LITMIR.BIZ

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THREE

      SAMANTHA STOOD IN the dining room listening to the exchange between Bob and Scout. She wasn’t certain why she didn’t want to interrupt. Her initial instinct was to step between them as a barrier between Bob and Scout’s spite. Bob didn’t deserve her sister’s disdain. However, for the first time they were actually having a real conversation and Samantha thought she ought to give them their privacy.

      Bob knew that Scout was in pain. He knew it because their mother told him and Samantha told him and Lane told him. And though he’d never forged a relationship with Scout, he would still try to do right by her because of his love for Alice.

       “I don’t need anyone. Thanks for the coffee, Bob.”

      And that sounded like Scout. She came out of the kitchen quickly, so Samantha tried to look as if she hadn’t been eavesdropping, but she clearly failed.

      “Lurk much?”

      Samantha shook her head and sighed. “When are you going to grow up, Scout? Bob is a good man and he doesn’t need your attitude. That he’s here for you should show you that.”

      “Forgot, that’s right. You’re on his side. It’s why we don’t speak, remember? So when are you going back to your big-time agenting life? Living out here in the sticks must be driving you insane.”

      Sam winced at the thought of her large, luxurious apartment in Chicago. Which was also very empty. “I’m not going until I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself. Do you know there’s a huge stain of something down the front of that shirt? Did you actually leave the house like that?”

      Scout looked down at her shirt and frowned. At least there was some semblance of acknowledgment of her sad state. However, she recovered quickly and flipped Samantha the bird.

      “And here I thought you might have stuck your tongue out at me,” Samantha said, rolling her eyes.

      Scout, continuing in the same childish vein, brushed by Samantha with a shoulder rub. Samantha had already braced herself for it, a small reminder to her littler sister she was still the oldest.

      Samantha joined Bob in the kitchen and helped herself to a cup of coffee, as she already knew it was fresh.

      She sat down and looked at her mother’s husband. The man who had come into her life when she was eighteen years old.

      “Maybe...we need to tell her.”

      He raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “That girl is hanging on by a thread. You want to drop a bomb on her like that?”

      “I want her to forgive Mom. I want her to finally see that not everything is as black and white as she thinks it is. If she can get her head around that and maybe let us back into her life, she has a chance of getting through this.”

      “You love her,” Bob said, gently patting her hand.

      “Of course I love her! I mean she makes me want to shake her more times than not, but I love her. And because I do, I’m worried about her. If you understood how completely her identity was tied to Duff...” Samantha shook her head. “I can’t imagine being cut off so abruptly from who I thought I was.”

      “Can’t you?”

      Now it was Samantha’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “It’s not the same thing.”

      “You never told me how it was here these last few months. With you and Duff.”

      “He knew I loved him desperately.” Samantha smiled sadly. “It was all that mattered to him in the end.”

      Bob nodded. “Of course it was.”

      “Yes,” Samantha said. She thought to say more, but then she didn’t.

      Bob was right. It was too soon.

      * * *

      SCOUT MADE IT to her bedroom and shut the door. It was the only place she ever felt comfortable in her own home anymore. It hadn’t been as bad when it was just Lane staying with her. But Lane and Roy had found a place on the other side of town and Lane had moved out right after the wedding. Which was fine because she’d been close enough to come by every day to take care of Duff with Scout.

      Now her mother, Bob and Samantha were here and it didn’t look like any of them had plans to leave anytime soon. As a result Scout was rarely alone unless she was in her room.

      No one would dare enter Scout’s lair against her wishes. Everyone knew she needed her sanctuary. A place where she could go to close out the world. Except now her head was filled with all kinds of crazy thoughts. About Duff and her mother and Bob and her mother.

      She could easily stop thinking these crazy thoughts, of course, if she started thinking about Jayson.

      Scout sat on her bed, stared up at the ceiling and thought about what tomorrow was going to be like. Driving with Jayson, sitting next to him on the bleachers while the two of them watched some kid play. Desperate to impress them.

      Just like old times. When they were falling in love.

      Scout wasn’t a psychiatrist, but she was pretty sure this trip was not going to be good for her mental health.

      She thought about how she’d left him today. Reminding him that she was still upset with him even after four years. Maybe what they really needed was to sit down and have an honest conversation. She could effectively express why she was so upset with him for leaving and he could once again ask her why she hadn’t been willing to go with him.

      Seven months. They had been dating for seven months and he wanted her to uproot her life, quit her job and leave her father to follow him to Texas. He told her to take a risk. A risk on them.

      Didn’t he know she’d already taken the biggest risk of her life on him? Didn’t he know what it took for her to ask him to go the wedding? To spend the night with him. To slowly and eventually give him her heart.

      At the time it felt as if it was all she was capable of. He should have known that. He should have known her. He should have stayed.

      “Tomorrow is going to blow,” she said to her empty room. Then she made a mental note to actually look in the mirror before she left for work.

      * * *

      THEY HAD AGREED to meet at nine in the morning but they hadn’t said where. So it wasn’t exactly surprising when Scout came downstairs to find Jayson sitting at the kitchen table with Samantha, drinking a cup of coffee and eating a bagel Samantha had probably made for him.

      Toasting was the only culinary skill Sam had so she liked to show it off whenever she could.

      “I was going to text you to just meet me at the stadium,” Scout mumbled. She hated how comfortable he looked sitting at her table. Eating her food. She hated how it reminded her how common it was for him to be around the house back when they were dating.

      Which was sort of strange now that she thought about it. He had had his own place, a nice apartment over one of the clothing stores on Main Street. They had been young and in love and having sex all the time, which, considering she lived with her father, should have meant she was always at his place.

      But she rarely stayed there. Sometimes when Duff was away on a road trip. Every once in a while Jayson used to grumble about it, but because he never seemed to mind hanging around her house she never changed her behavior.

      There was also the Duff factor. Jayson loved her father. Anytime they got together it was like watching a kid meet Santa Claus for the first time. Because Duff had also taken on the role as Jayson’s mentor, there was never a lull in their conversation. Jayson wanted to absorb all of Duff’s baseball knowledge. All of hers, as well.

      So it made sense that when they hung out, they hung out at her house, where Duff might or might not be, instead of at his apartment alone. Didn’t it?

      “I didn’t want you to change your mind

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