I know you’re angry, but I swear I’m working on something important. Just give me time. You’ll see
Disgust rolled through me. I shoved the phone back into my pocket.
“You good, Piper?” Callum asked from across the table. “Everything okay?”
I glanced at Ollie, making sure he was distracted. “Just some stuff with Danny,” I said under my breath.
A wrinkle appeared between Callum’s brows, and Zandra gave me a sympathetic look. But they both knew better than to get into it at the dinner table, not with the kids nearby. Besides, I just wanted to focus on the positive.
I noticed Callum checking his phone too. Maybe thinking of the one O’Neal sibling who wasn’t here, like Grace had been doing.
Romantic love didn’t fix everything. Sure, if you fell in love with a billionaire or a massively successful pop star, love could solve a few monetary problems. I had some money worries myself, not that I wanted to think about that on a holiday like this.
But even with a partner, adulting was still hard. You still had bills and leaky roofs and crappy exes. Family rifts that wouldn’t heal.
You had to find joy wherever you could, every single day.
And I didn’t need a man in my bed for any of that.
The doorbell rang, cutting through the conversation. Callum raised his eyebrows at Grace. “Expecting anyone else?” he asked.
Grace shrugged, hands full as she ladled gravy onto Maisie’s plate. “Can you get it, Cal? You’re the closest.”
Callum stood and walked to the door. He opened it, and I heard him say one word.
“Grayden?”
Everyone at the dining table went quiet. Grace’s mouth dropped open. Ashford’s fork clattered against his plate.
Maisie looked up at her father. “Daddy, who’s Grayden?”
THREE
Grayden
People who’ve experiencedsomething traumatic, something life-changing, often talk about how their existence breaks down intobeforeandafter.
The years, minutes, even seconds before everything changed. And then, picking up the pieces and trying to understand. To move on, as much as that was possible.
That dichotomy made perfect sense to me. The entire timeline of my life broke down into the time before my sentence to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the five years since my release.
Of course, there were also the years in between. The ten years I’d been incarcerated, serving my sentence. Wondering how everything had gone so wrong.
The black hole at the center of my life story, big enough to swallow every bit of light, everything good, if I let it.
But I wasn’t there anymore. I was in theafter. Standing outside my sister’s new house in my hometown of Silver Ridge, Colorado, wondering what in the hell I was doing.
Grace’s porch light was off. Voices, laughter, and light came from inside, but out here, it was still dark and deathly quiet.
Before. After.
Here goes nothing, I thought, and reached out to press the doorbell.
The chime rang out inside. I retreated to the porch steps.
Then I turned my face up to the night sky, feeling the bite of the cold against my skin. Snowflakes drifted lazily in the air and brushed my face, while my heart beat out a contrasting chaotic rhythm.
I hadn’t been this nervous about anything in a long, long time. This was probably stupid, but here I was, doing it anyway.
