Page 114 of Any Second Now
Well, the answer is to let me go.
“I have to leave.” I step away from him and into the path of a man on his cell phone. The man dodges me and doesn’t give me a second glance.
“Raleigh,” Atticus says again, a bookend to when he first appeared in his doorway.
I memorize his face. His sharp jawline and the red curls falling over his forehead, popped out from the hole in his backwards baseball cap. Big eyes with dark lashes staring at me.
Maybe he’s doing the same thing. Memorizing me.
We’re done with each other. Neither of us are going to fight it.
“Goodbye, Atticus.”
I spin around and stride away.
He doesn’t try to stop me. Doesn’t even say my name again.
Twenty minutes later, I pull up to the Pink Palace, my face sore and wet from crying, and it takes me a second to soak in what I’m seeing.
The tarp on the RV is gone, revealing what the artist has been working on for the past week. I laugh out loud through my tears and sit behind the wheel for a beat before slowly getting out of my car.
It’s not a paint job. It’s a mural.
A beautiful mountain with a still lake, a pink and orange and yellow sunset reflected in the water. And on the banks of the lake is a single white chicken that looks just like Megghen.
I slam the car door behind me and step toward the Pink Palace, which looks decidedly less old and crappy.
Atticus did this.
I bite my lip as fresh tears spring to my eyes.
“Raleigh!”
I spin in the direction of the voice, which came from the front of Elizabeth’s RV.
Then I see the tall, red-haired woman standing next to my neighbor.
Lucy.
CHAPTER 24
The Unthinkable
ATTICUS
“You are all fucking pathetic.” Barrett shakes his head at us and makes a disgusted grunt. He leans back in his chair, hands linked over his abdomen.
“Who is this kid?” Harley—who just arrived back in town from Maine with bad relationship news of his own—glares at Barrett Steele like he’s a random dude we picked up on the street corner. Harley knows very well who Barrett is. But I can always count on Harley to be a dick to someone like Barrett. He was the same to me when I met him years ago.
Besides, Barrett tends to bring the worst out in people when he first meets them. I chuckle.
“Barrett Steele. How do you not know who I am?” A puzzled look falls on the kid’s face, like he truly doesn’t understand how someone wouldn’t know who he is.
Arrogant prick.
But, he’s kind of grown on me. Like a foot fungus.
“Yeah, I know who you are.” Harley scoffs. “I’m just not sure why you’re here. In Fort Collins. In this bar. At this table with us. Right this very moment.”
