Dad chuckles—a soft rumble formed deep in his chest. “Yes, boss.”
Yep. I bought him out. At least the property and the business. There was no way I was taking his home from him. But now I’m twenty-three years old and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. It’s rad. And, it’s the only reason I’m accepting anything from Esme.
Dad sets the clay pot on the pottery wheel—something we haven’t used since my grandma and grandpa ran the nursery—and puts his work gloves back on. “I’ll be in the greenhouse if you need anything,” he says over his shoulder, already walking toward the attached greenhouse. I hear a car pulling into the small parking lot and momentarily pause. We have had no walk-in customers for… too long, and if it is a customer, Mags will get to them before I can. I continue to empty the bags of sod, piling them high against the wall. A moment later: “Holden?”
I turn to see Maggie standing in the doorway, a silhouette against the sunlight. She and Dad have been together for almost eight years now, though they have a history far longer than that. In another life, I might have grown up calling her Mom.
In her ever-present ball cap and low, blonde ponytail, she’s dressed virtually the same as I am because not only does she live with my dad, she works with us too. Another reason I couldn’t take the house from Dad—that’s his and Maggie’s home now. She waits until she’s a few feet away, her gray eyes meeting mine. She’s cute for her age, and if I were into older women, she’d probably be my type. You know... if she wasn’t my dad’s. “Someone’s here for you.”
Removing my gloves, I crack, “Debt collector?”
Maggie shakes her head as I move past her. “No… it’s um…”
I look over her shoulder—at the RV in the parking lot—and the girl standing beside it. “Jamie?”
6
Jamie
“What are you doing here?” Holden’s words are short, sharp, and filled with the same disdain I should learn to accept from him. He doesn’t bother hiding his glare as he approaches me.
I swallow my nerves as I watch him, his green eyes brighter than bright against the sunlight. “I uh…”
Holden stops a few feet from me, eyebrows raised as if wanting me to continue. I can’t even breathe, let alone form words. He’s in dark denim, his signature backward cap, and a khaki shirt with the Eastwood Nursery and Garden Center logo above the breast pocket. It should be illegal to look as good as he does, but that’s nothing new. “Did you hear me, or do you need me to repeat it?” he says. Louder. Firmer.
Sixteen hours. That’s how long it took to drive here, breaking only to pee, eat, and power nap.
“Did you sell the house already?” he asks. “You could’ve just sent me a check. Or transfer. You didn’t have to come all the way here.”
This is not the welcome I was hoping for. It is, however, the welcome I was dreading. Holden’s eyes shift from mine to the RV and back again.
The way he looks at me.
My stomach gives out, and I wish the world would swallow me whole.
Sixteen long hours.
“There was a piece missing.” I hate the waver in my voice—the weakness.
Holden’s eyes narrow, his brow dipping. “What?” He almost hisses the word.
I lift my chin, attempt to show courage. “The puzzle you gave me… I completed it, and there’s a piece missing, and—”
“And what?” he cuts in, his eyes no longer on me. “You think I have something to do with that?”
This sick, twisted emotion starts in my gut, makes its way to my chest. I want to laugh—like a deranged fucking psychopath because maybe that’s what I am.
Sixteen. Fucking. Hours.
I stand taller. Lock my knees. Stop myself from running. “And nothing,” I deadpan, regretting every decision that led me here.
“Did you check Esme’s pool house?” he asks, and I already know what’s coming before he says it. “Because you trashed that place pretty bad—”
“Forget it,” I cut in, and I’m so mad at the tears threatening to fall.
He laughs. Actually laughs. And it’s not deranged like mine would’ve been. It’s a sound built of humor and degradation. I take a tiny step back at his mocking.
How he makes me shrink five feet with a single sound is… terrifying. And I’m better than this. Stronger. “You don’t need to be a dick, Holden.”
He stops laughing, his lips instantly switching from a smile to a snarl. “I’m sorry you came all the way here, but what the fuck did you expect? Some emotional reunion where we hug it out and walk hand in hand toward the sunset?”
“No!” I almost yell. “I just…” My willpower is fading. Slowly. Surely.
“Just what?”
“Nothing,” I mumble, my vision lost somewhere in the emptiness between us. Shaking my head, I refuse to look at him when I add, “You mentioned the puzzle, and I thought it meant something, but clearly I was wrong.”
“You were,” he’s quick to say—the two words acting as a final nail in my coffin. I glance up, noticing the way his knees are bent slightly, the way he dips his head, his eyes searching mine as if trying to see through me… all so he can witness the destruction he’s causing.
And then he smiles.
Wicked.
Deranged.
Because my pain… my pain is his pleasure.
“Sucks you came all the way here for nothing.” He shrugs. “Next time, just text me.”
And then he rises to full height, right before he turns, goes back from where he came. He doesn’t even so much as glance back at me.
And I’m left standing alone…
In the middle of nowhere…
With absolutely no place left to go.
I get back in my RV before I give life to the tears I’d held on to, let them slide down my cheeks, and push aside the single thought that’s been running through my mind since the moment I got here:
I’ve been here before.
7
Holden
There are seven different versions of a lie.
And I just used every single one.
8
Jamie
The bell above the diner door chimes, and the single sound makes me homesick. Which is weird, considering I don’t have a home. But it reminds me of Zeke’s, and I wish I were walking into there instead of here.
I’m greeted by a middle-aged woman with bleached-blonde hair and dark eyebrows, whose smile is comparable to sunshine. “Take a seat anywhere, baby,” she almost sings, twirling her hand around the diner. There’s literally no one here.
“Thank you,” I manage to get out. There’s still a giant knot of withheld emotion lodged in my throat, and I really should’ve purged it before coming in here.
After Holden walked away from me, all I wanted to do was get in the RV and drive far, far away. The problem was that the second I got behind the wheel, my fatigue kicked in. It was like an adrenaline dump. The entire drive here, my body had somehow survived, running on hope and anticipation alone, and now that it’s over... all it wants to do is play dead.