Page 56 of Love Me Again

But Micah shifted his way over to Boone. Stood next to him for a minute before finally gearing up the courage to speak.

“You don’t have to take me to the basketball game,” Micah said, studying him with eyebrows drawn together concern. “It’s not a big deal.”

Boone was speechless for a minute. Regret and shame tried to take hold, because he shouldn’t have done this. He should have kept his shit to himself and handled it and⁠—

In his panic, his gaze met Josie’s across the room. She couldn’t have possibly heard Micah, and while her concerned expression made him think the panic was written all over his face, he realized…

He could handle this. Do the right thing. The right decision. Not run because it was hard.

Stay because it was worth it. If he’d stayed back then like he should have, his life would be better. He couldn’t go back and change that, but he could learn.

He met Micah’s worried gaze. “We’ll still go to the basketball game. I’ll just need someone to help with the driving to Denver.” He glanced over at Lindsay, who was sitting within earshot. “I thought maybe Lindsay could, since school will be out. She can shop while we do manly things.”

Immediately, Lindsay grinned. “Yeah! Of course.”

Micah looked from Boone to Lindsay, then smiled. “Okay. Cool.” He used Boone as a shield while he grabbed three more cookies he probably wasn’t allowed to have, then moved in the opposite direction of Cora and Shane as he shoved them into his mouth.

Boone glanced over at his sister who was studying him.

“Sorry about putting you on the spot,” he offered. “I should have asked you sooner.”

“Yeah, you should have, but that’s okay. I’m happy to help.”

“Great. Thanks. I can get you a ticket if you want to go⁠—”

She was already shaking her head. “Big hard pass. I’ll shop. Go to the art museum. And so on. I certainly don’t mind. Besides, it’ll give Cal a day to figure out whatever it is he’s being all squirrely about.”

She gestured at her boyfriend. The one Boone knew—or rather Josie knew somehow—was going to propose.

The boyfriend she’d broken up with before going to college, then had come back to last year. Boone knew it hadn’t been some kind of easy reconciliation. Cal had been really bitter about Lindsay leaving and returning.

But they’d found their way back to each other.

“How do you…” He’d never asked his baby sister for advice in all his life. She was only two years younger than him, but something about Lindsay had always felt so young, so other.

Today was full of a lot of things he’d never done. “You and Cal fixed your problems.”

Lindsay regarded him, then Cal, then Josie.

“Well, he had to learn to trust me again. And some of that was me…proving I could be trusted. By explaining why I felt like I had to leave in the first place, by mining all that old grief we’d never really discussed. But some of it was… He had to figure out his own stuff too. I couldn’t make him trust me again, give us another try. He had to get over his own issues or at least face them.”

“Right.”

A little silence descended, but Lindsay scooted closer, lowered her voice. “I know you think you’re the king of issues, but Josie’s no doubt got her own. She’s here, isn’t she? At her ex-husband’s house.”

“Not ex yet.” Which was a stupid technicality, he knew, and still… He didn’t want anyone calling him her ex-husband.

“Yeah, because her dad died and your lawyers dropped the ball, right? So, like, might as well be ex, in the grand scheme of things. The point is, she’s got her issues too, whatever they are. And you both have to deal with your own, then figure out how to deal with the ones you made together. At least, that was true for me and Cal, and…” Her eyes met Cal’s across the room.

Boone would have called it a sappy look, but he knew once upon a time he and Josie had sought each other out in a crowded room, and probably smiled all lovesick pathetic, just like that.

“Also, the sex is really, really good.”

Boone closed his eyes. “Jesus, Lindsay.”

She laughed uproariously at his horror while he scowled at her. Her humor didn’t die as she made her way over to Cal. She slid onto his lap, sitting there just like Josie had once upon a time sat on his lap.

He looked over at Josie, who had her head together with Molly. They were smiling about something. She looked happy and relaxed.