Page 57 of Guarding Over You
“I appreciate it,” Billy finally said, his voice tight and forced through gritted teeth. She could almost see it in front of her having witnessed it so much in their marriage.
It was there again. The backpedal. The strain.
When Billy was wrong, he’d do anything to smooth the edges. Words that sounded like apologies but never were, gestures that looked like love but only covered the cracks.
She’d fallen for them once.
She never would again.
“I don’t think you do, but that’s on you. We are done here. I will tell Julie when I see her again. That gives you time to get your shit together.”
Arden ended the call, staring at her reflection in the glass of the patio door. Her jaw was set, her shoulders stiff, but the exhaustion in her eyes gave her away. She hated he could still drain her like this. One call and she was right back to defending herself, standing up for Gracie, and holding the line with bleeding fingers and frayed nerves like always.
The phone felt heavy in her hand. She set it down and leaned her palms against the cool plastic of her outdoor table, forcing herself to breathe. One deep breath. Then another.
She’d document the call and report it like she always did. Keep the records straight. Protect her daughter, protect herself, protect the life she’d rebuilt one stone at a time.
But as she went back inside and shut the blinds on the front window leading to the porch, a flicker of unease slid through her chest. She couldn’t name it yet, only that it felt like the air had shifted. Like someone had just decided to test how strong she really was.
18
TELL YOU A STORY
“Gracie sleeping?”
“Yes. She went down pretty quickly. It’s been a good day for her.”
“That’s always nice to hear, but I’m thinking not so great for you?”
“I’ve had better,” she said.
He’d read the text when he was ending his shift. Arden asking him if he got out early enough, if he could come down and relax with a drink.
Though Blaze enjoyed the other times he’d come down to visit her after work, she rarely threw in the words relax or drink. They didn’t drink at all other than the one night she had the hard cider.
The night he’d seen her sitting on the porch trying to take the edge off.
Tonight she slurped up her milkshake, he did the same. He had to admit this wasn’t the drink he was thinking he’d get but wouldn’t turn one down.
Not when it brought back childhood memories. Things he didn’t always let drift back into his head.
A time when the biggest obstacle in his life was trying to sleep in for an extra thirty minutes on the weekend before he had to start his chores on the farm.
“Can I tell you a story?” he asked.
“I’d like that.”
He took a long pull on the cold, creamy chocolate concoction in his hand. “When we were kids in the summer, we had chores to do daily. During the week we had to get up as if it were still school, get the work done, and then the rest of the time was ours.”
“That had to suck if you couldn’t sleep in at all.”
“My parents felt it was part of being disciplined. That if you had a routine, life could be a little smoother. They weren’t wrong. They weren’t rough about it. It’s not like we were up at five a.m. It was the same as school days. The weekends we could sleep in an extra hour.”
“Only an hour?” she said, her eyes wide.
“It was more than my parents did. But we’d do our chores, then goof off the rest of the day. At night in the summer, a couple of times a week, my mother would make these awesome milkshakes. Kind of a reward for getting it done.”
“That’s very sweet. Did you always have chocolate?”
