Page 88 of One More Chapter
I slap my chest and gasp in feigned outrage. She smiles, one of those slowly unfurling grins that I want to capture like a rising sun.
“At least think about it?” I call after her as she heads straight past me toward her office.
“We’ll see.”
I shake my head, running one hand through my unkempt hair before running through my mental checklist for the day.
I donottell her that the patch work I plan on doing on the house now includes un-installing the Palladium windows in my own place.
Nope. No way she needs to know.
thirty-three
penelope
In the mostshocking turn of events, I am standing on the porch to Anthony’s parents’ home for Thanksgiving dinner. It really is a true one-eighty. This time last year, I was working on my latest release and saying that I was thankful that Anthonywasn’tin my life over frozen pizza. This year, I’m on his parents’ front porch with a pie and a secret want to sleep beside him again sometime soon. When I told him that I wanted to take care of my heart first, I didn’t realize that the words he spoke right after would be stitching a soft cushion for it to land on.
“There’s my girl!”
Debbie Ellis welcomes me with open arms just like she always has. No matter the years between our seeing each other, this woman helped raise me. You can’t take that type of bond away from two people. Her hug feels like home, and I curse myself for even thinking that when I didn’t even reach out to wish my own mother a happy holiday.
“I brought pie,” I smile sheepishly.
“Let’s bring it into the kitchen. The boys are over at Ant’s working on the house. They should be by soon.”
Working on Ant’s house. The home that he’s building for his future, the one I once envisioned myself a part of. The parallelthat we’re both creating our futures with our own fingertips doesn’t pass me by. The only difference is that his has the potential to be filled with home and happiness. What do my books hold for me, aside from tying up the loose ends of my failed relationships?
That’s how they started, when it all comes down to it. A terrible heartbreak led to a story idea, and in a matter of seventy-two days that I marked by the day I found out he was cheating on me, I had an ode to my ex fluffed up and ready to send to potential publishers. From there, my Tinder dating woes turned into money. It’s exactly how I’ve been convincing myself that doing the same with Ant is okay.
It’s what you’ve done in the past.
Yeah, except with all of those other stories, the past stayed in the past, and the plot lines were entirely derivative. I’m three chapters away from finishing Finn and Delilah’s happily ever after, and the only real difference between their story and mine and Anthony’s is that it takes place on the west coast.
I take off my coat and hang it on the rack by the front door, then find Debbie in the kitchen. She’s pouring a second glass of red wine and hands it to me when I join her at the island.
“How’s my girl been?”
“Good.”
I smile, because it’s the truth. She just doesn’t need to know that her son has been a big part of it. We talk about school, and the progress on my house. I ask how retirement is, and her face lights up.
“I’ve been getting back into knitting! It’s been so nice. The NICU down at the hospital is always looking for hats, so I joined a local knitting circle. We can’t make them fast enough!”
“Do you need more hands? I remember how you taught me during that one summer.”
That one summerbeing one of three times Anthony and I ever really knew each other. This one in particular, my mom had wanted to do something nice for me since Connor’s dad had taken him on a two-week summer excursion to Europe. Of course, that meant piggy-backing on the Ellises family vacation to their house on the Cape. And, being thirteen years old meant that Ant and his brothers wanted nothing to do with me. When I wasn’t reading books and tanning, I was holed up on the back porch learning simple finger-knitting techniques until I could handle needles. All the while, my mom was down at the beach bars looking for a new man to fool.
“Absolutely! Come by any time and I’ll give you the pattern. We can have girl time.”
Girl time. Something I should have been excited to have with my own mother. At least I have Ant’s mom as my consolation prize.
She tells me about the antics of her three sons, about how Grant will probably settle down when he’s forty, and about Ian’s new neighbor and her son.
“I think he’s got a crush, but the boy is too stubborn to admit it. Not when he can’t do anything to provide for her with his arm still laid up,” she says, finishing her glass of wine.
“Does he have a complex or something?” I chuckle, then pour us each a second glass.
“Ian takes the world upon his shoulders. Honestly, I think thatbreakingone was good for him. Maybe it’ll teach him to slow down.”