Page 146 of Holding You
“And we are going to be extra stupid happy for a long, long time together.”
She burst into tears again.
“And I’ve been sick a lot. I can’t eat, but I just want cookie dough, and I … I want to make this all better for you and I can’t, andeverythingmakes me cry.”
I let out a small laugh while sniffling right along with her.
“You’re making me an aunt—you’ve already made my day better.”
“I think I made it worse.”
“Nope. You did not. I choose to be happy for the rest of the day because of this news.”
She leans into me, and I hug her tight.
I’ll go back to being sad when I’m alone.
“Hey, Ruby?”
“Yeah?
“You know how you said that you’d never forgive yourself if you let him give up his goals?”
“Yes,” I say and attempt to clean my tear-stricken face.
“Well, I think you’re forgetting something very important about all that.”
“What?”
“What if being with you was one of his goals?”
And just like that, I start crying all over again.
“The things we want in life change when we change, Ruby. It’s just a matter of how you accept that change and what you’re going to do about it.”
I let her words sink in as we sit there hugging in the sand.
She’s right.
The past few months have changed me in more ways than I ever knew possible.
Now, I just need to decide which direction to go with it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DECLAN
Just two days ago, I was asking my girlfriend to move in with me, and now I’m moving to a different state with no girlfriend.
It doesn’t even feel like my life right now.
I plan to return to Lovers, but at this point, I don’t know if it’s for good or to sell my house.
I hope it’s the former, but I have to find a way to fix my company first, and right now, I just don’t know how I can do that without putting in the time back in Chicago.
Miles, Luca, and Hudson put together a little going away lunch shindig for me at Miles’s house. It’s weird to have everyone together here instead of at Ruby’s. It’s even weirder that they all know I’m the reason Ruby isn’t here and not a single one of them has tried to punch me.
“Do you leave right after this?” Shay asks, and I nod, my gaze outside the kitchen window where the kids are sitting on Miles’s tire swing. It’s not moving, and there isn’t a smile in sight.
