Page 90 of Stone Vows

Caden shakes his head. “I never told anyone why I changed the number. I’m sure my teammates thought it had something to do with my sister going missing, but I kept it to myself. Lexi was the only person who needed to know why I did it.”

I reach across the table and touch my brother’s hand. “The dynamic duo,” I say.

He laughs. “The dynamic duo,” he repeats.

“It’s what we used to call ourselves when we were little,” I explain to Kyle. “Our father took off shortly after Caden was born and our mother bounced around from man to man looking for her next husband—of which she had four. Nobody had time for us. It was us against the world.”

“Darn,” Kyle says, looking overly dramatic. “You guys are a walking-talking Lifetime movie.”

Caden and I both pelt him with fortune cookies.

Kyle catches them and winks at me. “Still my favorite part,” he says, keeping one and tossing the other back to me.

“Mine too,” I tell him, ripping open the plastic to get to mine.

I can’t help but smile as we both hide our slips of paper while we eat our cookies. Caden looks between us, not understanding the private moment.

I read mine first.“You will be hungry again in thirty minutes.”

We all moan and chuckle as Caden opens his.“Made in the USA,”he reads.

“Boston!” Kyle and I shout at the same time, laughing.

“Now you,” I say nodding at Kyle.

He opens the slip of paper and reads his fortune to himself. Then he shakes his head and gets up from the table, throwing his food in the trash.

“Dude, did it say you were going to kill a patient or something?” Caden asks, laughing.

Kyle doesn’t respond to Caden’s laughter. He just keeps walking to his bedroom. We’ve reminisced a lot tonight about the month I was under his care in the hospital. But it was evident to me that the more we walked down memory lane, the more uncomfortable he became. Maybe all those good memories just reminded him of how I left him without even a word.

There is still so much he wants to know about me. Still so much I should share with him. I wish things were like they were before and I could just show up with a dozen flavors of Jell-O and two plastic spoons. How I long for those days. Before I made the biggest mistake of my life.

Kyle’s bedroom door slams shut.

Feeling a bit defeated, I walk over and look at the trashcan, the little slip of paper having fallen off his plate, coming to rest on the floor next to it. I pick it up and read it.

‘Everything happens for a reason.’

Chapter Forty-one

I hug everyone as they pile into Kyle’s apartment. Charlie, Mallory, Baylor, Skylar and Piper have all come over to ‘keep me company’ while Kyle is at work and Caden goes to a late meeting. Seems I’m not even on bedrest anymore yet I still need babysitting.

I’m not complaining though, I’ve missed them all so much. Mallory even brought her daughter, Kiera, who is three weeks younger than Ellie. We sit them on a soft blanket next to the couch as I catch everyone up on my life.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you any of this when we talked on the phone earlier,” I say to Baylor after I tell them everything. “But I just didn’t have the energy to talk about it more than absolutely necessary.”

“Are you kidding?” she says. “I completely understand, Elizabeth. I mean, Alexa. Oh, wow, that is going to take some getting used to.”

“Please call me Lexi,” I say.

“So you’ve been running and on your own for over a year?” Skylar asks, her head shaking in anger over what I told them about Grant.

“Just about thirteen months,” I say.

“And you supported yourself with no identification, no address and no bank account?” Mallory asks.

“Well, I did some odd jobs before Ellie was born. Walking dogs, cleaning apartments, but after she came along, there was no way for me to work.”

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