Page 80 of Holding On To Good

“She slept with Silas. Her taste is questionable.”

Verity couldn’t argue with that.

“You’re picking us up after work, right?” she asked. “Four thirty?”

Her shift at Binge started at five, so Urban was watching Ian until Kat got done sometime after six.

“Might be closer to four forty-five. Better pack your work clothes just in case.”

“Fine. But it’s on you if Toby gives me grief for being late.”

“I’ll take the heat,” he said. “Want me to make sure you’re up in the morning?”

“Only if I’m not downstairs by six ten. I mean it. Don’t even think of knocking on my door before then.”

She preferred to roll out of bed with moments to spare. Got her blood pumping.

Plus, she worked better—and faster—under pressure.

“All right, then,” she said. “Good night.”

“Night, kiddo.”

She went into the kitchen and got a glass of water, then let Bella in through the French doors. Locked them and made sure all the lights were off.

It was her usual nighttime routine—including the before-bed chat with Urban.

It hit her, as it did now and again, usually at night when she was tired and her defenses were down. The sadness. The fear. The homesickness, even though she hadn’t even left yet.

But she was going to leave. And when she did, everything would be different. Everything she’d ever known would change.

Most of the time she couldn’t wait.

But sometimes she wanted time to stop—or at least slow down a little.

It did neither. Just kept marching along, taking her with it into the future toward that adulthood, and the accompanying freedom she so desperately wanted.

Even if she was just the teeniest, tiniest bit afraid of both.

Chapter Fourteen

Normal was her new watchword.

That was the plan Willow came up with when she’d been staring at the moonlit shadows on her bedroom ceiling at four this morning after spending the night tossing and turning.

The only way to get past this little speed bump in her and Urban’s previously smooth-ish road of lifelong friendship, was to go back to how they’d been before the madness that’d happened over the weekend.

It was a solid plan. And she’d been following it to the letter since rolling out of bed at five. Had resolutely stuck to her usual Monday morning routine of stopping at St. Honore’s for donuts for their crew.

Just like every Monday morning.

And if she’d flirted with Finn Calhoun, St. Honore’s owner, well, that was not only right in line with her usual Monday morning, it was also understandable. She was still reeling slightly from her ex-boyfriend’s sudden engagement. More so from the untimely and unwelcome return of her high school nemesis and her own foolish mistake of kissing Urban. Of his almost-kiss on his patio.

She needed a little boost. A reminder that she was an attractive, interesting, intelligent woman.

Just because she didn’t need a man to feel complete didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate attention from a handsome, sexy, successful one.

Then, her step a little lighter, her plan firmly affixed in her mind, she’d arrived at the huge, barn-like structure on Edgewood Lane that housed J&K Homes’ workshop and office for her daily seven o’clock meeting with Urban to go over the upcoming day’s schedule and workload before their employees arrived at seven thirty.

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