Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Jensen, listen…”
“I’d be a good son to you, Theo,” he cried. His voice cracked as his whole body trembled in front of me. In a flash, I saw his mother in his eyes. I saw how she used to stand on my porch crying over her hatred for Peter, too. I saw her hurt. Her pain. Her struggles.
Thalia was flawed. There was no getting around that.
But Jensen?
Fuck, he was just a kid.
A kid who was hurting.
I knew what that was like.
Jensen and I had more in common than I’d ever want to admit.
I pulled him into a hug, and he continued to fall apart in my arms. “We can take a test,” I told him even though I was ninety-nine percent certain I knew what the results would be. Still, if it made him breathe a little easier at that moment in time, then I’d take the damn test.
“Thank you,” he cried, squeezing me tighter. “Thank you.”
After spending the morning with Jensen, I headed to Grandma’s to check in on her. After walking through the whole house, I spotted her through the kitchen window, sitting out on the edge of the dock.
“In need of company?” I called out as I walked over to her.
She glanced over her shoulder and then back at me. “Always if the company is you.”
I smiled and sat down on the dock beside her. I placed my hands on my lap and released a heavy sigh. “Yesterday was—”
“A circus.” Grandma laughed, shaking her head. “Luckily enough, Harry loved clowns.”
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t the send-off PaPa deserved.”
“It was the send-off he would’ve wanted, though. It was real. Life is complicated and hard and real. I don’t want you to think for a second PaPa would’ve thought everything would’ve been perfect. He knew how complex life could be. He would’ve understood.”
I grimaced. “I’m still processing most of yesterday.”
“We all are. And we might be doing that for a while, which is okay. We’re all still grieving, too. We’ll come out on the other side.” She leaned against my arm. “Peter stopped by this morning to apologize.”
“He made a bit of a scene last night.”
“Yeah, well, who hasn’t made a scene once in their lives? You know, when my mother died, my sister threw a whole peach pie at me because she thought I was trying to show off by making Mama’s favorite pie. Hit me square in the face.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Betty pied you?”
“Pied the heck out of me. So I did the only thing I could think to do. I picked up the coconut crème pie and smeared it on her face. We ended up in a wrestling match in front of everyone.”
“Bullshit,” I murmured, stunned.
“I know. Watch your language, but I know. I remember being ashamed for being a part of that big scene. Afterward, I was crying in the bathroom, wiping pie out of my nose, and Harry appeared. He began cleaning the pie out of my hair, and I sobbed, telling him how embarrassed and ashamed I’d been. Mind you, my mother passed away when I was young, and Harry and I had only been on a handful of dates at that point. I was almost certain he’d think I was a madwoman and end things with me. But do you know what he said?”
“What’s that?”
She turned to me, and her eyes were packed with tears. “What’s life without a little mess?”
That was PaPa for you—the greatest man to ever live.
“Then he took me home and made me a peach pie. We ate it all at two in the morning.” She placed a hand against my knee and patted it. “So I know you and Peter both feel heavy guilt about last night. But grief has a way of stirring up a lot of emotions that have not been dealt with. You two have been butting heads for years now. It’s no surprise it all came out finally.”
“I should’ve never crossed that line with Thalia,” I said.
“Yes, well…messes happen. Now all we can do is clean them up.” She patted my leg. “Like the mess I’ve made with your mother.”
My stomach knotted up at the mention of her. “It’s going to take me a minute to wrap my mind around all of that.”
“I know. And I’m sorry she showed up. I’m even more sorry that we didn’t tell you. We thought we were doing the right thing by keeping it from you, but clearly, that was wrong.”
“I wish you had told me.”
“I do, too. I wish even more so that I had enough strength to say I didn’t want Christina around after she left, but…she’s my baby. Even with all the heartbreak, she’ll always be my little girl. That’s the curse of parenthood, I think. Caring all the time, no matter what.”