Page 142 of Chasing Headlines

Breslin POV

Before I went back to regular desk duty, I stopped a last time to check on Dotty. Call it habit. Call it two stubborn oxen who recognized a stubborn ox when they saw one. Maybe she decided to adopt me because all her other kids had grown and left her in a place like this. Maybe it just gave her something to do.

I froze in the doorway . . .

Milline covered Dotty in her niece's blanket and sat beside her bed. I couldn't hear them speaking, but she stroked the old lady's hair and held her hand. I found myself drawing closer. I'd seen Dotty's son and daughter-in-law visit just the one time. The son was stiff and stoic. The daughter-in-law at least had kinder eyes than her husband.

Neither of them held Dotty's hand and hummed a lullaby when she reached her limit . . .

Covered her in her favorite blanket. Promised to visit again, soon. Waited for her to fall asleep.

I let out a quiet breath. The story I'd told her earlier . . .

“In the end I realized.” A warm band loosened its grip on my chest. I took a deep breath as dozens of electric pulses zipped around inside my ribcage. One nudged my heart. “You believed in me. When not many people wanted to give me a chance.”

It wasn't a lie.

“I rooted for you in the finals last year. Not Meyers, you.”

“You were with me,” she said and took in a deep breath. “All night . . .”

My heart gave a heavy thump, then changed its rhythm to something lighter. Easier. Like it’d just dropped the heavy luggage it’d been carrying on its back.

Milline continued humming as she sat on the floor beside Dotty's bed. Where no one could see her. No one would know.

I'd never been in love before, nor known anyone who had. I saw it in TV episodes, and played out in the in-between spaces of my life. My dad sitting for hours by mom's bedside. The way she'd hold my hand and tell me that I was capable of doing anything I set my mind to, said with a fierceness I'd always admired.

Love was soft and sad, tough and kind. And Milline, Liv, wasn't like that. She was brash and careless, stubborn and relentless.She makes me crazy half the time I'm around her. And somehow, she's always . . . around.But there were times when her kindness and loyalty to the people she cared about, shone through.She has a fierceness, all her own.

The thought made me smile. I held my breath and closed my eyes, just listening to the wordless song of falling . . .

Love was the quiet hum of a lullaby slipping past sleeping ears on a late November evening.

I ducked my head and made my way back to the front desk.

Chapter Forty

Breslin POV

Iall but ran over her in the hallway a short time later. A small frown puckered her features as she stared at her phone.

“You get your interview?”

She lifted her head, shot a look in my direction and glanced away. She shook her head. “Sorry, were you talking to me?”

“Who else?”

“Well, that’s very confusing. Has anyone ever told you, you look a lot like that baseball player?”

“I should look a lot like your boyfriend.”

Something flashed across her features. She stared at some point beyond me. “How long? And around who? We didn't say anything to Dotty. I'd hoped it wouldn't be like a whole thing. Just you know . . .”

I shoved my hands in my pockets and shrugged. “This was your idea, you tell me.”

“I was just trying to keep you out of trouble. There wasn't a real plan, I just reacted. I knew a teenaged girl with too many 'details' about her sex life would make those guys squirm and?—”

“Details you have no experience with.” I swallowed a grin.

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