Page 55 of Might as Well

“Hit me with it.”

I’ve been thinking about my business a lot lately and have even spoken to Ellen a few times since Zane returned home. I’m doing great, but I could be doing even better.

“Zane’s mom mentioned how I should do tutorial videos and I think I’ll do that. But she’s mentioned how she wishes there was like a stitching club. I was thinking about hosting virtual and in-person stitching events. People could literally just come together to talk and stitch.” I laugh. “It would make my business live up to its name. People could come together to stitch and bitch.”

“Oh, I love that,” Cassie says. “You could even host them here if you want. I’m not sure if you’d want to use your office space for that or keep it strictly for your videos and physical products to ship out. You might could even open a physical location, Vi.”

I shake my head. “That’s way too much. I like how I’m set up now and this little bit extra will be nice without being too muchfor me. I don’t want to worry about someone filling in or running the place when my migraines knock me out. But you think the rest would be nice?”

Cassie nods. “It’s definitely worth a shot.” She pauses and then adds, “Are you sure you want to ramp up the business when you’re pregnant?”

“What does one have to do with the other?”

“I just mean you’ll be taking some time off when the baby comes. You’ll need to do extra prep if you start new ventures.”

I nod. “I know. I can handle it.” My stomach grumbles and the idea of actually being hungry excites me. “Want to grab lunch?”

“Of course I do.”

Cassie gets some things squared away and then we go off to lunch. She shares more about all that she’s doing for her store and ideas she plans to implement soon. We brainstorm potential dates where she could host my stitching club. I may have specifically chosen dates where Zane would have away games. I need to get out more and might as well be purposeful with when.

“So, what?” Cassie begins as we walk out to our vehicles. “You’re going to go home, tell Zane you aren’t mad, and then have make-up sex?”

I shrug. “Pretty much.”

She laughs. “As good a plan as any, I guess.” She pauses and then smiles at me. “I was going to say text me if you need me, but I know you’ll do that. Just don’tonlytext me because you need me. I want an update later.”

I’m not sure there will be much more to update her on, but I nod anyway and give her a hug. When I get home, Zane already has cameras up. He launches in on getting me to download the app needed and showing me what I need to know.

“What happened?” he asks.

With a sigh, I repeat what happened earlier with my mom.

He wraps an arm around me. “It’ll be okay. Do you want to stay here while I’m gone or maybe stay with Cassie?”

“I’ll be fine here.”

He eyes me as if he wants to object but thinks better of it. He’s still uneasy about the standing of our relationship.

“I’m not mad anymore,” I tell him quietly. His eyes widen in surprise and I almost want to laugh. Surely he realized forgiveness was coming. “Seeing my parents again reminded me of how horrible my childhood was before we went to live with Grandma. It’s like I shoved all of that down and reimagined something better.”

I shake my head, remembering how Graham mentioned being upset that he didn’t remember them. “It’s good that Graham doesn’t have memories of them. We were hungry a lot. Mom didn’t often cook dinner for us. Scary people would be at the house at all hours.” I take a deep breath and shove all those memories back into the box I’ve been storing them in.

“It honestly makes me nervous that they’re back and they’ve come to see me. I don’t have a good feeling that they keep showing up, especially knowing they want money.”

Zane rearranges me until I’m sitting sideways in his lap. “We’ll deal with them if they show up again.”

“Do I tell Graham?” This question in particular has been weighing on my mind.

“Would you want to know?”

I sigh. I would.

Zane lifts a hand and cups my cheek. “For now, they aren’t a problem. We don’t have to think about them.” His eyes search mine. “You really aren’t mad anymore? I was a pretty big jackass.”

I give him a small smile. “No. What kind of wife would I be if I let something as small as a misunderstanding doom us? Besides, you seem like the kind of guy who learns from hismistakes and I really hope you are because if you ever walk out on me again without talking to me first?—”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he interrupts. “Thank you, by the way.” He kisses me hard and then says, “We haven’t exchanged Christmas presents. Want to do that?”

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