The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass - Maisey Yates Page 0,119

fine.”

He laughed. Absurdly, even while sorrow rolled through him. “She would have really liked you.”

“I can’t think of a better compliment.”

And he couldn’t either. Except... Except that Jordan was Jordan. And that in and of itself was a compliment he knew she would never be able to take.

“She would have liked you. So fuck Dylan’s mom.”

She laughed. “Don’t say that. She took me in. She’s been really good to me.”

“She makes you feel bad about yourself. That’s not good.”

“Yeah. I guess not.”

“You’re special. Don’t ever forget that.”

“Laz...”

But he was done talking about himself. Just profoundly done.

“Do me a favor. Help me get up to that apartment upstairs tonight. Because I’m not going to be able to drive.”

“Whatever you need.”

He didn’t need to think about that. The one night he’d needed someone to be there for him. Gladys would have scolded him. She wouldn’t have wanted her grandson getting sloppy drunk over her, that was for sure.

She’d been a staunchly independent woman. The only one in her family to move from Louisiana to the West Coast. She’d forged her own path, and she’d done it with a firm, uncompromising spirit. She wasn’t a woman to raise her voice, but she wasn’t holding in anger. She just spoke her piece when it needed speaking. She did what needed doing. She didn’t have entanglements she couldn’t handle. And she seemed happier for it. Her husband had died before Laz was born, early in his father’s childhood.

And while she had mourned her husband, she had been content with the life she had built for herself on her own terms.

He’d always admired that. It also internalized that you just couldn’t have the life that you wanted, not down to the final detail, if you shared it with someone else. His parents were unhappy because they had each other, and him, and it was one too many obligations.

Gladys had been good to him. She’d come to his football games at the high school. She’d come to his bar until it had been a bit much for her to make it into town. Her freedom left her free to love him a bit better, and to shine all the brighter.

And he’d wanted to be like her. Not his parents.

His brand of solitude had worked for him.

He saw enough people in the bar.

But then along had come Jordan, and a slow shift of things had begun to make him question whether or not it was what he wanted for always. But then, Dylan had always been a factor. Always Dylan.

“Do you ever wonder if you’ve made a mistake?”

“What kind of mistake?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell if it’s a big one or small one. But I just feel like. I don’t know how to explain it. My life was never easy. I mean, I’m not trying to be a victim or anything like that, it’s just that it was always tough. Growing up in my house. And I took the first available hand that got offered to me. And sometimes I just wonder. I wonder if I’m in the wrong place. Or maybe I’m the wrong person for the place. I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“I understand in some ways. I think my parents always felt like they made the wrong choice. Live the wrong lives. And what the hell can you do with that?”

“I don’t know. I guess it depends on how determined you are to keep living in that life.”

Until now, maybe.

“So, what changed?”

“You know, the needing to stand there and say vows. I kept going through them in my head. Over and over again. We didn’t do anything sappy like writing our own vows. You know I hate that shit.”

Jordan liked to play she wasn’t sentimental at all. A holdover from being that girl with no winter coat. But he knew she was. He knew she loved Christmas lights. Just a few months ago the town had been all lit up for Christmas, and it had snowed. And there was Jordan, two in the morning even though it was freezing.

“We should go for a walk.”

“It is fucking freezing.”

“But it’s beautiful outside. The Christmas lights are up.”

“And we’re going to be the two crazy people wandering down the street at three in the morning.”

“Come on.”

She took his arm, and it was something like torture, and they walked down the street together, a strange pressing sense of panic making him want to choke. Because it was domestic. Because it was close to what he wanted, and