Page 83 of Where It All Began
Joey’s shoulders stiffened, and Phoebe guessed she knew who had done the waylaying.
Phoebe twisted open the bottle and took a deep drink. “Ah.” She wiped her mouth with her sleeve still damp from tears—so many tears—and handed the bottle to Joey. Phoebe plunged her fork into the yellow spongey cake.
“If you ever get tired of school and horses, I’ll set you up with a bakery,” Phoebe said with her mouth full of sugary perfection.
“Mmm,” Joey said, passing the bottle back and digging in. “Think I’ll stick with horses. I’d hate dealing with customers,” she shuddered.
“You know you’re welcome out there. I don’t want you to think that you can’t grieve with us because of what happened between you and Jax.”
Joey flinched at his name, and Phoebe, feeling like an asshole, took another drink.
“No,” Joey said, shaking her head. “I don’t want him or anybody to see me like… this.”
“Like what?” Phoebe prodded gently.
Joey’s eyes clouded. She bit her trembling lower lip. “He was a really good man,” she said finally, choking the words out.
They weren’t talking about Jax anymore.
“Oh, my sweet girl. John considered you family, and so do I,” Phoebe said. She wanted to reach out to the girl to hug her until the hurt went away. But Joey shifted as if reading her intentions.
“I loved him. A lot,” she said with a shuddering breath.
“We all love you, Joey. All of us. Don’t feel like you need to go through this alone, please. That will make this worse for me, worse for all of us.”
“I have something for you,” Joey said, letting out a shuddering breath.
“Besides cake?” Phoebe teased.
Joey leaned to the side and pulled an envelope from her back pocket. “Here.”
Phoebe caught her breath when she saw the handwriting on the back.
My Phoebe.
“Where did you get this?” Phoebe asked, her throat tight as she traced the letters of her name as written by her husband.
“Middle of the night last night. I knew you all were home, so I went in and sat with John for a while,” Joey confessed.
Phoebe squeezed Joey’s knee. “Thank you for that.”
“He made me promise to give it to you after… after. You’re not going to read it right now and go to pieces, are you?”
Phoebe stared at the envelope and then pressed it to her heart. “No, I think I’ll wait a little while.”
Joey nodded in relief. “He was a good man,” she said again, making a neat row of fork holes in the cake.
“He made three other really good men, too,” Phoebe said, reaching out and squeezing Joey’s hand.
Joey snorted. “Well, two out of three ain’t bad.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The wake was never going to end. It was already midnight, and someone had the brilliant idea to pull the hay wagon out to use as a makeshift stage. Neighbor after neighbor had taken the stage to share their favorite stories about John, and then the Wild Nigel’s had launched back into their playlist. The food had been replenished by dozens and dozens of pizzas and subs from town. She didn’t know how it was happening, but every time her glass was empty, someone filled it back up again.
There were eleven children sound asleep in her living room while their parents continued to “mourn” in spectacular Blue Moon fashion.
The entire municipality was just going to party itself to death, and at this point, Phoebe was okay with that. And just when she thought things couldn’t get weirder, someone brought her a goat.
