Don't Let Go (34 page)

“You have my number, Bec,” he said, hugging her tightly. “Send those to me before you get your phone taken away.”

“I will,” she said, hugging him hard.

“And use that number. I’m expecting it,” he said.

“I will,” she said, her voice a little wobbly. “Thank you.”

Then he turned to me, reluctantly, as if he didn’t know how to do this. I didn’t either. But when we locked eyes, I was shocked to see genuine emotion in his.

“Thank you,” he said, grabbing my hand.

“Thank
me
?” I said, surprised. “I didn’t do anything, baby. You were the brave one coming here. And doing this today? God, Seth, thank
you
.”

“No, you made it easy,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “I didn’t know what I would find here, and you made it all—okay.” His eyes misted. “I honestly feel like I have another family in my life now, and I didn’t expect that.”

Oh, holy hell, that did me in. Tears filled my eyes. “I’m so glad you feel that way,” I said. I smiled up at him and laughed as they spilled over onto my cheeks. “I know, I know, I’m a walking waterfall.”

He grinned and hugged me so tight, it was all I could do not to completely break down. I was holding my son. My son, the man. When we pulled back, he swiped at his own face.

“I don’t want to sound condescending or go all parental on you,” I said. “But, Seth, I am so proud of the man you’ve become.” My voice choked on the new tears that wouldn’t be denied. Especially when his face struggled to hold his in. “You tell your mom and dad—thank you for me,” I said. “For being such fantastic parents.”

My voice caught on the words. I heard Becca sniffle behind me, and Seth lost the fight. He blinked tears free from reddened eyes and nodded as he wiped them away quickly.

“Damn, you two can even make me cry,” he said on a laugh, and Becca laughed with him, going to hug him again. “Not many people can break me like that.”

The words sent goose bumps down my back, echoing Noah’s from that very morning.

“Well, I have to go say some other good-byes and go by Nana Mae’s and Noah’s, still,” he said, making another pass at his face. Crying was embarrassing him. I’d become accustomed to it.

“Oh—um—something to be aware of there,” I said. I filled him in quickly on the whole Noah-Shayna-baby debacle so he didn’t say anything awkward.

“Wow,” he said, scrubbing hands through his hair. “That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

He narrowed his eyes and darted a glance toward Becca, then me. “So—I don’t want to sound condescending and go all know-it-all on you,” he began, making me laugh, “But you and Noah—”

“Oh, seriously?” Becca said, contorting her face.

“Go check your Facebook while you can,” I said, giving her a way out of the ick factor. She took the out, dropping back into her seat.

Seth chuckled and then met my eyes again. “I’ve only known you and Noah for less than two days now, and I can see it.”

I averted my gaze to the floor. “So I’ve heard,” I said. “It’s just complicated.”

He nodded. “Well, I’ve been told that sometimes the harder, complicated relationships that you have to fight for are the ones worth something,” he said, bringing my gaze back up. He had a small grin on his face as he held his palms up. “Or something to that effect. But hey, not my business. I can go check my Facebook too.”

I grinned through my tears. “Point taken. Can we talk about your love life now?”

“Leaving,” he said, backing up.

I chuckled. “What I thought.”

He stepped forward again quickly with a glance toward Becca, leaning over in my ear. “She didn’t do the deed, by the way. Listen to her. Let her talk.”

I widened my eyes as he backed up, smiled, said another good-bye to Becca and headed for the kitchen to see Linny and Johnny Mack. Watching him walk away pulled at my insides, tearing at me as if he were an infant all over again. I clamped a hand over my mouth to hold it in, and then I felt an arm through mine. Turning, I met Becca’s eyes, full of tears too. I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her like there was no tomorrow.

Chapter 22

After texting Hayden that Becca was back safe and sound, and asking-slash-begging him not to come confront her just yet, she and I went back to the bookstore. Ruthie made hot chocolate—the real kind, not powder from a packet—and left us alone in a far corner couch.

She was softer, I noticed. More introspective. Seth was good for her.

“So is this store going to me one day?” Becca asked after a long moment when neither of us knew where to begin.

She’d never asked me that before, and honestly it had never crossed my mind. Odd, that.

