Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,87

I don't want to move to Maryville," my mom said gently. "He's gonna have kids someday, and I won't be living in a different town as my grandkids."

"Lord, Glenda, the boy's single again, and you're worried about the kids he's gonna have someday? I think we've shocked him enough."

"I still don't want to move to Maryville. Robert can find us a nice two-bedroom house somewhere here in town. As long as it has space for a garden, I'll be just fine."

I rubbed a hand over my chest as they bickered, completely ignorant of the landslide that just covered me in dust and rocks and dirt. I felt it coating my tongue and my throat. Dried-out bones in the desert had nothing on my mouth.

"Tucker, son, are you okay?" he stood and placed a hand on my shoulder. "I didn't think you'd be this surprised. You're always telling me how tired I look."

I nodded. "I am."

He tightened his grip and it helped steady me, bring the room into focus. Any words I'd practiced were gone, with a weak puff of air they toppled, like a house built from straw.

"You'll do just fine without me."

I met his gaze and held it. How did they not see how miserable I was? It took everything in me not to scream at the top of my lungs, see if it moved them in the slightest. The pressure of it pressed down on my lungs, so much weight behind that scream that I felt like I could rattle the foundations of the building.

Someone knocked on the glass panes of the door, and my mom pasted on her polite, customer service smile. "Your eleven o'clock is here, honey."

"Right." My dad clapped me on the shoulder and went to open the door. "Come on in, you're a bit early, but I'm ready for you."

The couple smiled as they walked in, and I recognized their faces from church. They were trying to adopt a baby, wanted my dad's help looking over all the paperwork.

I took a deep breath.

Everyone had their own weight to carry, I thought, as they followed my dad into his office. And everyone had different ways of coping with it, ways to gain a deep lungful of fresh air amidst the rubble.

I thought I was about to pull myself out of mine, but all I'd done was get buried even deeper beneath it.

Grace.

She was my lungful of cold, bracing air. The place where I could breathe freely, and choose my steps forward without over-thinking.

"Mom, I'll be back later, okay? I need to … run home for something."

"You sure you're all right, honey?" she asked, giving my face a careful study.

"Yeah. I'll be just fine."

My hands were shaking as I left, making that one choice to not stay in the office any longer a pathetic substitution for what I'd really wanted to do.

Everything in my life was being planned out for me. And for the most part, it had been for years.

The practice being transferred solely to my name, without consulting me.

My parents deciding where they were going to live, based on the assumption that I'd be here for the rest of my life.

What if Grace and I didn't want to live in Green Valley forever?

That was our choice, should we decide we were ready to talk about it.

I felt wildly out of control, enough that I worried for a brief moment about whether I should be driving or not.

But bigger than my worry was the desire to be by Grace. I grabbed my phone before I shoved the keys in the ignition.

Chapter 25

Grace

Tucker: Are you at your place?

Me: Nope. Just finished a hike with Grady. He's doing the loop again bc he's weird, I'm heading home for a shower. Why?

Tucker: Meet me at my house? My shower works too.

Me: … I can do that. You okay?

Tucker: I will be.

I read the text again, my forehead creasing in worry. As I made a U-turn in the empty, winding road to drive in the direction of his house, I wondered what could have happened. When he left for work earlier that morning, his mood had been fine. We departed at the same time, and Tucker had pressed me against the side of my car for a kiss so deep, so hot, that my head spun for a solid ten minutes.

While I hiked, I knew he was meeting with Maxine to let her know how we wanted to run the kissing booth. It was possible that she rejected our