“What were you going to do?” I asked, retaking my seat.
“I bought both houses to the right of it. Was going to tear those two down and make a bigger house, then tear the house I’m in now down to make a bigger backyard and parking area, but now…”
Now he didn’t know what he wanted to do because his wife wasn’t here to do it with.
“If you have no problem with me renting from you, I’d totally be down. I can easily do fifteen hundred a month,” I blurted.
I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Not when I’d just realized that I was abusing a friendship that probably wasn’t even a friendship.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that everything that I’d felt for Copper was one-sided.
He’d never led me on and allowed me to think that he was interested in me.
He’d only been trying to get me better.
It was time to stand on my own two feet again.
It…
“I can have my stuff moved out by tomorrow.”
“You’re moving out of your place?” Copper asked Audric, startling me when he came up beside me.
I turned slightly, thinking I would see the woman from earlier on his arm, but she was nowhere to be found.
“Yeah, your roommate here just asked to move in,” Audric said, looking so relieved to be out of that house, for a valid reason, that he missed the palpable tension in the air.
“You’re moving out?” Copper asked.
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
Eventually, I worked up the courage to say, “Yeah. I think it’s time, don’t you?” I swallowed hard. “That way, you can have your life back. You don’t have to babysit me anymore.”
“Was that what you thought I was doing?” he asked.
I laughed humorlessly. “That’s exactly what you were doing, and we both know it.”
For the rest of the night, and then the next morning as I packed my things up, Copper was nowhere to be found.
He’d left me behind last night at the clubhouse, and I’d caught a ride home with Audric of all people in his truck.
Dad was fast asleep on the couch when I got there, so I let him sleep and went to my bedroom, wondering if I was making a mistake.
But when I heard Copper come home and then talk to my dad in the living room about me moving out, and how he thought it was a good thing for me, I solidified my decision.
Yes, I was definitely moving out.
It was time.
Twelve
If you’re not in my circle of trust, you’re probably in my triangle of suspicion or rhombus of doubt.
—Copper to Keely
COPPER
