Page 29 of Never Really Over

“I might give Stan a call. He cool with you working from here, though?”

I wince. I hadn’t told Mom I was moving back. I’m not sure how she’ll take it, to be honest. I know she’s happy having me here but at the same time, she won’t want to think that I’m moving back because of her. She’ll want it to be on my terms. And it is, but it’ll be hard to convince her of that.

“Working from here? What? For now, right?”

“Wow, she’s really making you feel welcome, huh?” Dalton smirks. “It’s okay, Maureen. I know she’s kind of a nuisance.”

“Right? Apparently I’ve worn out my welcome,” I say, completely joking. I know Mom isn’t sick of me, but she’s fun to tease. “Guess I’ll pack up and head back to Chi-town.”

“Oh, shush, you two. You know I love having you here but you’ve loved living in Chicago. I didn’t think you were quite ready to move home yet. You only just started to talk about it. I’ll be good as new in no time. Don’t change your life for me.”

Dalton gives me a look and a subtle nod.

“It wouldn’t be only for you, Mom. I realized this past month that I really did miss this place. I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. And that’s not to say I’ve been unhappy, but I didn’t realize that I was just going through the motions while I was living there. Here, I feel free and, I don’t know.”

“You feel at home, right?” Dalton says, finishing what I wasn’t sure how to say to Mom. I don’t want her to get the impression that living in Chicago was a bad move for me. It wasn’t. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I grew up and became independent and found out so much about myself. But that time’s over now. I know who I am and what I want.

“I do.”

“Are you serious? You want to move back to the Grove?”

I rub my lips together and swallow hard. For some reason, saying it to Mom feels final whereas telling Dalton and Stan was easy. “Yeah. I want to move back to Hollow Grove. And Stan said I could work from here, too.”

“And me. Don’t forget about me,” Dalton adds in.

I continue with my plan and wave him off. He guffaws but truth of it is, Stan would be happy — and lucky — to have him on board. “Stan’s planning a visit soon, I think, to help get everything set up. I’ll need to go back to Chicago and pack everything, but the timing is perfect because my renewal on my apartment lease is up next month. I can get out of it without any penalty and can still get my deposit back.”

Mom sits back in her chair. “Wow. When you said you had news, I figured you were going to tell me you finally got the courage to go see Colt, not tell me you were permanently moving home.”

“Uhh, about that…”

My eyes shoot to Dalton who looks incredibly suspicious. “What did you do?”

He holds up his hands defensively. “Nothing bad. I promise.”

“Dalton. What. Did. You. Do?” I demand, voice low and what I hope tells him that he’d better not have said or done anything that will make it even more awkward between Colt and me when I do stop over to see him. Which I plan to do. Eventually. Maybe.

“Easy on the aggressiveness. I just stopped by his place last night to see how he’s doing. The guy is fucking amazing. Pardon my language, Ms. Maureen, but the compliment deserved the expletive.”

“You’re fine, Dalton. I say fuck. Sometimes. Okay, actually I don’t but it’s not like these are virgin ears.”

Coltisamazing. I feel like a complete jerk for being happy that the baby Mom saw him with, which she knew with certainty wasn’t his, was his niece. I also feel like even more of a jerk that I haven’t been over to see him. I was twenty-two when I left Hollow Grove and have only seen him in passing a couple of times. He doesn’t do social media so I couldn’t stalk him that way. And until Mom told me about seeing him in the grocery store, she hadn’t so much as brought up his name once.

“He’s doing okay?” I ask, trying not to sound like I’m hanging on every word but in reality, I want to know every single detail of their visit.

“Seems to be. He’s sad, of course. Well, more than just sad, I guess, but his niece makes him happy and he’s determined to make a good life for her. She’s adorable.”

“I know!” Mom exclaims. “Those blonde curls!”

“Right? I was like damn, I hope our kids have these because they’re too cute.”

“I still can’t believe you’re going to be a daddy.”

“Me either. Poor kid,” he says jokingly but I’m positive he’s being self-deprecating and actually believes in what he just said. He wants to be confident in his abilities to be a father, but the truth of it is, fatherhood was never in his plan. His sights were set firmly on having a successful career and never settling down. Then Bridget came into his life and that was all tossed to the weeds.

I reach across the table and grip his hand, squeezing once before letting it go. “You’ll be great. And Mom and I are here to be Auntie and Nana. Lord knows it’s probably the only chance she’ll get to be one, anyway, so don’t take it away from her,” I joke.

Unlike Colt’s parents, Dalton’s were very involved parents but like me, he was a single child. His mom told me once that they’d tried for more children but it wasn’t in the cards for them. He told me his mom burst into happy tears when he told them Bridget was having a baby. When he let them know he and Bridget were moving back to Hollow Grove, she cried even harder.

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