Page 109 of Other Side Of Never
When I could stand, I returned home.
Alone.
26
Mom?
We’vereceivedanotheroffer.
You’re our first choice.We looked you up and saw your vision for Cocoa Loco!If you want it our little shoppe, it’s yours.
But we need to know within the next 24-48 hours.
Tossing my cell phone onto the bed, I lay back against the pillows and stared out the window into the darkness.In Sage Ridge, they rolled up the sidewalks early.With Aunt Anita long gone home, the sidewalks empty, and no Kian or Isaiah to distract me, my anxieties popped online one after the other.
Melancholy clung to me like a shroud.And it pissed me off.I was no longer a woman who would put all her eggs in some man’s basket, yet here I was.Fucking pining.Because other than a brief morning or evening check-in?I’d barely heard from Kian since he left.
I wasn’t a clingy sort of girlfriend.Oh my God, was I even his girlfriend?Partner?What the hell were we?
Maybe now that he’d reconciled with Aaron, he’d want to take Isaiah back home to their family.I couldn’t blame him for that.Isaiah deserved that big, happy, loving family clamoring around him.
A choice between that and just me?There was no contest.
If he wanted me with him, he would have taken me, too.
The truth was, Kian came to Sage Ridge to reconcile with his son.
Mission complete.
Maybe it was time for him to go home?
“Ugh!”I knew better than to get involved with a single dad!Even a good man, like Kian.Because he was such a good man, he would put his kids first.
And I knew, I fucking knew where that left me.
Why didn’t he ask me to go with him?
I picked up my cell phone and opened my contacts.My thumb hovered over Kian’s name.It wasn’t like I hadn’t spoken to him at all, I could call and ask him what’s going on.It was simple.I tapped on his name.My thumb hovered over the call button.So simple.But impossible.
Even before he left, he’d been working all hours which meant we’d seen each other less and less.I accepted it as part and parcel of his business, but what if it was something more?
Though it pained me to admit it, I was scared.
Scared of crowding him.
Scared of pushing myself into a space I wasn’t fully, truly, completely and utterly wanted.
Emotionally, I was back at our beginning when I wasn’t sure if he wanted to spend time with me at all.
I closed my eyes.
We don’t want to pressure you with another offer coming in, but we need to know whether you want the store or not?
Opening my email, I scanned their letter.
24-48 hours.
Where did things stand between me and Kian?Would he even be back before then?
