“What can it possibly be now?” Joey asked in a tired, disgusted tone.
Adam turned and watched her brush past her father. Otis watched her hurry down the hall, and then he turned back to Adam. “You guys okay?”
Adam’s jaw felt wired shut; it was so tight, it ached. He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.
He went down the hall too, where four women were now cleaning up a shattered jar of spaghetti sauce. Joey wept as she worked, and Adam knew that was because she had canned that spaghetti sauce herself this past fall, and she loved it.
As he left her apartment without saying goodbye to her, he vowed to himself that he would buy every can and jar of spaghetti sauce in the entire country, if only he could make her smile.
“You’ll be lucky if she takes you back,” Adam muttered to himself as he got behind the wheel and entered the address for the lighting company into his GPS. She hadn’t exactly broken up with him, but as Adam drove away from the blue house with the dug-up front yard, it certainly felt like she had.
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
Joey lay in bed, her back to the window with the light streaming in behind and over her. She hadn’t slept great, because it had been her first night of truly living all by herself. When she’d moved to college, she’d had roommates, and she had in New York City too. Then, she’d been living with Grams and Gramps since returning to town.
A new place always unsettled her a little bit, and this house was no different. It wasn’t brand new, and they had just done some plumbing repairs. The young family that lived upstairs had two children, and while Joey was used to other units’ noise, she always had Grams and Gramps just across the hall.
Her eyes burned, even though she had her phone on dark mode, and she set it down and closed them, the stinging sensation somewhat welcome as tears wetted her eyes. Shelooked over to the empty corner of her room, a space she’d saved for a big pink, fluffy bean bag that Adam had not brought.
Her phone suddenly felt hard in her hand because he’d texted a bunch last night, giving Joey all the updates of digging out the warehouse in Jackson Hole. About ten-thirty in the evening, he’d sent her a picture of the lights he needed for Monday’s concert, and he told her he’d be staying the night in Jackson Hole.
She reached up and wiped the tear as it trickled down the side of her face, and she closed her eyes again. “Which means he won’t be here in Coral Canyon for church today,” she told herself.
She hadn’t reminded him that he’d agreed to come to church with her that morning. He was a grown man and surely remembered. “Maybe,” she muttered. She admired his dedication to his responsibilities, but it still stunned her that he hadcompletelyforgotten about her moving day.
Her alarm went off. Joey opened her eyes and lifted her phone to silence it. Church started in an hour, and either she was going to go—or she wasn’t. She didn’t particularly want to walk in alone, and she would have been more comfortable with Adam at her side, but she heaved herself out of bed and into her bathroom to brush her teeth and braid her hair back.
She could call Grams and ride with them. She lived five minutes away from her parents now, and she could easily park in front of their house and ride with them.
After stepping into a denim skirt and buttoning up ablue striped blouse, Joey padded into her kitchen and opened the fridge. She didn’t want to show up and explain to Daddy or Georgia that she couldn’t walk into a church building by herself.
“Because you can,” she said out loud to herself.
The bright winter sunshine shone throughout the apartment, and Joey turned toward the back windows, feeling more powerful with every breath she took.
She could go to church by herself.
She had survived her first night on her own in her new place.
She lived alone now, and a newfound sense of freedom threaded its way carefully through her, reminding her of how capable and amazing she had become.
So she didn’t need to call Grams, and she didn’t need to drive over to her parents’ place.
She made herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table, which had once belonged to Cheryl’s mother. She ran her fingertip along the maple leaf carving in the corner, thinking of the man who had lovingly poured his energy and time and love into creating this table. Cheryl’s daddy had been a master woodworker, and Joey adored old things. The two combined into a sense of wonder and fulfillment in her life, and she lifted her head to look out the window again.
“What am I going to do about Adam?” she asked. She hadn’t broken up with him because she didn’t want to. She’d grown up watching her father have an important job that took him away from his family sometimes, and that didn’t bother Joey so much.
“So what does bother you?” she asked. “What would be a deal breaker for you and Adam?”
So far, it hadn’t turned out to be their age difference, or the fact that they liked different things, or that she ran late sometimes, and he absolutely didn’t?—
“Except for when he does,” she said.
A small smile touched her face as she thought of yesterday and how he’d been over an hour late to her apartment. She ached to show him around this place, though it was five simple rooms of used furniture.
It certainly wasn’t as impressive as his mansion in Dog Valley, but it was hers, and she had worked hard for it.
