My Almost Ex (The Greene Family #2) - Piper Rayne Page 0,42

down on us is gone and it’s just me and Adam Greene, the boy I’ve always loved. “I was toying with doing something with my drawing, but I made the right decision. We went to Anchorage for school, me to be a park ranger and to help search-and-rescue on the side. That, along with your job, is what let us buy this place. I love my job. I love being outdoors in nature and how every day is different from the one before. I love getting to save people when they’re in trouble. I want you to know I’ve never regretted that decision. I’ve never felt resentment toward you.”

“Even when I left you?”

“Well. It might’ve crossed my mind once, but honestly, don’t hold any guilt over it. It was a long time ago and we’re well past that issue now.”

I slide my hands from his and sit up, then wrap my arms around his shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “For everything you’ve been through in the last year. How I could leave you without an explanation seems so heartless. I wish I had the answers you want.”

“I should’ve done this when you first got back into town.” He pulls out his keys and slides one key off the chain. He opens my fist and places it inside, closing my fist back up as though this is a journey I’ll be going on alone. “Everything in that closet represents our life together, including all your journals. All but the last month of our life together. You must’ve had a new one at that point and taken it with you.”

I hold the key and it feels like a magic bean, full of possibility and weighted with the feeling of freedom. But I don’t want to get my hopes up like they were before I came to town. So far, all I’ve discovered is I was a somewhat selfish person who put her agenda before everyone else’s.

“And you should know that I’ll be staying here with you. Not here.” He looks at the room and a flash of pain strikes his hazel eyes. “But upstairs. My family schooled me pretty bad for not staying with you to begin with.”

“Is Alicia going to be okay with that?” Her name feels like poison in my mouth, but I refuse to be as selfish as I sound like I was and just think of myself.

“If we’re going to live in truth now, you should know that I broke up with her that day at the diner. We’re no longer a couple.”

“Oh.” I feel guilty for the surge of excitement that swells through me.

“I can’t handle this”—he wags his finger between us—“and deal with a new relationship.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I want those words to stop coming out of your mouth. Well, until you figure out why you’d leave a catch like me. Then you can get on your knees and beg forgiveness.” He chuckles and stands. “Seriously though, you need to stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong, Lucy. You had an accident and fell off a horse.”

He walks toward the door, and when his hand lands on the doorknob, I stop him.

“Thank you, Adam.”

He doesn’t turn around. “I’ve always been here for you and that’s not going to change now. Then again, depending on what we find out at the end of this, maybe it will.” He opens the door and disappears on the other side of it.

Adam is still sleeping when I wake in the morning. His sisters are like their own little cleaning crew. They wouldn’t leave last night until the house looked like it did before they came.

I move around the cabin quietly, not wanting to wake him. When I insert the key in the closet and pull the door open, it makes way more noise than I expected and I freeze, looking up and listening. He’s done me this solid, and I don’t want to cause him more pain by having him look at our wedding photos or whatever else is in here.

When I hear no movement in the bedroom above, I finish opening the door. I release a breath when I see stacked boxes, none of them labeled. I pick one up and tiptoe back to the master bedroom. I go back and forth from the closet to the bedroom until I can shut the door and lock the now empty closet.

I open the first box and find a bunch of framed photos. There are a few of the two of us