Unfortunately, like clockwork, the inevitable fall always brought her crashing back down to reality. The harder she chased, the harder she’d fall, until it felt like her insides were a deep crater filled with all her failures.
There was nobody to catch her every time she fell. Nobody who cared enough to tell her to stop chasing the next thing and be happy with the opportunities she had. If anything, the lack of reasonable advice likely contributed to her self-destructive behavior. It was an endless cycle. One she knew came out of her desire to feel less alone in this life. Losing the other half of her soul was not something she could ever get over.
Yet this time, when she swung back down to earth, she was met with the delighted laughter of her nieces. Their sparkling energy was contagious, making her heart feel lighter for the first time in a while. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. She laughed at being carefree and childish.
Maybe she didn’t have to go through life alone. Or maybe she needed to stop reaching for the stars, because when she came back down, she was met with the pure, unadulterated joy of two little girls who, not too long ago, didn’t even know her.
For all they knew, Gia was a stranger, but they welcomed her into the family without hesitation. Since being back in Willowbrook, against her better judgment, she had been feeling more at peace than she thought possible.
During the day, she kept herself busy by helping around in the garden or at the restaurant. If she was actively avoiding a certain blue-eyed hunk, it was not something she would acknowledge out loud. Gia was a lot of things, but a coward was not one of them. So what if she was making more of an effort not to be in any places she thought he might be?
Even with her efforts to avoid running into Jake, she still couldn’t escape him. Not really. He followed her wherever she went.
Like earlier, when she’d gone to the bookstore to check out what they offered. Apparently she had only missed him by a few minutes, because the women sitting in the café could not stop talking about how hot Jake was as a single father. While Lana, the bookstore owner, watched with amusement, Gia was horrified to overhear the explicit things they wanted to do to Jake.
At one point, one woman exclaimed it was too bad Marley was too old to need a nanny, because she would sign up to be Jake’s live-in nanny in a heartbeat—so long as she got paid with some hanky-panky time. It should have been funny. After all, Gia certainly had no claims to Jake. Neither was she interested in any form ofhanky-panky timewith the very person who had broken herheart.
So why then did hearing the other woman talking about wanting to sleep with Jake make her see red?
She fought back the urge to stomp over there, yank on the woman by her messy bun, and assert her claim over him like some cavewoman. Instead, she settled for glaring at the two twittering idiots and kept her fists at her sides so she wouldn’t act on her impulses.
Thankfully, the women didn’t notice Gia’s attention—but Lana, who had been watching from her vantage point at the counter, had. She’d met Gia’s glare with an amused expression before averting her gaze and pretending to clean a spot on the counter with a rag.
A flush crept across her cheeks. Gia yanked the closest book off the shelf and hid behind it.
She was being absolutely ridiculous, yes. But jealous? Definitely, one thousand percentnot.
Her phone vibrated in her back pocket, pulling her attention away from the moment. A message alert lit up her screen.
Alex
Hey, hot stuff. Where are you hiding? Come over!
Thumbs hovering over the screen, Gia debated her response for longer than necessary. Alex had been texting her sporadically over the past week. Most of them she ignored, but now she was feeling bad for dismissing him.
Gia
Not hiding, just went home to see family.
She’d left the bookstore with a new romance book about a basilisk and a prince fighting over a woman.
When she’d gotten home, her parents had been watching a Chinese drama dubbed in Vietnamese. No doubt her mother picked it, since her father was playing on his phone.
After greeting her parents, Gia moved to go upstairs to rest,but stopped when her mother beckoned her into the room. Trepidation filled her as she dragged her feet to the living room.
She paused at the threshold, meeting her mother’s expectant gaze.
“Gia Huy, what are you doing with that boy Jake?”
“Wh-what do you mean?” Taken aback by her questioning, Gia leaned her body against the doorjamb to brace herself for the conversation. She was completely unprepared for this line of questioning.
“Jake. You need to marry him.”
“What?”
“He’s a good boy, Gia Huy.”
“He’s not a boy, Mom.” Gia tried not to squirm. Talking about Jake with her mom was not on her bingo card for this year.
