Page 84 of Actually Yours

I take a sip of my ice-cold tea—ugh—and smile at him. “So, what now?”

He returns my smile, looking younger than he had when he walked in thirty minutes ago. “Now? Would you like to come over for dinner? Meet Penny and your sisters?”

I thrill at the thought of it. The idea of his new family had always been a no-go zone for me, a place in my mind that I didn’t visit because it hurt too much, but now I can make it a reality. I can make them my family.

“First let me talk to Mum.” He makes a face that he can’t quite hide, and I chuckle. “She’s still my mum and I need to be careful with her feelings. But I want to meet them. And to get to know you better.”

He beams at me like my words are a gift and I feel lighter than I have in years. “Sounds good.”

“Yes.”

“So, you’ll call?”

I look into his hopeful face and take a mental snap-shot of it. After so many years of feeling like an afterthought, this new reality will take some getting used to. “I’ll call.”

He puts his hand out and we shake on it. And just like that, I have my dad back. And my outlook on life becomes just a bit rosier.

One broken relationship down. One more to go.

Jake won’t know what hit him.

CHAPTER 17

Amelia

“So, you still haven’t heard from him?” Sammi shouts, trying to be heard over the rowdy noise in the bar where we’ve met for Thursday night after-work drinks.

I nibble on the chicken wing that has just been delivered to our table and shake my head. It’s been four full days and Jake still hasn’t messaged me back. The situation is dire.

“What you need is a plan,” Madi says, making up our trio of single women who don’t have yummy husbands to go home to at the end of a long day.

I close my eyes. “Not another plan.”

If I hear that word ‘plan’ one more time, I’m going to scream.

“No, but seriously, what are you going to do?”

Madi and Sammi look at me expectantly, and I flounder. In the past twenty-four hours, I’d reconciled with my father after almost ten years of distance and had a breakthrough with my mother that was a long time coming.

After leaving my dad, with promises to visit him and his family soon, I’d dropped in to see my mum, hellbent on getting some answers. That conversation had been painful, butI’d entered into it with an open mind and open heart, willing to listen and to forgive. My mum wasn’t trying to be a bad person when she kept me from my dad, she was just a person desperately trying to cling on to me, scared I would leave her, too. We cried together, and we really heard each other and by the end, we’d reached a resolution of sorts. She knows I want to have a relationship with my dad and my stepmother and sisters, and that I won’t be dealing with her toxicity anymore, and she also knows that I will always love her and will never leave her. It was a moment of cleansing and clarity, and it was a long time coming.

And in amongst all this familial healing, my phone had remained resolutely silent. Not one word from Jake.

“I don’t know, guys. Shouldn’t I take his lack of answer as his answer? That he doesn’t want to deal with me?”

Sammi immediately shakes her head, the eternal optimist, while Madi takes a little longer with her answer.

“You may be right,” she says finally, earning a death glare from Sammi. “But he also may just be too scared to reply. You know that text message is like a walking red flag. No one wants to have ‘the talk’.”

“It’s not ‘the talk’,” I say, frustrated. “It’s justatalk. That’s why text messages are the bane of my existence. There’s no tone to clue one in on the intention behind the message. I just want to explain myself to him.”

“Then it’s up to you to make it happen,” Sammi says. “You need to put yourself out there.”

My stomach takes a turn in the tumble dryer.I may be on my way to being all emotionally healed and stuff, but am I emotionally stable enough to put myself out there completely?I’m not sure.

“Why me?”

“Let me count the ways.” Sammi counts on her fingers. “One, you choose his brother over him. Two, you indulged in a dating plan when he was literally right there. Three, you kissed him and then ran away like a frightened mouse. And four, you sent him the death knell of all text messages. I mean, come on Amelia. ‘Can we talk?’ It’s like the worst message to send to a man. Especially considering points one through three.”

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