Page 88 of Floored

Jude: If I play like rubbish again, you'll know why then. I best try to sleep. Merry Christmas, Lia.

Me: Merry Christmas, Jude.

I dreamed of him that night for the first time since being Stateside. Waking alone, in the middle of my old bed, in my old room, was disconcerting. And the hazy memories of how he'd kissed me, dirty and deep, underneath the Christmas tree lingered for days, a strange ache that mixed into finding a new normal with my family.

But as week two slipped into week three, a quiet lull between holidays spent playing games and watching the Wolves beat Green Bay, watching Shepperton tie against Leeds United 2-2, the new year came and went with very little fanfare, considering I found myself sound asleep by ten on New Year's Eve, curled up underneath the bright purple comforter that I'd used in high school.

That was the first time I'd mentioned where I might live after the baby was born.

"Why not just redecorate the whole room?" Paige had asked. "And you know you can turn Molly's old room into a nursery once the baby is out of the bassinet."

Logan glanced carefully at my face when I didn't respond as we'd eaten dinner that night.

I don't know if I can do this. The thought came and went quick and quiet. But that was the thing. I would not let those thoughts escape anymore. That was my promise to myself. I'd grab them by the tail and yank them back, so I could take the time to figure that out.

That night, I'd answered her diplomatically since I didn't have an answer yet. "I don't know if that makes sense since I'm not sure what my long-term plans are, but I'll think about it."

And just like she had that night, when I mentioned it again now, fully entrenched in week four with all of us back at work and school now that the holidays were behind us, Paige's hands froze in the middle of what she was doing. It took her a long moment to make eye contact with me.

"Do you want to move out?" she asked.

I took another bite of apple and snagged a stool by the island, thinking carefully as she refilled her coffee. As it was most every morning, it was just me and Paige at the house. Logan was gone to the Wolves practice facility, and once Emmett went to school, it was just the two of us.

"I don't know."

She nodded and took a seat across from me. "I think ... I think I just assumed you'd want to be here to have help with the baby. And I mean, it's not like we don't have the space."

They did, in spades. It was the house that Logan bought when Brooke first dropped us all on his doorstep, metaphorically. He found the five-bedroom house in the suburbs and bought it the same day, a place we could grow into and make our own. And it bore the strong handprint of our family in the way we'd molded it to fit whatever phase of life we were in. It was so much more than four walls and a roof; it represented a second chance for all of us in different ways.

"I know," I told her. My thumb tapped on the granite, and I fought the impulse to change the subject and see if she wanted to go shopping or go for a walk or go work out. "But I'm almost twenty-three, Paige. I'm in my last semester of school. And ... and I think I need to consider the fact that just because I can live here after the baby's born doesn't mean I should."

She sighed. "I hate when you guys make sense about shit like this."

"I know you do," I answered with a smile. "You'd have us all here forever if you could."

"Hell yeah, I would. What does it say about me that the crazier this house is, the more at peace I feel?"

Paige and I were so similar, and it was the kind of shared trait that made my heart grow about two sizes because even though there wasn't a shred of shared DNA between us, and I was practically stepping into my teen years when she married Logan, she held a piece of my soul. Just like I held a piece of hers.

"I think it says we need to find something to do today," I told her. "I haven't made up my mind yet."

"Deal." Her face lit up. "Can we start working on your registry?"

"Isn't my shower supposed to be like, a month before I give birth?"

"What's your point?"

I laughed. "Let's circle back to that next month, okay?"

That conversation helped bridge a previously untouched gap in my relationship with Jude in our weekly phone call.

Paige had left to run errands, so I sat in the family room under a blanket with my phone on my lap and Jude on speaker.

"Is it stupid to move out if I have a free place to live?" I asked him.

He hummed. "Not stupid, no."

There was a slight hesitation in his words that had me smiling. "But ..."

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