Page 123 of The Love You Fight For
Chris strides to the window and checks the lot.
“Andre took the trash out.” He grins. “How about you come work on your articles at the bar and I’ll make you lunch before we open?”
I smile. This has become something of a routine in the last couple of weeks, and I’ve found comfort in it. From the way Chris smiles back at me, I think he knows it.
“Okay, Chef,” I say. “Lead the way.”
“So, what about your mom?”
Lennon takes a sip of her mock Bellini and watches me from across the table. Of all the brunches I’ve shared with Lennon, this is the most enjoyable. This is the first one where I feel like myself.
“She’ll have to do a deposition, just like me, but her name isn’t on anything. My father would never include a woman in his plans. She’ll be fine. Her boyfriend is some French aristocrat or something, so she’ll probably move to France permanently, and I’ll never see her again.”
Lennon doesn’t try to soothe me, or apologize, or act like losing my mom in this mess is any sort of hardship. She knows I don’t care. She knows I’m glad to be rid of all of them.
I didn’t even realize until days later that my mother left the gala in the middle of my speech and flew back to France. Her absence never even registered in my mind. My mother wasn’t even on my list of priorities. Chase will likely never come back from South Africa, or wherever he is, and once my dad is found guilty, I’ll never have to see him again either. It’s only too bad they won’t bulldoze my old house here in Franklin. That would be the cherry on the sundae.
“I still wish you had come to me after that bullshit with Ashton. I’m your best friend, Sam. I should have been there for you.”
Lennon is frowning at her drink, and I can tell she feels like she let me down. Like she thinks I went to Chris because I didn’t think I could trust her.
“Well, first of all, you’re six months pregnant,” I say, and Lennon huffs as if that’s just a minor detail. Her belly bump suggests otherwise. “You were already losing sleep from my middle of thenight phone calls. I wasn’t about to burden you with the Ashton bullshit.”
“It’s never a burden, Sam,” Lennon says, and I can hear the honesty there.
I can hear the hurt, too. I reach over and take her hand in mine.
“When your dad got worse a few years ago, who did you call? Who did you run to?”
Lennon’s eyes dart to mine and her face falls. I smile.
“You went to Macon, not to me,” I say softly. “At the time, I’ll admit, I was jealous. Hurt that you didn’t come to me. We’d been all the other had for nearly four years. It was jarring to finally see you let someone else in.”
“I’m sorry,” Lennon whispers. “I didn’t know.”
I smile and shake my head.
“You don’t have to apologize. I’m not mad. I don’t hold it against you. I get it now, actually. I get it why he was the first person you wanted to find comfort in.”
Lennon’s lips tip up into a small smirk.
“Because you feel that way with Casper now?” she asks, and I shrug, then nod, then laugh.
“Yeah. I don’t know when or how it happened, honestly. But I do. When I felt my most lost, he was where my body led me. He was who I needed in that moment.”
Lennon screws up her lips, and I laugh louder.
“Don’t be jealous,” I tease.
She rolls her eyes.
“You’re still my best friend,” I say honestly. “You’ll always be my person, but now I think I’ve got two persons, and Len, it feels really fucking good.”
After years of having no one, then years of having only Lennon, it feels good to let someone else in. It’s new, and it’s difficult at times, but I like it. I’m learning to like it. Lennon’s grin breaks through and she nods.
“It does feel good, doesn’t it?”
I knew she’d understand because that’s how it is with her andMacon. I know I’m her best friend, that I’m her person, but Macon is also that for her, and I finally understand it now.
