Page 92 of Back for More
“I don’t regret any of it, Wes. It’s fine. Really.” I put my hands on either side of his face, and now that I’m comfortinghim, I realize that it really is fine. “I can wait tables. I’ll find a place with flexible hours so I can still do theater stuff.”
He rests his forehead against mine, his hands on my waist. “Baby…”
“And I’m sure it won’t be hard to find an apartment. They must be so much cheaper than in LA.”
“Did he kick you out?”
“No. I can’t live with him anymore. I’m sure Leesh will let me crash at her place until I figure something out.”
“Lily. Are you kidding? Stay with me.”
“I can’t do that to you.”
“I’m asking you to do that to me. I want you to do that to me. I want you to live with me. With me and Fanny Brice. If that’s what you want.”
“It is. It’s what I want.” I hug him so tight.
“Good. I only have one request.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to let me watch you warm up your instruments every morning.”
Eye roll. “Bah dah gah pah dah gah hah hah hah.”
“You don’t have to work, you know. If you want to do theater stuff full-time.”
“I have to work. Trust me. But thank you. Taco dinners may have to be on you for a while, though.”
He snickers. “You got it. If you want to go home and get your stuff and say good-bye to Vicky before your dad leaves work, you can go now. I can answer the phones here. I think.”
“You sure? I don’t want to leave you hanging.”
“It’s fine, I got this. I don’t have an extra key on me, but take mine.” He reaches into his pocket for his keys.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll just hang out in my car until you get home or something.”
“Lily,” he says, pulling his house key off his keychain and placing it into the palm of my hand. “I love you. This is your key to your home now.” He closes my fingers around it, and I feel him gently squeezing my heart.
I empty out all of air from my lungs. “Wes. You just said the exact words I’ve needed to hear since I was fourteen years old.”
He pats me on the butt like it’s no big deal. “Go on. Get out of here. Feed the cat and let her outside. I’ll bring dinner.”
After going by Human Resources on my way out, I stop by the ladies room to send Wes three “I love you” texts to his personal phone, and then I take a quick shot of my boob and send it to his work phone, just because I can now. He immediately responds by telling me he deleted it and that I should send all boob pics to his personal phone. I make no such promises.
I drive back to the mansion. I guess I’ll be referring to it as “my dad’s house” now. But the garden will always be my mother’s. And Toby’s. I go out to the garden to visit the finished gazebo and cut some flowers to take to Wes’s house—my home. I pack up as much as I can into my car, including all of the framed pictures I had left behind the last time I’d left. Then I go to the kitchen to give Vicky a big hug.
“I’ll still see you, Vicky. I’ll just be at Wes’s house. You’ll come to my play at the school next month, right?”
She nods once, but she can’t stop shaking her head. She’s not a crier, this one, but I can always tell when she’s having feelings. “Please don’t go, Lily. I know he doesn’t show it, and God knows he doesn’t say it, but he worries about you when you’re gone. You’re his only kid.”
Now I’m the one shaking my head. “If he wants to know how I’m doing, he can ask Wes. Or me. But I can’t live with him. Or work for him. And it looks like we’ll never be able to understand each other. I wanted to. I really did.”
I’m sad, but this is so different from the last time I moved my stuff out of this house. Last time, I was running away. This time I’m running to.
A few hours later, Wes and I are eating takeout tacos on his sofa. Fanny Brice is curled up beside me, and Wes is running lines with me because I have to memorize every word spoken by every female character in the abridged version ofA Midsummer Night’s Dreamsince I’m the understudy for all the actresses. It’s a lot of words to memorize, especially when the words I’m usually thinking now are: “I love you, Wes. Take off your shirt and kiss me.”
“How now, my love!” Wes reads aloud. “Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?” His serious expression and even deeper voice than usual make me laugh. He frowns at me. “Is it supposed to be funny?”
