“And this deal with my family,” I said, eyeing her for a reaction. She didn't give any. “Is there anything I need to tell them?”
Giving me her full attention, she pinned me with a serious look. “Right now, I’m enjoying getting to know my son again. And I think he is too… You understand me, honey?”
I paused, thinking about the small light of hope in Harper’s eyes the last time I saw him. And strangely I believed her, this woman who had thankedme, when really she was the one pulling her family together by the fraying threads.
Nodding, I said, “Okay.”
Turning, I made my way down the walkway, but thinking betterof it, I turned back. Who knew, with Harper being MIA, this could be my last and only chance. So I said, “I’m Alta, by the way. And your son, he’s—he’s everything to me.”
She smiled. “Oh, honey, I knew your name well before you got here. Turns out, you might just be everything to him too.”
I couldn’t go home. I missed him and now I was more confused, more in the dark than I had been even before. And worse, I had no clue where he was or when he was coming back. I couldn’t go back to one of the many places we’d fallen into each other. The only thing I’d be able to do was wish he was there.
So when I knocked on the second door that night, and was met with a familiar face, I couldn’t help but feel all the feelings I’d been holding together for the last few weeks start to rush me all at once.
“Al?” Lis said, her voice cautious. “What’s wrong?”
“He—” I tried to hold together my tears, but they were already falling down my face. “He’s gone.”
Before I knew it, I was falling apart in my sister’s arms. And before too long, my other sisters were there, listening as I told them absolutely everything about how me and Harper came to be.
When I finished telling my story the three of them looked at me with blinking eyes and shocked expressions.
Clementine was surprisingly the first to speak. “You… have had sex inso manyweird places.”
My laugh burst free through my tears. “That’s the first thing you think of?”
“Well, you detailedeverything. What else do you expect me to say?” she snorted.
I continued to laugh but tears began to fall again. “Oh I don’tknow. If you think it’s crazy. If you thinkI’mcrazy to think that it’ll work out. If you think he—loves me?”
I didn’t expect to get a resounding audience of laughter, but that’s what I got. Even Melissa was laughing her soft, hiccupping giggle. I blinked between them, my misery momentarily sheltered by their humor. “What?”
Ceci sat in front of me, her hands steady as she wiped my tears, then gripped my shoulders. “Would you stop asking ridiculous questions already? He obviously loves you, but you won’t feel any better hearing it from us.”
“Then what do I do?” I asked.
“You’ve done exactly what you should do up until now,” Clem said, rubbing my shoulder. “Be there for him.”
To my surprise Ceci and even Melissa were all nodding in agreement. But Ceci was the one to add, in her most mischievous voice. “But thereissomething you’re missing.”
“What?”
She patted my cheek, smiling an evil smile. “You’re still beingwaytoo nice.”
Chapter Forty-One
AUGUSTUS
“Please leave,” I said with zero pretense of friendliness.
I had done a lot of searching in the last few weeks, a lot of growing and a lot of forgiving too. But for some reason the sight of the man who wanted to buy my family’s company was not one I was willing to cozy up to just yet.
Said man was giving me the droll unaffected look he seemed to be known for my rudeness not affecting him one singular bit as he stared at me.
“Am I going to have to get a tattoo for you to speak to me?” Oaxaca Fernandez asked as he stood in the entryway of my shop.
I thought about the journey I just arrived from. About the hours of anxiety that plagued me on the planeride there. The shaking hands and bodily tremors I’d gone through just to cross that threshold of my old life in Connecticut. The strength it had taken to face the fears of my future and just trust myself, and I felt drained. Emotionally and physically exhausted and the only person I wanted to see right now was the girl that would make it all better.
