“I’ve been busy!” I said, though even to my own ears, it sounded like a lame excuse. Mostly because it was one.
I’d stayed away from this place for many reasons, only having been dragged back on the rare occasion where I’d felt the need to try and reconnect with my past and soon finding out that the old me, and my past along with it, had died the night my father had put me on a plane to Switzerland.
A lot could be said for being sent away under the guise of your only surviving parent giving you a ‘better education’ far, far away from the place you grew up in and the only home you ever knew. All the while having to find out through various online media that that same parent that had promised sending you away was for your own good was then found entangled in various affairs all around the world.
But I digress.
Hazel threw her arms up in the air out of exasperation. “For ten years, Avery?”
All right, it couldn’t have beenthatlong since I’d last visited. Right?
Recalling the last decade was fuzzy, but not for the fact that I had a shit memory. I’d tried hard not to think back on what I’d been forced to leave behind, rewriting those deep wounds with something that was far less easier to digest.
Such as forgetting any of it ever happened.
“Sorry,” was all I could manage to come up with.
She sighed at me, shaking her head before pulling me into a tight hug. “I missed you, you know. Not that you care.”
I clapped my hand against her back a few times. “I do care.”
“Don’t make me whap you for lying to me.”
I winced.
When she pulled away again, she had a smile cracking through that tough scowl. “Are you here to stay?”
I wasn’t really sure how to answer that. While in the long run, I’d eventually need to go back to my life in the city, for now, I had enough time to stay and sort through the mess left behind by my father.
Dedicating most of the last eight years to being a workaholic and getting to the top echelon had earned me some perks with my associates—namely in the form of taking an extended leave for the foreseeable future.
Though it could also be wagered that perhaps that wasn’t exactly aperkso much as getting to do whatever I wanted by being in the top one-percent of the economy’s income earners.
“I am for a while. Until I sort through the estate and whatnot,” I said.
She nodded slowly. “You’re staying here?”
I wasn’t planning on it. “Ah...”
She nodded again. “Good. I’ll have Janey make up a bed for you.”
I slowly shut my mouth. There was no use in arguing with a woman like Hazel. Especially, when she had her mind set to something. Even as a grown adult, I felt reverted back to my teenage self, treated as if I were her own unruly child in need of discipline.
In a way, back then I’d needed someone like her around. With my mother buried in the ground and my father off doing whatever it was that had occupied his time after she’d passed, Hazel had been one of the few to step up and expect better of me
She was determined to not let me fall into the ‘rich brat’ mindset and forced me to challenge myself in ways that no one else around me really expected me to.
Now that I was home again, I found myself really missing this kind of structure—as sad as that was coming from a thirty-something adult.
“Thank you, Hazel.”
She waved her hand at me, her expression softening. “Oh, stop. You go grab your bags and bring them inside. Ivan will bring them up to your room. I expect a full report of what you’ve been up to when you come back inside. Come find me in the kitchen.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I murmured.
Satisfied, she spun around on her heel and toddled back down the hallway.
Blowing out a breath, I made my way back outside to where I’d parked my car, fishing the keys out of my pocket to pop the trunk open. Upon rounding the passenger side to grab my smaller bag, my phone began to go off in my pocket.