“Do you want it to?” I asked. Becca looked at me uncomfortably and shrugged. “No, seriously,” I said. “Be honest with me.”

She took another sip and licked her lips. “Not really,” she said. “I’m sorry, it just isn’t something I can ever see myself doing. Sitting in a bookstore reading? Yes. Running one?” She shook her head.

Boy, I knew that feeling, and it gave me the willies all the way to my toes.

“Okay,” I said simply.

“You’re not upset?” she said.

Not about that.
“Not at all,” I said. “You should do what you want. I wasn’t given that choice.” Echoes, echoes, déjà vu.

She gave me a long look. “I don’t want to be a teacher, either, Mom.”

I took a slow swallow from my mug. “I kind of picked that up. So what
do
you want to be?”

“I don’t know for sure,” she said, looking down into her cup.

I let some moments pass. “Tell me about today.”

Becca grimaced. “Can we just pretend I went shopping or something?” she asked.

I raised an eyebrow. “Sure. How was the shopping on Cayman Boulevard?”

She chuckled and looked away, probably surprised that I played.
I
was surprised that I played. Not my normal way. Maybe Seth was good for me, too.

“Not good,” she said. “I didn’t buy anything.”

Goose bumps. I looked at her. “Why not?”

She shrugged. “Wasn’t ready to, I guess. Decided to save my money for—something worth spending it on. Maybe wait for something I can’t live without,” she added softly.

I had no words to describe how that floored me. All I could do was stare at her in awe. She’d made her own choice. Made her own rule for herself. Her own rule.

Granted, she’d skipped school and snuck off to do it, but I had to recognize the hugeness of what she had done.

“I think that was a brilliant decision,” I said when I found my tongue.

Becca met my gaze. “And if I’d went the other way?”

I cleared my throat. “Well, I guess I wouldn’t be able to say much, would I?”

Memory clouded her expression. “I shouldn’t have said that about Seth—about you—I’m sorry.”

I touched her hair. “It’s okay, babe. There was truth in it. It’s a hard truth for a parent to justify, is all.” She nodded and ran a finger around the rim of her half-empty mug. “I’m very proud of you, Bec,” I said, feeling the burn behind my eyes. I swear I was going to dehydrate. “That was a very grown-up decision you made.”

She looked up and misted over as she smiled. “Grown-up enough to not get punished?”

“Oh, no.”

She laughed. “Yeah, it was worth a shot.”

“It was, but the playing hooky part of your day takes the grown-up part down.”

“I know.” She covered her face. “God, what does Dad know?”

“Enough,” I said. “You need to talk to him like this. He deserves it.”

“That’s what Seth said.”

I turned sideways to face her. “How
did
all this go down with Seth?”

Becca swept her hair back and it fell in its little choppy layers.

“He was sitting on the hood of his truck all badass right outside the door of the—” She stopped and gave me a sideways glance. “The mall.”

It was all I could do not to spit hot chocolate. “Of course.”

“Mark about pissed himself,” she said. “Then Seth told him he could leave, that he’d take me home.”

“And you just said,
Okay, see ya, Mark
?” I asked, incredulous.

If Hayden or I would have done that, there would have been sounds only dogs could hear. Seth was right.

She held up a hand. “I don’t know, I guess I was so embarrassed that he was sitting there waiting on me, it didn’t even cross my mind to argue.”

“Wow.”

She rubbed at her face. “Then he brought me to St. Vernon’s.”

I blinked. “What?”

She looked at me questioningly. “It’s a place for teenage mothers that have nowhere to go.”

“I—I know,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’ve been there.”

Becca’s expression changed as her thoughts took off. “Did you—have to go there?” she asked.

“Briefly,” I said, my stomach going sour at the memory. “My parents thought a weekend there would change my mind about keeping him.”

Becca’s eyes filled. “Did it?”

“Probably,” I whispered.

“Seth volunteers there once a month,” Becca said. “Talking to people who need it.” She wiped away two tears. “Takes on a whole new meaning now, when you know him,” she said. “I wish I could have grown up with him.”

