”
She needed to go inside before she would be late, and Joey finally turned off her car, because the cold would force her in the building sooner rather than later. She took a steeling breath before she got out of the car, because if she did it outside, her lungs would freeze together.
Then she stepped out and started walking toward the church with strong, sure steps, feeling more like the bold, brave, beautiful woman she’d been trying to find since she’d returned to Coral Canyon.