Page 40 of The Life We Left Behind

The sound of car tires had me leaping from the couch and grabbing my phone to check the time.

Shit.

I’d been sitting here for over an hour trying to figure out what I wanted to do next.

I watched an SUV pull up outside that I didn’t recognize and sprinted straight for the door. There were only two people I was expecting today, and I was really hoping it was them.

As I rounded the corner, the front door flew open, and a ball of energy in the shape of a ten-year-old boy flew across the hallway and slammed into me.

“I missed you so much,” I rushed out as I hugged Cade fiercely.

“I missed you too, Mom.”

Cade slowly wiggled out of my iron-like grip on him, giggling and complaining about it the entire time, and my place in the world felt solid again for the first time since I’d left our apartment.

I looked up to see Blake smiling in the doorway.

“You’re early.”

“Yeah, we decided to set off super early. Like before the birds even woke up.”

Knowing how Blake was with early mornings, I had reason to doubt if that was true. But then again, it was only 10:30 in the morning, and it was a five-hour drive from the city.

Yikes. I might owe Blake more than a few glasses of wine for this.

Cade rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t that early, Aunty Blake!”

Blake stared at me with a look of utter horror. “I thought you were joking when you said he gets up at 5 a.m.!”

The laughter just bubbled out of me at that point. It was partly from the look on her face and also the realization that not only was there no food in the house, but Trace and I had also finished off the coffee.

This was not going to go down well.

“How about you go and have a nap for a bit, and Cade and I will head into town and hit the grocery store?”

Blake squinted in suspicion, and even the most innocent smile that I tried to form wasn’t dissuading her.

“Why the grocery store? There had better be snacks, Lanes!”

I pinched my lips together, looking guilty as hell as she stormed toward the kitchen and started pulling open cupboards with a sound of absolute horror.

“How do you live like this?” she screeched melodramatically.

But then, as she turned to further try to drive her point home, her eye caught on Trace’s untouched coffee mug on the counter and mine sitting next to the couch.

The look of playful horror on her face dissolved into one of glee as she pointed at the mugs, a full grin stretching across her lips.

Of course, this wasn’t a conversation I really wanted to have with her in front of Cade. So, I grabbed my purse and started to bundle a very confused-looking Cade toward the front door.

“Yep, we’ll go and get some groceries. Lots of snacks. All the snacks. You just go have a nap, and when you wake up, there’llbe coffee and pastries and all the sugary goodness your little artist heart could require.”

And then I slammed the front door shut behind us before she could respond.

Of course, I still heard her screech, “There isn’t even any coffee!”

Yikes, I was going to owe Blake more than a few drinks at this point. Damn, I probably owed her an explanation, even though I had no idea how to explain myself or even what I wanted.

Last night had been wonderful and terrible all at the same time.

---