“You wouldn’t have, baby,” I said, swiping under my eyes. I’d come to terms with that. “If Noah and I had stayed together and got to keep Seth, I wouldn’t have met your dad and wouldn’t have you now.” I took a deep breath. “Everything happens for a reason.”

“That’s messed up, Mom,” she said, more tears falling.

“Life generally is, baby.”

“I don’t want messed-up crap like that,” she said, hiccupping through her tears.

I laughed and hugged her head to me. My baby girl. “I don’t want messed-up crap for you either, baby. Let’s hope for the best.”

• • •

The next week went by in a haze of the normal things most people take for granted. I used to. It was hard to remember that. Just weeks earlier I’d gotten up and gone to work every day, made sure Becca had what she needed, made sure our little world was in order, ate, slept, and did it all again the next day.

Things may not have been shiny, but they made sense.

Now, Becca and I were doing better, but it was taking large amounts of pretend patience on my part. Trying not to be my mother proved harder than I even wanted to acknowledge. And then there was that other thing.

That thing I kept trying to ignore or forget or at least not care about, when in reality some part of every hour seemed to ring a little Noah chime in my head.

Interestingly enough, where he’d been friggin’ everywhere before, now he and Shayna had both disappeared off the grid. Which probably didn’t help my chiming. I had no idea what their status was, where they were, and there was no way in hell I was going to ask anyone. The closest I’d come was chatting up Linny on the sidewalk one evening, and she talked about everything else
but
Noah. I know. I waited it out.

What I did have was photos. I’d printed out the ones of me and Seth and of him and Becca, and framed them for the living room tables. Finally, I had both my kids there, without hiding or secrets. I could look at him every day. Twice, I attempted to do something with some of his baby pictures, but I couldn’t do it. I was glad to have them, but they represented pain and betrayal to me. Of a time where my mother got to know of him but kept it all from me. So I put them all back in the book box, put the whole thing in a plastic tub to protect it, and set that back on the shelf. I could go there if I chose to, but I would rather look at the photos taken now, where everything was out in the open. There would be more. I’d make sure of it.

There was another photo I still hadn’t seen. But just knowing it was there was enough.

On Friday night, I decided to take Becca out for dinner before she headed off to spend the night with Lizzy and her family. They preferred that so that they could get an early start with the float the next morning. Good grief.

Of course, Becca picked the damn diner for our dinner out, which blew my mind. Of all the good places to go, she wanted the same crap we ate for lunch all the time. Or I did. And she did when she wasn’t eating at school. Which was more frequent than she admitted.

I didn’t want to go there at night—not that I was afraid of someone being there, but then again maybe I was. I was accustomed to the lunch crowd. He didn’t show much for that, and I could relax. I had no idea who to expect for the dinner crowd. Geez, I had to move on.

“You sure you don’t want to go get Mexican or Italian or something?” I said as we pulled in front of the diner.

Little snowflakes frosted the glass, and red flyers were on a box outside the door. Red flyers were everywhere now. On every street post and every corner. On the far end of the park, the carnival rides were already set up, just waiting for the next day to kick things off. Just two more days of this, I told myself. Tomorrow would be chaos and crazy people on cheap floats, kids waiting for candy and carnival rides, and the chili battle would commence. The next day would be more of the same, but wrapping up at nightfall.

“We could even go to Katyville,” I said. “We don’t have to stay here.”

“Nah, I want to go here,” she said. “This is home.”

True, and I loved that, but home was kind of beating me with a stick lately.

“Okay,” I said on a sigh, getting out of the car.

A quick perusal of the other parked cars didn’t produce any heart palpitations, and I mentally kicked myself for feeling disappointed by that. Good Lord, I was losing it.

Linny was getting off as we walked in, and she met Becca with a giant hug.

“You don’t get enough of this place already?” she asked, laughing, her round face looking softer with her hair pulled down.

I realized I hardly ever saw her that way. Like her sole existence was in that diner. I gave a little shiver at that thought, hoping no one ever looked at me that way. Like I was a walking bookstore.

“Becca’s choice,” I said, shrugging.

“Well, at least you get a discount,” she said, winking as she walked out the door.

I frowned, confused. “Discount?”