The Girl I Was Before (Falling #3)(80)

And she is scared. She’s scared of me. So I made a joke because if she runs now, it will absolutely break me.





Chapter 15





Paige



“So…Cee Cee…or…Chandra?” I ask, my stomach satisfied, surprisingly, with my combo of apple slices, crackers, and spray cheese. Mostly surprised about the spray cheese. Houston lies down, moving until his head is in my lap. I love looking at him like this. He looks like he’s mine.

“She’s loaded,” he says, popping a full cracker in his mouth. He shouldn’t eat lying down. If he chokes, I’m going to have to save him.

“Yeah, everyone knows that. Name…building…oil trucks…gas stations,” I say, half distracted by the way his hair feels in between my fingers. I think about the times I’ve seen my sister do this with Ty, Rowe do this to Nate. I used to think it was so stupid—that they were so obsessed with a guy’s hair. I never want to leave his hair alone.

“Right, yeah…but Leah’s his granddaughter, so…” His eyes flit to mine for a second. He isn’t proud of this, of wanting her to inherit money.

“I’d want my daughter to have everything she could, too,” I say, feeling his chest relax as he exhales. I won’t judge you, Houston. How could I?

“It’s not really written, but it’s sort of understood that Cee Cee gets to visit Leah whenever she wants if we don’t want that trust to disappear before she’s twenty-one,” he says.

“No, that isn’t right. Trusts don’t work that way,” I say, shaking my head. I have a trust, as does Cass. It’s ours, and it’s been funded ever since our grandmother set it up for us when we were in grade school. Granted, when I turn twenty-one, I get about ten grand. Something tells me Leah’s number carries a few more zeroes.

“It’s revocable,” he says, pulling an apple from his chest and biting the end off of it, holding the other half up for me. I bite it and let my lips touch his fingers. I am breaking down all of the corny rules tonight.

“Who makes a trust revocable?” I ask.

“Someone who doesn’t want to commit to a relationship, and who gets off on the idea of dangling carrots,” he says. Chandra’s father sounds a lot like Chandra.

“Bethany was okay with this arrangement?” I ask, and I can tell by the slight shift in his eyes—the wince that’s barely there, but there—she wasn’t all right with it. I can also tell that it’s something that tortures him.

“Not really,” he says, looking down at the few apples left on his chest. He picks them up and sets them to the side, brushing his sweater off before lifting himself so he’s sitting in front of me, our knees touching.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring her up,” I say as he looks down at his hands in his lap. He’s playing with a blade of grass, one of those kinds that flower and blow in the wind, probably to go make more grass somewhere else.

“Don’t be sorry. I don’t regret a single thing, not even convincing Beth to go ahead with the trust,” he says. I stare at his long dark lashes while he looks down. Even those are better than everyone else’s.

“Do you miss her?” I ask. I’ve thought that question often over the last few days, and I’m not really brave enough to ask it now, my heart beating erratically, pounding as it tries to escape my body, ridding itself of the squeezing sensation that is bound to follow when he answers yes.

“Sometimes I ask myself what good missing her would do,” he answers, not really the words I was expecting. His eyes come to mine for short meetings while he explains, gauging my reaction, making sure I don’t think less of him for anything he says. “At first, yeah…I missed her. But I also think I mostly grieved her, and then I was scared to death wondering how I would be able to raise Leah on my own.”

“Your mom is amazing,” I say, acknowledging how much help she gives her son.

“My mom is a saint. I mean literally…a saint. Someone is carving a statue in her honor somewhere, I swear,” he smiles, but it drifts back to a flat line when he continues. “Leah…she looks just like her. I think more than missing her, now I just sort of hate the things she missed—like seeing her daughter grow up to become the woman she was.”

Houston leans back on his hands and tilts his head up to look at the stars. I follow his lead. A few wispy clouds have found the sky. It’s incredible how dark it gets out here. In California, sometimes the sky is so bright, you can’t really tell if there are clouds at night or not. Out here, though, there’s no room for error—everything is clear.

“That’s how I know it was really love, I guess,” he says, his words bringing my head back to level, my eyes right to him. He’s still lost in the stars. “When you want something for someone else more than you want them to be here for you—when you just wish they had more time, rather than more time with you. I’m pretty sure that’s love.”

My chest feels empty. I look back up before he looks to me; I don’t want him to see the tears forming in my eyes. I can feel his eyes on me, but I won’t give in. I’m not strong enough for this. I know his question is coming before he speaks.

“You ever feel that, Paige? Love?”