Page 115 of I Could Never
We’d spent the day lounging around the house, and it was glorious. Though I did take a quick trip to Walmart to get myself some normal pajamas, a few more items of clothing, and some groceries.
Now, it was almost bedtime, and we were once again hanging out in the living room. Josh and Scottie had showered, and they were now looking at something on the iPad.
“Look at what he’s doing.” Josh pointed to the screen. “He’s using the Andy Warhol filter again on, like, a hundred pictures of his own face.”
“Just like old times,” I said. “He must like himself.”
“That’s a good quality.” Josh mussed Scottie’s hair. “If only we all liked ourselves that much.”
Scottie laid his head on Josh’s shoulder and continued playing with the photos.My heart.
“He’s very calm tonight,” I said. “You can tell he’s happy to be home.”
Josh smiled. “Can you blame him?”
“No, I can’t.”
“I’m happy to be here, too,” he said.
“It’s crazy that it took Scottie going missing to get us back together like this.”
“Not the way I would’ve chosen for it to happen, that’s for damn sure,” Josh said.
He looked down at his phone for a moment and placed his hand on Scottie’s shoulder. “It’s past your bedtime, dude.” He led Scottie into his room to get him ready for bed.
It seemed to take forever for him to return to the living room, which figured, since I was nervous about the talk we were going to have.
When Josh came back, he plopped down and rested his head on the couch for a moment. Despite how much we’d relaxed today, Josh still seemed a bit preoccupied and spent. He didn’t immediately start talking, but I decided I couldn’t wait anymore.
“So…” I cleared my throat. “You said we needed to talk…”
He turned to me and straightened. “Yeah.” He bounced his legs. “So…” He paused. “I want to know if you’d be willing to stay out here for a couple of weeks with Scottie while I go back to Chicago.”
My eyes widened. That was about the last thing I thought he’d say.
“I’m moving back to Woodsboro, Carly. I pretty much made that decision the moment I landed back here. I promised myself that if Scottie came home safely, I’d never let him out of my sight again. I don’t want him going back to the group home. I’m gonna take care of him myself.”
“Wow.” I nodded. “So you…need me to stay here while you go get your stuff?”
“Basically, yeah. I need to talk to my job to see if they’d be willing to let me work remotely on a permanent basis.”
“And if they won’t?”
“Then I’ll quit and figure something else out. Or I’ll work for Neil’s construction company in some management capacity and hire part-time help for Scottie here. We tried with the group-home thing, right? But he clearly didn’t want to be there.Thisis his home. He deserves to be here, and I want to make that happen for him, even if I have to hire help.”
There wasn’t anything to think about. I nodded. “Of course, I’ll stay.”
“It’s not permanent,” he assured me. “You can go back to California as soon as I get back.”
My stomach felt unsettled as I said the first thing that came to mind. “What if I don’t want to?”
That seemed to surprise him. Heck, it surprised me.
“You’re welcome here for as long as you want to stay,” he told me. “You know that. I just assumed you’dwantto go back to your life.”
What I really wanted was for him toaskme to stay. But I didn’t want to make this conversation about him and me. He’d just made a huge life decision, and throwing in the complicated matter of where we stood wouldn’t be fair right now. I didn’t think the reasons he felt we couldn’t be together had magically disappeared in the time we’d been apart.
Taking a deep breath, I decided to trust the process. Fate had brought us back together again—even if it was temporary. I vowed to not overthink anything, to enjoy my time with him for however long it lasted, and even to appreciate my time alone with Scottie while Josh went back to Chicago to settle things.