He’s right. But my eyes well up anyway. “I’m just so sorry for him.”
His turn to reach out and pat my arm. “We’ll help out. You said it. It will be all right.”
I did, didn’t I? But it’s so sad—what happened to Evan, what happened to Ross, what is happening all around the world.
“Rest, Tay. You look exhausted.” He’s rubbing his hand up and down my arm. “We’ll figure it all out when we arrive.”
At least he hasn’t said he wishes I’d stayed at home, like he’d initially insisted. He probably sensed how close I am to bawling my eyes out as it is. It doesn’t take much these days. I try to rein it in, but it’s not always in my power. I hate how out of control I am.
But when I remember why, I’m flooded with such joy I can barely take it.
Closing my eyes, I settle back in my seat once more, certain I won’t be able to sleep. I’m still wound up tightly with sadness, my heart thumping heavily in my chest.
But between one heartbeat and the rest, the world falls away and I’m drifting off on a silvery path leading to the moon, with Matt by my side.
* * *
“Tay. Wake up. Come on. We’re here. Tay.”
The voice is insistent and won’t go away even when I swat at it like I would an annoying insect. It buzzes in my ear, and I become aware of a weight on my shoulder, fingers digging slightly into my flesh.
“What?” I mumble, blinking crusty eyes open, and find Matt’s face inches from mine. “Christ!”
“I know… it’s the beard, isn’t it?” he mutters, giving me a crooked grin. “But no, it’s just me, Matt.”
I drag a hand over my face, breathing out a laugh. “Jeez… I mean, hey. Where are we?”
“We have reached Destiny, Missouri.”
I sit up so suddenly I almost bump foreheads with him. “What? No way. I slept for four hours straight?”
“And twenty minutes,” he says gravely, a twinkle in his dark eyes, then straightens and gives me a hand. “Let me help you out.”
I let him haul me out of the truck and lower me gently to the ground. I hold on to his muscular arms, leaning into him, still dazed from my overlong nap, and I blink fuzzily around, at my town.
I’m back. And it feels so weird. I grew up here, on these narrow streets and shaded lanes, among these low houses. Everything is so familiar and yet… so foreign. In these past two years since we moved to St. Louis, I never returned. Never felt the need.
I have everything I want in St. Louis. My mom, Gigi, Merc—and of course Matt and the kids. The college I attended. My dreams for the future. That’s my home now. It shifted so easily from here to there and I know why.
They say home is where the heart is, and I guess it’s true. Mine beats in St. Louis.
And yet being here is unsettling. It’s shifting the ground underneath my feet. So many childhood memories. So much happened here.
“You all right?” Matt asks, looking down at me.
“Yeah.” I draw a long breath of the scents wafting down the street—humid earth, fried bacon and flowers—and look up at him. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Evan’s house is not much different from the house my family lived in for most of my life. Low, old, badly in need of repair, the garden overgrown and the fence peeling.
I frown, not sure what strikes me as odd about it all, as we walk up to the front door and ring the bell. Before I can figure it out, the lock turns and someone peers out at us—from chest level.
“Who are you?” a suspicious little voice asks, and two dark equally suspicious eyes look out at us.
“Friends of Evan,” I say. “You must be his niece. What’s your name?”
“I don’t tell my name to strangers,” the girl says, with a very grown-up inflection, hinting that she’s repeating verbatim something her mom probably told her.