AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He sends Ellie a text. “Done.” He glances down the hallway toward where the boys are asleep. “I should go home and get some rest.”
He’s right. I’d rather have him sleep here, but on rare occasion, Jonah gets up for some reason and comes in my room. I’m not quite ready to scar him by seeing his best friend’s mom’s boyfriend in bed with me.
“Yeah,” I murmur, and I’m all twisted up in my emotions right now. I want him to stay. I want him to hold me and tell me we’re going to be okay.
“You okay?” he asks. He moves a little closer to me until our legs are touching.
“Yeah. Just a little down, I guess.”
“This is hard,” he says quietly.
“On more than just us. There are two kids involved, and Sam…it’s a lot.”
He nods. “What are we doing?”
It’s the same question I feel like I’ve asked a thousand times, and I still haven’t arrived at a reasonable answer.
We’re exploring things.
We’re figuring it out.
Even I’m tired of repeating it in my own head.
But what happens once things are explored and we still haven’t figured out the right way to approach any of it?
My hope is that Ellie will have some ideas for us tomorrow.
Because as for me…I seem to be running out of them.
CHAPTER 15: JOLENE
I’m eating yogurt in the kitchen a quarter after eight when the doorbell rings, and I find Ellie at the door before Lincoln arrives. The boys just caught the bus to school, and Sam is getting dressed in her room, so it’s just Ellie and me for a minute.
“Come on in,” I say.
“How are you handling all this?” she asks.
I shrug. “It’s hard watching the man you love take your best friend to the events he should be taking you to, but even if Sam wasn’t in the picture, he wouldn’t be able to take me.”
“What if I could change all that for you?”
My brows dip. “What exactly have you whipped up?”
“I have an idea that I think is going to benefit you both and it’ll give you time to spend together. But there’s just one problem.”
“What?” I ask, my brows dipping together.
“We need your boss on board.”
“He knows about Lincoln and me,” I admit. “So anything you say here today…I could bring it to him, and I trust that he’d be on our side.” I think back to my last conversation with Marcus when he told me to dig deeper into what happened between our fathers.
I haven’t.
I’m too scared about what I might uncover.
Fear is a silly reason not to look, though. Because what if someone else uncovers something before I do? That might be even worse, and the thought never occurred to me until now.
Digging into something that has caused so much strife seems silly, but if I could find some answers about it, maybe that could be the key to solving the feud between our families.
