Page 142 of Only Between Us

“Rachel, thank you for…” Mom’s voice trails away. I pivot to get a better look at her from around my flowers. She stares at the card she must’ve produced from her flowers. “Well, isn’t that sweet? They’re from Brooks.”

“What does it say?”

Mom hands me the small white card.Rachel, thank you for raising the love of my life, for taking her in, putting her on a path where we’d meet one day. I’m so grateful to you and Logan, I’ll happily let you keep kicking my ass at cribbage. Looking forward to a rematch very soon.

God, I love that man.

The writing isn’t his—obviously, seeing as he’s currently acrossthe country. But it’s so him, that perfect blend of sweet and playful. I feel each of his words dust over my skin like a warm caress, a hint of pine bridging the too-many miles between us. Like he knew I’d need him tonight. Like he’s right here with me, holding my hand through one of the most painful things I’ve ever done.

Mom leads me back to the kitchen, where I set the second arrangement on the small island. I have to stand on the tips of my toes to reach the card tucked between the petals.Come on, Siena. Swim with sharks with me.

The knot in my stomach fully unravels, reading the same words I gave him the night we arrived in LA. If Mom’s note was Brooks taking my hand, this one is his arms wrapping around me on the back of my bike. The first nervous dip of his toes in the ocean at midnight. His legs dangling off a cliffside, warily eyeing the long way down.

It’s that little push I’ve been giving him all summer, the one he repeatedly answered with blind trust in me and courage he didn’t think he had in him. I feel it nudging the words up my throat, the ones I’ve been trying to perfect all week, making my jaw unclench to let them out at last.

“I want to move to LA.”Good grief, woman. So much for easing her in.I’m so loud my voice actually bounces off the walls and cabinets around us, momentarily distracting me from the sounds of a chair scraping against the worn kitchen tiles.

Mom slowly sinks into her seat, eyes glued to me. “What?”

I clutch Brooks’s words for courage. “I’m sorry, Mom. That’s not how I meant to tell you—toaskyou.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you asking me to move to LA?”

I sit with her, shoving away the leftover spaghetti as Pete trots back to my side, curling his massive body around my feet. Either knowing I need the mental support or determined to bully me through this conversation with a well-placed snap of his teeth, if I chicken out again. “Well, the thing is, Mom… I know I let you thinkearlier that Brooks and I were going to do the long-distance thing, but that’s never quite worked for me, and—”

“No, I understandwhyyou’d move to LA. Frankly I was shocked you’d stay here, what with the way things with that other one turned out.” Her mouth flattens into the hard line it adopts whenever Tom comes up in conversation. She never really got over the way he treated me. “I’m asking why you, my grown woman of a daughter, areaskingme to move to LA as though I have a say in the matter.”

“You do have a say in the matter.”Brooks, Pete, and Sophia. Brooks, Pete, and Sophia.“Because of the shop.”

“The shop.” Mom’s voice is even, face is blank.

“I wanted to… to see whether there was something you and I could work out. Some way that we could keep it in the family, make sure you’re still able to pay off the second loan on the house, and that I could—”

“The second loan on the house?” Mom’s eyes grow in alarm. “Siena, how do you know about the second loan on the house?”

I hesitate. “I overheard you and Dad talk about it, the day before you went to the bank.”

“You weren’t—” She pauses, perhaps remembering the extent of that conversation. The one where she’d cried over the way my birth parents had been bleeding them for money. Mom’s face drains of color. “How much of that did you happen to hear?”

“All of it,” I whisper.

“Fuck.” Mom drops her face into her palms, and I’m momentarily stunned. The woman never swears. “You weren’t meant to hearanyof that, Siena. I am so sorry.”

“You’resorry? Mom you were being extorted.” My throat starts to close up, tears start to well. “You and Dad had already gone above and beyond when you took me in, and your reward was to slowly become bankrupt just to keep me. If anyone here should be sorry—”

“Don’t you dare.” Mom blinks rapidly. “Don’t you dare apologize for something you had nothing to do with. Don’t you dare apologize for the choices Dad and I made. That was the least we would have done to keep you.”

She grabs her crutches and starts pacing the kitchen.

“Mom, you should be sitting.”

“I can’t sit. How can I sit? I’m fuckingfurious. You’re telling me you’ve been carrying this with you since you werefourteen? How could you not—” She turns to face me. “Don’t tell me this is why you’re still here. Don’t tell me this is why you’re so worried about the shop. Please tell me it’s because you love working there, and you don’t want to let it go.”

I rub my lips together, the guilt so heavy on my chest. Peter huffs, his breath hitting my toes. “I don’t really love it all that much, Mom. You and Dad loved that place more than I ever did.”

“Do you mean to tell me you’ve been working there as… what, Siena? An act of guilt? Obligation?” She closes her eyes when I don’t respond, breathing deep like she’s searching for patience. “I need a drink. Do you need a drink?”

I chuckle. “I could use a drink.”

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