Page 23 of Needing You

“Again? Man, leave it to a chef and a baker to always be at the store,” April teased.

“Yeah, well, in addition to cake mix, I was also buying groceries for the bottomless pit who lives in my apartment.”Not that I see much of him these days.

“So what happened when you saw Will?” Ellie asked, attempting to get us back on track. As a nurse, she was nothing if not efficient with stolen moments of rest while working.

“It was… awkward. First, I saw Jenna.” I chuckled and nodded when they both winced, staring at the inky black depths within my mug. “Yeah. That went about as well as you’d expect. I honestly don’t blame her for hating me, though.”

Ellie put her hand on my forearm. “She doesn’t hate you. None of them do. They’re just… hurt, I guess. But it’ll be okay in time. I’m sure of it.”

“What makes you so sure?” I asked, surprising myself with the shakiness in my voice.

“You’re family,” she replied. “Nothing is more important than family.”

I swallowed the lump that’d risen in my throat and gave her a grateful half-smile. “Anyway, um, so Will came up while I was talking to his mom, and he got her to leave—bless him. I was pretty close to running away by that point. Then we stood there and tried to talk, but it was so stupid, you guys. He saw that I was getting store-brand stuff and offered to pay for my groceries, and I told him we didn’t need him to, and it was so damn embarrassing.”

April swallowed a sip of coffee. “Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

Ellie tilted her head from side to side. “Not that he should have offered inthatway, but I know he wants to help. Maybe you guys can work out a deal with grocery money or something.”

“We’ll see. It’s something we need to talk about, but I don’t want him to feel like I only told him about Jackson so he’d start chipping in for all the food he eats.”

“To be fair, you didn’t exactly tell him about Jackson,” Ellie said quietly. “Hesawhim.”

I sipped my coffee and let the silence hang instead of bothering to defend myself. She hadn’t said it with malice, so I didn’t need to remind her that I’d been about to tell him. Freaking small towns and their limited options for grocery stores.

“So,” I went on, shifting to the next part of the story, “we somehow managed to get through that bit of tension, then we decided to drop our groceries off at home and meet up for coffee. Which was much nicer. Still painfully awkward at times, but I have to admit, it was also really nice. We talked about some stuff with Jackson, and in the end, I felt very… not alone. Sorry, it’s hard to describe.”

“I think it makes sense,” April said thoughtfully, chewing on her lip. “I mean, you can talk to us about him, but I bet it’s different to talk to his dad about him.”

“Right.”

“But I have to ask, does thisnicecoffee date mean you and Will are trying to rekindle things?”

I felt my brows snap together at the same time my spine straightened with awareness. “What? No. Definitely not. That would be crazy. Ridiculous, even.”

My friends shared a look over the rims of their coffee cups.

“I’m serious,” I insisted. “Will’s got a lot of complicated feelings for me, but I’m sure none of them are positive.”

Ellie made a clicking sound with her mouth. “I don’t know. The timing of you leaving lines up pretty nicely with Will taking a swan dive off the deep end.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that he hit an all-time low right around then. I was there. His anger and bitterness were boundless. I remember how confused the family was because he’d always been a rebellious little shit, but right about the time you left, he became a flat-out dick. Toeveryone.”

My stomach churned as I processed her words. It wasn’t lost on me that Will only had a few short years with his dad from that time until he died when Will was twenty. I didn’t know for sure, of course, but I had a feeling he probably felt terrible about how he’d acted during that time when he looked back on it now. Poor guy.

“All the more reason he wouldn’t want to start something romantic with me again,” I said, sniffing. “Besides, can you imagine how bad it would be for Jackson to find his dad only to lose him if something went wrong between us and he took off for New York or something? I would never do that to my son.”

April wrinkled her nose. “I mean, yeah, I guess if you want to be all glass-half-empty about it, you could think that way. But can you imagine howgoodit would be for Jackson if he found his dadandhis mom finally found happiness with him? That’s like every kid’s dream, right?”

I stared at her for a long moment as videos of that prettily painted future played in my mind. Then I waved my hand in front of my face as if I were actually sweeping them away. “Not gonna happen. That’s a sweet idea, but the small chance of happiness for me isn’t worth the risk of unhappiness for Jackson.”

Solemn silence overcame us once again, so I took that as my cue to get back to work. Thankfully, someone had just walked in and sat in my section anyway. I stood and picked up my carafe, motioning that I’d be right back. The girls nodded in reply, so I scooted over to the newcomers and poured their coffee with my best fake smile.

By the time I made it back to my friends, however, it was clear they were deep in conversation about something juicy. Hopefully, it had nothing to do with me. “What’s up?” I asked, topping off April’s mug.

---