I slid into the seat next to Tyler and let out a dry laugh.
“It was fine. Long and a little boring.” I chose to leave out the part where we stayed in a hotel room together. Surely that would be too good of gossip to just hand over to Macey on a silver platter.
“Well, my weekend was far from boring. I went on a date with this guy named Jaxon, and you’re not going tobelieve where he took me,” Macey said, her hands already going crazy—full storytelling mode activated.
“Buckle up,” Tyler said, giving me an amused look. “This one’s a doozy. I heard it during work today, during a root canal.”
I laughed and leaned back in my seat, sipping my Coke.
“I’m ready.”
When I got home, it was nearly eleven. I parked in the driveway, still smiling from the get-together with my friends. Listening to Macey talk about her college dating life and Tyler’s funny commentary was exactly what I’d needed.
When I opened the door to my apartment and was about to start up the stairs, my foot landed on something I wasn’t expecting. Something hard and plasticky.
“What the—?” I hurried to turn on my phone flashlight and angled it down at my feet.
It took me a second, but it finally registered that a binder had been set on the base stair.
There was a note on the top.
Thought you might like this – J
My heart rate sped up at the sight of his handwriting, and I quickly picked up the binder, curiosity and confusion flooding through me.
I hurried up the stairs with the binder clutched beneath my arm, then flicked on the lights. I went to sit down onthe couch so invested that I forgot to take my shoes off. I flipped open the cover and was greeted with a bunch of paragraphs.
Black and white everywhere.
There wasn’t a chapter heading, but it was obvious it was a typed-out manuscript. I flipped through finding at least two hundred pages, all typed out in a small twelve-point font, each page filled to the brim with content.
Lindy Parker’s words.
I knew it was her writing the moment I started reading the first line.
It was a work in progress. I never thought I’d get to experience reading Lindy’s words for the first time again.
Something hit my chest. A painful yet grateful feeling so powerful it felt like a physical weight. My eyes watered, and I reached up to wipe a tear that fell onto my cheek.
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered, flipping to the next page.
I couldn’t help but feel emotional. This was a gift.
A gift I didn’t even know I could receive. And with how he felt about his mother, it made me feel like maybe he’d stepped outside his comfort zone to find this and give it to me.
I didn’t care that it was eleven o’clock.
I took the manuscript into my room and stayed up to read the entire thing.
CHAPTER 46
Iwalked into work the next day, twenty minutes early. I had barely slept the night before reading Lindy’s manuscript.
And I was up early, not just because sleeping was impossible, but because I needed to talk to Jay.
Immediately.
I walked into Summit Dental, said hello to Shelby and Devin briefly, then passed the break room and headed directly to Jay’s office.
