Page 82 of The Life We Left Behind

“You don’t have to go out, you know.” I felt guilty that Blake felt like she needed to give us space when she’d come all this way to help me out.

“I know, but I’ve got plans.”

I looked at her in question, but she turned her fingers over her lips, miming locking them, and then pretended to throw it over her shoulder.

I squinted in suspicion. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing,Mom.” She dug a finger into my ribs, and I batted her away in annoyance. “It’s nice here,” she added, making absolutely no sense. When she could see the confusion on my face, she continued. “I can see why you might be thinking about staying here, and I think you’re right to consider it.”

“I just don’t know…”

“What about it feels like a bad idea?” she asked, sipping at her coffee and watching me over the top of her mug.

I quickly checked my phone to see if Trace had sent me a message, and my stomach flipped when I found one saying he was already on the way. I was acting like I was back in high school, and we all knew how that had ended the first time around.

“That’s the thing. I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all,” I finally admitted to myself. “Cade wants to be here. I want to be here. Trace deserves the chance to get to know his son. Everyone I’ve met in town has been lovely. I don’t know what’s holding me back.”

“Could it be,” Blake whispered, looking side to side dramatically before asking, “The wicked bitch of the west?”

I didn’t even need to ask her who she meant. It was pretty obvious.

“No,” I answered honestly. “I don’t care what she thinks at all. What’s she going to do about it? Say something mean to me? She might be the devil, but even Regina wouldn’t say anything directly to Cade. If anything, she’ll just ignore him, thinking that depriving him of her presence and family name is the worst punishment anyone could have. I’m an adult now. She can’t scare me away with impossible threats anymore.”

Blake looked impressed with my answer and honestly, I was a little bit as well. There was a time when I’d been terrified of Regina and what she’d said she could do. In fact, it had only been yesterday morning when I’d been in town that I’d realized just how untrue it all was. The world didn’t revolve around Regina Farrington. She might not have realized that yet, but the rest of the world had.

“So, what’s the problem, then?” Blake asked me gently. “It sounds like you only have reasons to do it.”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s a big change, and I never saw myself coming back here. I’ve been trying to find what I want to do with my life for the last six months, and this feels like taking astep backward rather than forward. Plus…I guess I don’t want to leave you behind and the life we’d built there. It was good, I was comfortable, settled.”

“What if you weren’t leaving me?” Blake asked as she turned to rinse her mug in the sink.

“What do you mean?”

“Hell, I like it here, Delaney. There’s something about this place that makes the screaming in my head stop. I’ve even got the start of an idea for a new series. It’s still marinading for now, but I can already see some pieces starting to form. I haven’t felt like this about a painting for a while now. Honestly, I thought I was starting to lose it.”

Blake leaned back against the counter with a sigh as she looked around the kitchen like she was seeing it for the first time.

“I’d really like it if you stayed,” I told her seriously.

Blake wasn’t my security blanket, but she was my person. There was nothing I wouldn’t trust her with, and I knew that no matter what, she’d always fight for me. She was my sister of circumstance and my only real friend in the city. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her.

“I’d really like that too.” She nudged my shoulder with hers.

“So, we’re staying then?” Cade’s voice asked from the hallway.

“Are you eavesdropping on us?” I wanted to laugh, but I wasn’t surprised. I would have done exactly the same thing as him when I was his age.

Cade came into the kitchen, not even looking a little ashamed of himself. “It’s not that I was eavesdropping, more that I was absorbing information that I might need to know.”

I could feel Blake’s shoulders starting to shake with laughter in the moment of laughter that followed.

“You realize this is your fault, right?” I told her. “I’ve heard you say exactly the same thing on numerous occasions.”

“I only learn from the best,” Cade reassured us as he walked over and wrapped his arms around us both. “And I’d really like to stay too.”

I hugged him back. It was impossible not to. Even if I didn’t love the kid with every cell in my body, he was the perfect hugging size at the moment. Seriously, he just fit against me in a way that I couldn’t describe. Plus, I was getting all the hugs I could while he was offering them up. There was a part of me that was absolutely terrified of the day he decided he was too old for random hugs. There was no way I was going to survive his teenage years.

“Okay, how about we give this place a six-month trial and see how we all feel?” I suggested. Cade was nodding already, but before he could say anything, I quickly added. “It’s going to mean changing schools, and the team won’t be able to hold your place back home,” I warned him.

---