Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart, #3)(15)

At the same time, Ian was lifting his chin. “He just ran into Izzy.”

The asshole.

He was lucky he was holding that baby.

Faith’s attention jerked to me, something like horror in her expression. “What?”

Jace was rubbing at his chin in discomfort, and Grace slowly turned all the way around, her mouth gaping open, which was kind of unsettling considering she’d never even met Izzy, which meant Ian had been doing a little more of that tossing.

Big ol’ wheels rolling right over the top of me.

And there I stood, my heart in my throat and all those curious eyes trying to get inside my head.

I twisted the cap off my beer and lifted the bottle in a nonchalant gesture. “It was nothing.”

Except I knew damned well it was everything.





Four





Izzy





Night pressed at the window of the same bedroom that had been mine for my entire childhood. On the second floor of the house, it sat at the opposite end of the hall as my parents’ room, which had made it a whole ton easier sneaking out all those times growing up.

Dillon and Benjamin had picked a room right next to me, choosing to share because that is what they had to do back in Idaho. The two were so close and found so much comfort in the other, separating them was like prying apart chain links.

It was just better to leave it alone.

Everyone else had gone to bed at least a couple hours before, and now, I sat beneath the yellowed, hazy glow cast by the lamp on the desk where I was sitting, a journal spread out in front of me and the end of a pencil tapping at my lip as I doodled my emotions and thoughts.

I was battling to process the turmoil that was ragin’ inside of me, as if I tapped into the quiet, I might be able to find the answer. That in the darkness, it might become clearer.

Fat chance of that. Because with each second that passed, it only felt more complicated.

I turned my gaze out the window. The towering tree rustled just outside, there like the sturdiest, most loyal of friends. Strong, thick branches stretched wide, as if it were inviting me to slip out into its safety, even though my daddy had screamed and ranted at me a hundred times that it wasn’t safe.

I’d climbed up and down that tree so many times, I could still picture the perfect sequence of steps, each branch a rung. I wondered if it would feel the same, climbing it now, or if that tree, too, had been shaped and changed by the passage of time.

I jumped about ten feet in the air when my phone rattled on the desk and went off with a shrill ring.

“Crap,” I muttered, fumbling to quickly answer. “Hi,” I rushed low, praying I’d silenced the ringing before it woke the rest of the house.

“I heard you ran into you know who,” Faith drawled, her country accent thick. Funny how the second I’d crossed state lines, mine had come rushing back, too.

Pushing from the white chair that matched the desk, I tiptoed over to my door that I’d left open in case either of the boys needed me during the night. I poked my head out into the hallway.

Coast clear.

I quietly latched the door shut, quick to pad back over to my bed. My room was decorated exactly the same as it’d been when I’d left—pale yellow walls and a yellow and green floral comforter, the bed piled high with fluffy throw pillows.

“Word sure does travel fast in this town, doesn’t it?” I mumbled low as I crawled on top of my bed and pulled my knees to my chest. “Should have just put out a notice in the paper.”

“This is Broadshire Rim. You know it does,” she told me, a tinge of laughter in her voice, though it was the concern interwoven with it that I really heard. “But I heard this one straight from the horse’s mouth.”

My guts twisted at the thought of her talking to Maxon. Being in his space. It just seemed . . . so wrong.

Like she was consorting with the enemy. Which was ridiculous because I knew full well they’d remained friends all this time.

“But don’t worry, the gossips around here are alive and well. I did overhear you got a job at Nelson Dentistry when I ran in to pick up some things at the drycleaners. Word on the street is you’re making double what poor Sandy was. Congratulations.” She was holding back wry laughter.

“They know nothing . . . I’m making triple,” I deadpanned.

I only wished.

She barked out a laugh. “Are you lost in some faraway fantasy again?”

“You know that’s where I like to live.”

“Time to come back down to reality with the rest of us, my friend.”

“Do I have to?” It was almost a whine.

Because I really, really wanted to stay there. In a place where I could make up all the circumstances and outcomes, and I didn’t have to deal with any of this that felt so out of control.

The teasing evaporated from her voice. “You do, Izzy. You do.”

Heaviness pressed down on my chest. The sigh I released weighed every bit as much. I brought my thumb to my mouth, nibbling at the nail.

I wasn’t quite sure that I’d ever felt so many emotions all at once.

Mixed, conflicted, and contradictory.

Hope floated around me, this bright, bright light at the end of a dark tunnel. Benjamin had struggled for so long, and now, he was getting his break. A bolster to his treatment. A buoy to his life.