Page 101 of Starting Back
“Anytime,” I said as I rubbed her shoulder. “You can wait with her while I get all this together and get you both out of here as soon as possible.”
Her chin quivered for a minute as she nodded.
“Okay.” She sucked in a breath as her throat worked. “I’ll let Chloe choose whatever takeout she wants tonight. Can you join us after you get off from work?”
“I can,” I whispered and kissed her forehead. “Go back with Chloe and stop tempting me to kiss you in front of everyone.”
“How am I doing that?”
“You don’t have todoanything. You’re here.”
The way she was looking at me didn’t hurt either. Maybe I was a little spooked by what Chloe had just told me since it explained a lot about her mother too. Why when we’d first met simple kindness and consideration had confused her.
I was both tempted to pull her into my arms and kiss all of it away and run after her ex to punch his lights out.
I resolved, at least for today, to be a lover and not a fighter.
I watched Kristina go back to join Chloe, the wind knocked out of me when I realized how far I’d come since I’d moved here.
I’d been in love with Kristina for a long time, but I’d told her daughter before I told her.
I’d fallen for Kristina fast and hard enough to be used to it, but I didn’t realize how much I’d been falling for all of them.
THIRTY-SIX
KRISTINA
“Are the girls ready?” Colin asked the second after I opened the door. On any other day, the absence of a greeting wouldn’t bother me, as I’d come to think of us as coworkers, not exes or even friendly acquaintances.
Today, it irked me, but my anger was at myself, not him. Even if we were not inclined to be nice to each other anymore, we should never have forgotten who was watching and the lessons we didn’t want to teach.
“They’re with my mother. I told her to bring them here at twelve-thirty so that we could talk.” I nodded toward the couch.
“Okay,” he said slowly, eyeing me with a crinkled brow as he ambled into the living room, taking his usual seat on the far end of the couch. “This must be serious if you’re asking to speak to me for an entire hour.”
The sad truth of that joke was the entire reason this conversation was overdue.
“You know that Chloe is struggling.”
“Chloe took sides pretty early.” He scoffed.
“Colin, take your ego out of this. It’s not that she took sides.”
“No, it’s that my firstborn kid can’t stand the sight of me.” He barked out a humorless laugh. “And won’t tell me why even though I’ve asked her a million times.”
“She’s upset, by things she’s seen and heard. Emma was too little to really know what was going on, thankfully, but Chloe was old enough to take in too much. She saw more than we thought.”
“More than we thought? What do you mean?”
I sucked in a long breath, trying to hold my cool and keep my tone even. Despite our history, I did sympathize with the hurt and frustration pulling at his features.
“On the nights before you moved out and the fights between us were at their worst, Chloe would watch us from the bottom of the staircase. You would storm out the back door right when I’d start to cry.”
The color drained from his face as his jaw dropped.
“I had no idea she heard all of that.”
“It’s not so much what she heard, it’s what she saw. This is why she’s been so worried about me all the time, because every morning after, I acted like nothing was wrong. She doesn’t trust me to tell her everything is fine anymore.”
