“Thank you for such a lovely night,” I say once we reach my door. “It was awesome and I can’t wait to do it again.” He leans down and gives me a soft and gentle kiss. “Goodnight, Kade.”
I watch him leave, smiling to myself and biting down on my bottom lip as he goes. He looks so good that it hurts. He’s still got it, that magical thing that clamps down and won’t let me go. I love it.
Eventually, I make my way inside and predictably my mom is sitting there at the kitchen table, waiting for me. I sigh loudly and give her a grin, my happiness shines through even if I’m not sure that I want to.
“So?” she asks me excitedly, patting her hands hard on the table. “How did it go? Was it a nice evening?”
“Yes, Mom,” I swoon and fall into the nearest chair. “It was really nice, an awesome night.”
“And…? Did you tell him?” She leans forward, resting on her elbow. “About Logan, I mean?”
“Yeah, no I got that. I know what you mean. And I didn’t tell him, but that’s because I’m biding my time. I want to be one hundred percent sure that everything is going to be okay before I say anything. He seems nice now, but I want to be sure. Like, he seems like he’s grown up a lot too, but I want to be certain.”
“As long as you’re doing this for Logan’s benefit and not your own?” Mom asks me with narrowed eyes. “I understand completely, I know that you’re just trying to do the right thing and it isn’t easy.”
“Of course it’s for Logan. I wouldn’t be so selfish, you know that, Mom.”
“I do.” She rests her hands on mine and smiles. “I’m just trying to lookout for you both.”
A weariness overcomes me, I don’t know how much I want to discuss this any further, so I push myself up and I walk towards the stairs. “Well, I’m going to bed, Mom, so I’ll see you in the morning.” I pause for a moment before I say anything else. “I love you, and thank you so much for everything that you do. I don’t want you to think that I don’t appreciate it, because I really do. You’re amazing.”
“Oh, you know that you’re welcome, sweetie.” Mom presses her hand to her chest, glad for the show of appreciation. I really must remember to do that more often. “Love you.”
As I walk up the stairs, I brush my fingers over my lips, loving the way I can still feel Kade there. It’s almost as if he’s still kissing me now, that’s a sensation I don’t want to let go of. It really was a wonderful date. If it wasn’t for all the secrecy surrounding us then I would easily be able to fall into this with my arms wide open… but the secret remains and it could quite easily tear us apart.
I check on Logan quickly before falling into bed. I already know that my night will be filled of him, Kade will consume my dreams entirely, and I’m more than happy for that to be the case. I would happily dream of him every single night, as long as I knew that he wasn’t going to hurt me in the morning.
Although maybe this time I’ll be the one who hurts him.
25
Kade
“So, this is the ordering system,” Dad tells me with a smile. “I know that you’ve used this from the other end, but now it’s time to get to grips with it from this side. Even if you have a team of buyers, you have to know how to work it too. There might be times when you have to do it or oversee it.”
“I want to learn how everything works,” I reply eagerly. “Show me everything, the more I know, the more I understand the business. I’m like a sponge trying to soak up every scrap of everything.”
Dad gives me a proud look, he really is happy to have me working with him now. He’s done it right, actually. By waiting and sending me on that amazing journey now I’m mature enough to cope with it all. If I’d come here when I got kicked out of college, or even when I’d finished if I made it that long, then I wouldn’t have been able to hack it. I would have made a mess of thing and destroyed my own inheritance.
We go through the system and I learn it all step by step. Thankfully, because I have dealt with this software on the other side it doesn’t take me long to understand it all. It’s logical, and I like that. Maybe if my business studies course had shown me a more practical way of dealing with things, then I would have taken to it better. Or maybe not. I was a goof back then, more concerned with having fun than anything else, so maybe nothing would have changed. Mind you, I can’t find a way to regret any of it. It all brought me here.
“Right, I think you have that,” Dad says with a smile. “And since it’s Friday and I don’t think there’s anything else that you need to do, you might as well leave early. You’ve done well this week.”
I could leave, but I actually don’t want to quite yet. “Actually, Dad, after lunch, do you mind if I take a walk about and introduce myself to everyone. I know that you’ve already done that but I want to make sure they all know that they can talk to me. I’d also like to know what people do on a day to day basis.”
Dad clamps his hand down on my shoulder and he smiles proudly. “Oh, of course you can. Whatever you need to do, if that helps you to feel at home here then so be it. I’m glad for you to be here.”
I grab my lunchbox and make my way into the canteen, tugging my cell phone out of my pocket as I go. I fire off a text to Lucie at the first opportunity I get, needing to communicate with her since she’s been at the back of my mind all day. She doesn’t reply to my messages much which I know is because she’s busy with Logan, but I still like to let her know that I’m thinking about her all the damn time.
‘Hey, Lucie, hard at work today! How’s your morning going? When are you going to cave and let me take you out again? All this playing hard to get is just teasing and you know it. Xxx’
I smile to myself, loving how playful I get to be with her. Because we know one another so well, she’ll know exactly what I mean by that. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just want to have fun. Then, because my cell phone is already in my hand I log onto the Internet and I do the one thing I didn’t think I ever would. I go online and check out my social media account. On the outside, I’m trying to be cool about the mystery surrounding Lucie’s son, but on the inside, it keeps eating me up. I don’t understand how I can just not know who it is. I’m sure she’ll tell me eventually, but I’m impatient and I need to know now. I’m scared this person will come back into her life and steal her from me. It’s a shame that she got pregnant some time after I left because I don’t know who she hung around with then. It might have even been someone who simply lived nearby the college, or even someone from here. I don’t know why it matters but it does.
“Rhiannon Tilley, three mutual friends,” I mutter to myself as I see her profile. I didn’t know much about the girls who Lucie hung about with them, but I’m sure that one of them was called Rhiannon. I hit the ‘add friend’ button before I can think better of it. Then I search through her friends until I see another name that leaps out at me, Cindy Hopper. She looks mildly familiar from her photograph so I add her too. I know that it’s
wrong of me to snoop around behind Lucie’s back but if one of them know then maybe they can help.
Then, just to make myself feel even worse about my behavior, I check the profiles of all the people I used to hang around with and what I find surprises me. Jack and Amber are together and they have three children, Tia is a high flying executive of an advertising company – a far cry from the needy girl who used to want my attention way back when, and Hector is also in a long term relationship with a girl I don’t know. They all have something going on… but I suppose now that I’ve ripped the band aid off, it isn’t so bad. I have my own things going on too, it’s not like I’m a total loser or anything. I just regret the way I left them all behind.