Page 13 of The Chances We Take

My phone buzzed once, twice, three times in my pocket.

“You’re sure popular today, Lawsy.” One of the older guys on the rodeo team gave me a hard time.

I smiled at him and looked at my phone.

Eileen

Are you coming home this weekend?

Hello?

Don’t ignore me, son.

I can’t, I’m sorry. I have a team thing

Eileen

You never make time for your family anymore, Reid. Don’t you care about how we’re doing?

I do, I just have other things now too

The message never delivered and I assumed the worst, so I told Coach I had an emergency and drove home that weekend to find everything was fine.

I let her fool me a few more times before I finally decided enough was enough. It killed me not to come back and see the twins and Ryker, but it was clear she wasn’t going to accept any help and I needed to take care of myself.

After that, I made myself promise that even if I couldn’t take care of my mother—a hard lesson to learn—I could still do whatever it took to help everyone else I loved.

I was more than willing to sacrifice my own happiness if it meant the people I loved wouldn’t feel the pain I experienced as a twelve-year-old kid raising his younger siblings because his mother didn’t give enough of a shit to get sober.

That’s why when Colter started drinking more and more after his breakup with Sophie, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t watch another person I loved fall into those habits.

I just couldn’t.

My hands must have had a mind of their own, because instead of tossing my phone aside like I usually did, my fingers drifted to my recent phone calls, hovering over the familiar contact name. I hesitated for a beat but then pressed her name and turned my phone on speaker. I just wanted to hear her voice.

“Hello? Reid?” Isa answered on the second ring.

“Hey, sorry, I—” I wanted to say I called on accident, hang up, and go about my day, but I didn’t. “How’s everything going?”

“Great! We’re finally back on track with the wedding planning things, thankfully. I was starting to worry we wouldn’t finish everything and Ellison would have to go back home and do it all by herself. Because God knows she won’t let Colter help.” Her laugh on the other end of the line calmed me, although it did nothing to slow my racing heart.

If anything, it made it beat even faster.

“That’s good to hear.” Man, have I always been this bad at talking to Isa?

Stop acting like an idiot with a crush. She’s your friend.

Isa knew a little bit about my family, though I hadn’t divulged everything to her. We’d talked about them a couple times over the past year, but it was still weird for me, so I never gave up too much information. Most of the time, I was the person who my friends came to with their problems, not the other way around. I was always lending a listening ear. Colter had jokingly called me his therapist several times before I told him to knock it off.

“Did something happen?” She seemed to always know when something was off. It was a skill we both had, but I hadn’t expected her to use it on me.

I sighed into the phone. “My mother texted me again.”

The other end of the line was silent. But before I could ask if she was still there, she asked, “Have you ever considered hearing what she has to say?”

I tensed my jaw, taking a long, deep breath. “No.” The truth was, I didn’t know if Eileen really deserved it. It was always the same thing every time.

“I know it’s not what you want to hear, but maybe you should?” Her suggestion sounded more like a question.

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