Max:The appointment has been rescheduled for Wednesday at nine in the morning. You will be there early. If you miss it, I’m done paying your car note and your phone bill. I don’t care whose money it is. I have POA. Try me.
I stare at the message for a long second before sending it, because I know I don’t actually want to do this. I hate threatening her. I hate the idea of her having to fend for herself. But I also know that love sometimes means letting people fall on their faces when they insist on acting like assholes.
By the time Justine hit her teens, I knew exactly who she was going to be. The spoiled kid who took everything for granted. It’s why my mother and I set up the POA, power of attorney, early. Just in case something happened. We knew, even in our mother’s absence, Justine wouldn’t value anything simply handed to her.
She quit every activity we paid for. Dumped men who wouldn’t take her to the “right” restaurants. And when my mother bought all of us a trip to Greece to celebrate her college graduation, Justine asked if she could cash hers in to go to Bali with her friends instead.
So yeah. I hit send on the text. Because at this very moment? Fuck her.
Still, my hands shake a little when I lower my phone.
This is usually when I call my therapist and ask for an emergency session. When I swoop in to fix things before letting people deal with the consequences of their own choices. When the guilt creeps in. And when I start beating myself up for abandoning a boundary and cushioning the fallout for the people I love, she’s usually there to help me untangle my messed-up heart. She helps me release the misplaced guilt that inevitably comes when I choose me instead of everyone else.
But I don’t call her this time. I don’t even know where I’d begin.I’meven having a hard time believing what I’ve managed to get caught up in.
I look back at the trail in front of me. Tall trees. Open space. A type of quiet that doesn’t demand anything.
Maybe this is why Bear loves it here. Why he’s drawn to this place like it offers something he can’t find anywhere else. And I can’t help but wonder if there’s something out here for me, too. Something solid. Something that doesn’t unravel the second I stop holding it together.
I take a slow breath and let the cool air fill my lungs, deep and clean, like it knows exactly where to settle.
And for a moment, I don’t move.
I just stand there and let the peace exist.
So Much For Distance
Eli
Of course Drake would pull some shit like this.
I pace the greenhouse, jaw tight, fists tighter. Every step crunches against the old wooden planks that make up the floor, the sound grounding me even as my thoughts spin.
What the hell was I thinking? Taking her like that on the counter? If Drake hadn’t shown up when he did…
Fuck!
I stop and plant my hands on my hips, sucking in a breath as I look around.
The greenhouse has always been my refuge. Built from recycled materials—old steel, salvaged glass panels pulled from abandoned buildings, driftwood polished smooth by the river. It’s a living, breathing testament to second chances.
I designed it to work with the land, not against it. Geothermal piping runs beneath the soil, trapping heat from the earth and recycling it back through the beds. Solar panels feed a modest heating system I built myself, just enough to keep the frost at bay during Winter months.
Rows of vegetables stretch in neat lines: heirloom tomatoes, snap peas climbing their trellises, thick bunches of kale standing proud even in February. Bright strawberries peek out from a raised bed near the entrance, stubborn and sweet. Overhead, a simple irrigation system I rigged myself, drips water in slow, steady beats, like a heartbeat.
This place keeps me sane. Keeps me tied to something bigger than myself. Connected to the earth. To God. When the world tilts and threatens to swallow me whole, this is where I come to find peace.
And right now, it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to myself. Because everything inside me feels like a war zone when it comes to Maxine fucking Palmer.
She’s nothing like anyone I’ve ever met before.
Not in the way she talks.
Not in the way she laughs.
Not even in the way she looks at me—like she sees past the man I present and straight into the parts I keep locked away.
And that’s exactly why this plan is the exact opposite of what I need.
