Totally freaked, I got out of my truck and approached the driveway.
Jesus Christ.
The more I looked at the little girl, the more worried I became. She couldn’t have been more than a few years old, maybe younger. I did the math in my head, and a terrifying thought occurred to me. Could she have been my kid? Her hair was almost black like mine. Maybe that thought was crazy, but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Before my nerves had a chance to explode into full-fledged panic, a woman rushed out and took the child into the house through the garage. She turned around once and flashed me an alarmed look. Apparently, I’d gotten a little too close and had been mistaken for a perpetrator.
Who is that woman?
The mother? A sitter?
A friend of Farrah’s, maybe?
I went from possibly having an illegitimate child one second to just dazed and confused the next.
As I continued to stand in front of the house staring at it blankly, a voice to my left said, “Hey, I know you.”
I turned to find a teenage girl who looked vaguely familiar. Then it hit me. Nora. The eleven-year-old who lived next door was now a teenager.
Well, I’ll be damned. I felt so old. “Hey.” I moved toward her. “Nora, right?”
“Yeah. You’re Jace. I remember you. You used to live there.” She tilted her head. “Were you looking for Farrah?”
“Um…no. Not really. I was just driving by and…stopped.”
“They don’t live here anymore.”
My eyes widened. “They don’t?”
“No. They moved about two years ago.”
My stomach sank. “Where do they live now?”
“Off of Tamarind.”
That was sort of a crappy neighborhood compared to this one.
“Are you still in contact with Farrah?”
She frowned. “Unfortunately, no. I lost touch with her after she moved. She was always so sweet to me, though. I miss her a lot.”
Yeah. I can relate.
Nora grinned. “I’ll never forget the time she bought me Shawn Mendes tickets. I’m over him now. But back then? He was everything.” She laughed. “I remember going next door one day to tell her my mom said it was okay if she took me to the concert. I was all excited to ask her to go with me. I caught her at a bad time, though. She was crying and upset. I asked her what was wrong, and she said you had left town. I’ll never forget that. She didn’t want to talk about it. After that, I was afraid to ask her to go with me because I thought she wouldn’t be in the mood. I ended up going with my mother, but I would’ve rather gone with Farrah.”
Jesus. I needed to get away from this one before she told me something else I didn’t want to hear. “Thanks for letting me know they moved.”
“No problem.” She disappeared inside her house.
My pulse continued racing as I stood on the sidewalk. It would take a while to get over that long-ass minute where I thought I might’ve had a daughter. How fucked-up would that have been?
I returned to my truck and rested my head on the back of the seat to calm down for a few minutes before heading home.
Thoughts of Farrah tormented me the rest of that night. I had questions. Lots of them. Why the hell did they move to a shitty neighborhood? Farrah had loved that house, that pool. I suspected it wasn’t her choice to leave.
• • •
The following afternoon, Dad napped while I got some work done on my laptop in the living room. I was fortunate that my property management job allowed me to handle a majority of my duties remotely. I needed to delegate more while away, but managing everything from here had been doable so far. I’d probably have to fly to Charlotte once or twice during my stay here if they needed me on site, though. Between my job and helping Dad out at Muldoon Construction, I was plenty busy.
The doorbell rang, interrupting my work. I got up to see who it was—probably yet another neighbor coming by with a casserole. Or maybe it was someone from Mom’s church checking in on my father. It had been a couple of weeks now since my mother died, but people still trickled in from time to time.
When I opened the door, I froze.
Shit.
Standing before me was the last person I ever expected to see.
I blinked several times. “Nathan…”
His eyes were piercing. “Hi, Jace.”
I swallowed. “Hey.”
“Long time no see.”
My body was rigid. I didn’t know whether to hug him or brace myself for a punch.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Still in shock, I nodded several times before the answer came out. “Uh…yeah.”
Moving aside to let him enter, I immediately noticed he was limping. One of his legs was pretty much dragging the other. Nathan had also gained some weight and looked…rough, for lack of a better word.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
Still struggling to make it to the other side of the room, he said, “I got into an accident two years ago.”
I tensed. “Accident? What kind of accident?”
“I was drunk and got behind the wheel. Stupidest thing I ever did. I was lucky, though. Didn’t kill anyone. But I fucked myself up, and I’ve been out on disability ever since.”
Damn. Things started to add up. My chest hurt. It pained me that I’d had no idea what he’d been through.
“Man, I’m sorry.”
“It’s my own fault. Nothing to be sorry about.” He looked around. “Anyway, I came to tell you that I’m very sorry about your mom. I was shocked to hear.”
“Thank you. We’re still in shock, too.”
He walked over to the couch. “Can I sit?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
As cordial as he was, I waited for the bomb to drop, waited for him to lose it on me. Although, this person didn’t seem like the same Nathan who’d raged at me the last time I saw him.
After he sat, I took a seat on the chair across from him. I stayed silent until he spoke.
“Where’s your dad?” he asked.
“He’s napping.”
Nathan nodded, rubbing his palms together.
A clock ticking in the corner of the room was the only sound. This was awkward as fuck.
“I’m sure you’re…surprised that I’m here,” he finally said.
“That’s an understatement.”
“When Farrah told me she ran into you, I couldn’t believe you were back in town, and when she told me why, I felt horrible.” He shut his eyes. “Well, I’ve felt horrible when it came to you for a long time.” He let out a long breath and started to bounce his knees up and down.
“Take it easy. I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
He stopped bopping his legs. “I handled everything all wrong with you, Jace. I messed up big time, and I need to apologize.”
Wow. I didn’t know how to respond. My first inclination was to tell him it was okay, because he’d apparently been through more than enough to make up for whatever he did to me. But another part of me wanted to tell him to fuck off. I’d never been more confused in my life.
“Nathan, I don’t know—”
“Hear me out,” he interrupted.