Page 32 of Soaring Free
Dinner at Daddy’s always leave a smile on my face and there are some weeks that I think everyone there needed it for one reason or another. Ryan lives about a mile north of the house where we all grew up, so occasionally, he hosts our weekly dinners, but there’s still this inexplicable level of feeling like I’m home when I walk through the door here. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s because I can still feel Mama so strongly here, and while I love my house, there is a piece of my heart that will always think of home as my parents’ house.
We get back to our home and my three girls all head up to take showers before we pile into my bed for a movie. We started doing movie snuggles in the last year, even before Shane left, and now they’re the ones that request them even more often than I do. Olivia made tonight’s request on the way home, and she rarely does that, so I know she needs it for whatever reason. I head up the stairs to put away a basket of laundry while the girls shower, but as soon as I flip on the lights to my bedroom, my feet are frozen in place.
I always make my bed as part of my morning routine, and while the bed still looks like it did when I left my room this morning, I know I had nothing to do with the addition to it. Lying across one of the pillows on my side of the bed is a single, long-stemmed lavender rose. The apology flowers Shane sent me a few weeks ago have died and were thrown out, so there’s no reason this fresh flower should be in my house, let alone placed anywhere near my bed.
The chill starts in my spine but scatters across my entire body as I am rooted to the spot.
How did that flower get in here? What the hell is Shane’s angle here? Who leaves a single rose on someone’s pillow when they haven’t been around the house in months?
My shock is quickly replaced with anger. I’m pissed that Shane thinks he can mess with me like this. Is this some kind of lame-ass apology attempt for being an asshole the other day? Whatever his intended message was, all I see is red. I drop the laundry basket on the floor and pull my phone out of my back pocket.
Me
What exactly is it that you’re trying to achieve here?
Shane
With… what? An amicable ending to our marriage so we can both be free?
Me
Your games are not funny, knock it off.
Shane
You’re the one that wanted to play, and throwing my offer in the fire was quite the dramatic touch so tit for tat, Savannah. And we both know that you having Theo Smith-Harrington represent you is yet again another game, so you’re one to talk.
Me
You don’t make sense. Stop messing with me, Shane. I don’t want your bullshit apologies, and I don’t believe them—or you for that matter. When did you change from the man I married to the asshole you are today?
Shane
The only one that’s dragging out the bullshit in this divorce would be you, Savannah. I tried to be fair and get us through this as quickly as possible, but you wanted to play games.
Me
That’s different! If you were fair in the beginning, we wouldn’t be in this situation. You drove this to the cliff; you just didn’t expect me to be brave enough to jump off to get away from you.
Shane
Same thing. Maybe next time don’t be so quick to burn everything down in a tantrum.
Ugh. The man is impossible to even talk to these days; I give up trying to reason with him. I snatch the flower off the pillow and snap it in half, feeling slightly vindicated as I head down to throw it away in the garbage out in the garage before the girls can see it.
Shutting the door with my hip, I try to leave Shane and his bullshit in the garage with the flower, at least for the night. “Five minutes girls, I’ll bring up the popcorn and M&Ms. Either have the movie picked out or narrowed down to three choices before I get up there!” The girls cheer at my announcement because I don’t usually let them have M&Ms this late in the evening, but sometimes a girl needs some chocolate, especially when their asshole ex pisses them off.
Chapter nineteen
Shit, shit, shit.
What is the point of having a ton of brothers if they're all too far away when I’m literally stranded on the side of the road? I dropped the girls off at school this morning before running some errands. I had to drive over to the neighboring town for a few things, but as I head back to Forrest Falls, my tire blows. Daddy taught us how to change a tire, but the lug nuts were apparently tightened by Thor himself, and I can’t get them loose. Jack is in New York, Liam is in some undisclosed location out of the US, Ryan is stuck in some meeting, Finn is at a conference in Atlanta, Vivian had an appointment in Nashville, and I know Walker is in Seattle this week. I tried Daddy, but he didn’t answer. I check the time and I still have an hour before I need to pick up the girls, but no girl likes being stuck on the side of the road. There is one other person I could check with … he did say I could reach out if I needed anything at all, and being stranded on the side of the road feels like it qualifies.
Me
Hey, Theo. It’s Savannah… are you free right now by any chance?
I guess I could call the auto shop in town, but it seems silly to have them come out for something as simple as a stuck lug nut.
