Looking down at his message and the last few messages we had exchanged had given me hope. Apparently, Valencia had told him about my surgery and even though I was a little upset, I’m glad she had meddled. I was too much of a chicken shit to tell him anything and I didn’t want him to start talking to me because of this. Sometimes I thought Jude was only friends with me because he felt bad for me.
Honestly, sometimes I wondered why or how the hell we became friends in college. I was a dumb jock who was obsessed with getting into professional hockey. He helped one of my teammates, and I thought he was gorgeous—he was still gorgeous. Afterwards we became friends and we had been ever since.
Ten years of friendship, that's why I had to go back to Sterling Ridge. I’ll just have to work twice as hard with PT out there than here and find a rink I can get to even if it means driving a bit. Fixing this with Jude would be worth it, and then we could go back to how we had been.
The doorbell rang and I got my big ass up and opened the door.
“Mr. Webber?” he said, looking up at me. “Sergio with the movers, we spoke on the phone.”
“Hey, Sergio,” I said, stepping back as a few men walked into my apartment. “Everything with a pink sticker goes into storage. These boxes are going into the moving van along with all of the things in my bedroom.”
“Great, we will start with the storage and do the moving van last,” he said.
“Sounds great, I have a nurse coming in about an hour and we will be doing my physical therapy in my room,” I said, hobbling away in my crutches. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Will do,” he said, before instructing his guys to start moving things.
Everything was packed up before the end of the day and when I got into the car the next day, nothing had ever felt more right.
Right now, moving to Sterling Ridge did not feel right. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. The truck that had my things broke down. They said that they would have to get another truck out there and they would meet me at the address I had provided.
Then I got a flat tire, had to call a company to come change it for me, and ended up waiting two hours since I was in the middle of nowhere. It was hot. I had to ration my AC usage since I only had a half tank of gas. Once he changed the tire, I finally made it to Sterling Ridge.
Seeing the sign gave me hope and relief, that was until the lady I was renting a house from, Mrs. McCoy, told me that her tenant decided not to leave and she forgot to call me to tell me he wasn’t leaving.
So here I was, trying to find somewhere to live, and it was looking like I might have to live in my car for a bit. The urge to call Jude to see if I could crash with him was overwhelming, but I couldn’t do that to him. I had to figure this out on my own.
The moving truck was delayed until tomorrow and I had till then to find somewhere to live. I headed over to Mae’s Diner. I was starving and I needed somewhere to put my leg up for a bit. It was past lunch, the diner was quiet and thankfully no one recognized me. The last thing I needed was someone telling Jude I was here before I could.
They sat me in a booth and the waitress was nice enough to get me a pack of ice while I ate and looked at listings. Sterling Ridge didn’t have a lot of places to live in, and most of theapartments I found were on the second level, which wouldn’t work. I could barely hobble into a first-floor apartment.
The bell jingled as I was wondering if I should start looking in Monroe. It was a drive, but at least I was closer and with PT, all I had was time. So, I could drive. I cut into my apple pie as I pushed my search out to Monroe.
“Webber?”
I looked up to see Jude’s brother's girlfriend, Nova, and her daughter, Sol.
“Hey,” I said, a little disappointed that my secret wasn’t a secret anymore.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, looking down at my leg and crutches.
“Hi, Webby,” her daughter said, and while I wasn’t up for company, I would always make time for this little sunshine.
“Hey, Sunshine,” I said. “I’m here for the summer.”
Nova’s eyes grew big. “Oh, where are you staying?”
I clenched my jaw as I was hit with emotion. I was fucking tired.
“Webber,” she said softly. “Are you ok?”
I shook my head ready to just let everything out from the last few months.
“Wait,” she said.
She asked my waitress for food for Sol before setting her up with her phone, a coloring book and colors. She leaned over, hugging me tightly, and my last thread of keeping it together snapped. Everything from the last few months spilled out of me and I didn’t realize how badly I needed to tell someone until I laid it all out.
“Holy shit, Webber,” Nova said, cutting into the pie we decided to share. “Please don’t tell me you've been keeping this all in.”
