Page 109 of Caught Up In You

WYATT

September 4

“Hazel’s leaving,” I say as soon as I shove through the door of Grace’s bookstore. It only just opened for the day, and it’s still empty save for Grace and Carson, who are digging through a box of early copies of forthcoming books sent by publishers.

“What are you doing here?” I ask Carson. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching kindergarteners?”

“It’s Labor Day,” Carson says, pulling the new Emily Henry from the box and clutching it like it’s the Holy Grail. “They’re at home terrorizing their parents.”

“Oh,” I say. I didn’t even realize it was Monday, much less a holiday. My brain isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.

“What do you mean, Hazel’s leaving?” Grace asks, leaning over the counter by the register.

“She’s going back to Cornell for the spring semester. Her advisor helped her get Eden into this highly coveted campus daycare program for baby geniuses, she found a good sublet, and she’s leaving. Right at the beginning of January.”

“Wow,” Grace says.

“Yeah,” I reply.

“And how do you feel about that?” she asks.

I smile. “It’s great.”

Grace rolls her eyes. “You know ‘it’s great’ isn’t a feeling, right?”

I groan.

“How do youreallyfeel?”

I think about this for a moment. I do feel happy for Hazel, and proud beyond measure. I’ve always known she can do anything, and the fact that she stayed on track with her degree at an Ivy League school while growing and birthing and raising the most badass little ankle biter I know is frankly incredible.

But the fact that she’s going to put that baby in the back seat of her car and drive away? That makes me feel sad. And…

“Lost,” I finally say.

“Oh, Wyatt,” Grace says, her brows knitted together, before rushing around the counter and pulling me into a hug. Carson joins her, and the three of us cling to each other until we’re a teary, rocking mass.

When we finally pull apart, we sit down on the overstuffed chairs Grace has set up for shoppers browsing books.

“Okay, talk,” Grace says.

“I don’t know, you guys. It’s just weird. I came here because Hazel needed me. And after she went to college, I stayed so she’d have a place to land, you know? I didn’t want her to be stuck in the dorms over breaks because she didn’t have a home. But this time, she’s leaving more permanently. She’s starting her life, and I won’t be in it. Which leaves me in this house that isn’t mine with a mother I’m trying to maintain a tentative peace with for the first time. And that feels weird, to be thirty years old and living with my mother inherhouse. I feel…extraneous.”

“You’re not extraneous, Wyatt,” Grace says gently.

“You have us,” Carson says. “And the Half Pint. Ernie can’t run that place without you, you know.”

“So, what, Libby and I become roommates?”

“You and I could become roommates,” Carson says. “I’m still trying to get out of my parents’ house. And if you’re not moving in with Owen?—”

Grace makes atsking sound, and Carson presses her lips shut, eyes wide.

For weeks I’ve avoided spilling the whole sad story to my friends, partially because it’s humiliating and partially because Owen is Grace’s brother. It’s not fair to make her listen to me bitch and moan about someone she loves. I figured they’d notice we had stopped seeing each other and just assume the fling had ended naturally.

“Sorry,” Carson says.

I shrug, and nobody says anything for a long beat.

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