Total pages in book: 238
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
“No,” I lied, remembering how I loved her breakfast casseroles. “But I’ll be back in the next few days. Just pass on the message to my parents when they get home that I’m in town, and I’m not going anywhere.”
She grinned. “Good. Your mom needs her spin partner back.”
I groaned inwardly before she winked and walked away.
“Spin partner?” Rory repeated.
“Shut up.”
Micah snorted, and I rolled my eyes.
I looked around, intending to go to my room and pick up some things when I got here, but now I didn’t feel up for it.
“You need clothes or something?” Micah asked.
I didn’t answer. I walked to the small table on the wall, instead, and pulled open the drawer, taking out some car keys.
I tossed them to Micah. “Take the Audi and follow me.”
We left the house, and they hopped in my father’s car as I took Kai’s, all of us jetting into the village and sliding into spots just along the curb in front of the theater. I had something to give them, and more business to take care of, but as soon as I grabbed the envelope and climbed out of the Porsche, I looked up and saw something new in the distance.
What…?
The leaves rustled in the trees, the smell of pizza wafting out of Sticks hitting me, but I didn’t even look when someone noticed me and called out, “Oh, my God. Will! You’re back!”
I kept my eyes on the top of the small hill, in the center of the park, in the middle of the village.
Where the hell did that come from?
We jogged across the street, the guys following me into the park and up the incline, my heart pounding as I took in the massive, beautiful, wrought-iron gazebo standing in the place of the one I’d burned down.
As if it had always been there. And Emmy’s had not.
After the fire, the city had cleared away the debris, and a few years later I was out of jail, constantly avoiding the emptiness that loomed to my left every time I went into Sticks or the theater or the White Crow Tavern…
I’d only been away less than a year and a half this time, and someone had rebuilt a gazebo in the old one’s place?
Someone had taken away my chance to make amends.
Not that I’d been rushing to do it myself, or even sure that I wanted to, still pissed at her constantly as I was, but… I didn’t like the opportunity to decide for myself taken away from me now.
“This was the gazebo?” Micah asked. “I thought she said it was burned down.”
I’d forgotten she’d mentioned it that night at the dinner table. I wasn’t about to explain myself, especially when I had no idea who built this, but why wouldn’t Michael or Kai stop them? They would anticipate I had plans of my own for a replacement someday. Or they’d anticipate that I’d eventually have plans of my own.
I gazed up at the black, circular structure with four sets of stairs, one each on the north, south, east, and west sides leading up to the landing, and the open roof, the beams coming from all sides to join at the top, letting in the falling leaves overhead and the rain during thunderstorms. Ivy wrapped around the railings, almost like the gazebo grew out of the land.
It was quite beautiful, actually. I wouldn’t have done it better, so there was that consolation.
Well, shit…
Exhaling, I shook my head and turned away, facing the guys as I dug in the envelope. “The car is yours for now,” I told them.
My parents wouldn’t balk at me borrowing it for as long as I needed. They just didn’t need to know it wasn’t for me.
I handed Rory another key and pointed to our family’s movie theater behind him. “There’s an apartment at the top. Fully furnished, the fridge is stocked, and it’s all yours.”
My eyes shifted from him to Micah, and I handed them each a phone and a billfold.
Rory’s brow knit in confusion as he opened the wallet and sifted through the license, the credit cards, and the cash, everything rush delivered this morning at the train station.
He looked up, pulling out the Black Card with his name on it. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I didn’t.”
Micah’s black eyebrow shot up, and he looked at Rory, and then at me. “Our parents?”
I didn’t answer. I’d made lots of calls last night, but it wasn’t as much of a miracle to arrange all of this on short notice as it probably seemed to them. I’d been planning all of this for a long time, and me and my little laptop in my attic room had started these wheels in motion a long time ago.
They had a car, a place to stay, money, and they didn’t have to return to the families that had hidden them away in disgrace. It was the start of a new life, and it was the least they deserved.