Wild Star: Under the Stars Book 3

by Raleigh Ruebins

  The idea came to me shockingly fast. It required a couple moving parts that I knew I would have to get the next day when stores were open, but part of it I could put together right away. I drove home and saw that the light at Grey’s was still out—I hoped he was sleeping, and some tiny part of me even had the thought that I hoped he had drank enough water before going to sleep.

  Because I didn’t care how tense my fight with Grey had been earlier, I still couldn’t help but look out for him. And I hated the idea of him waking up with a killer hangover.

  I planned and plotted for the gift I was going to give to Grey. It might have seemed absolutely nutty, trying to give him another gift after he’d been so upset about the money, but this was a completely different thing.

  It was something that money couldn’t buy. Something I was going to make, something no one else could make for Grey.

  I would start working on it that night, finish it the next day when I got the necessary supplies, and then leave it in his mailbox the next day. If he didn’t want to talk to me even after getting it, then I would let him go.

  But I had to take one last opportunity to show him how I really felt.

  Eighteen

  Grey

  I couldn’t eat at all the day after my fight with Adam.

  It didn’t help that I already felt like shit, anyway, on account of the ridiculous amount of whiskey I’d consumed the night before. But I doubt I would have been able to eat anyway.

  Because I was going to go to my mom’s house after work and tell her the truth.

  My stomach was in knots, and I think even Audrey noticed during our shift together. She normally bugged me about her latest foray into modeling, or even told me at length how I needed to “be more positive,” but today she left me alone, doing her best to help customers when I kept running to the back of the store in fits of panic.

  Because no matter how resolute I was about telling my mom, it still didn’t make it any easier. There must have been about 20 separate times throughout the day when I thought I should call it all off, that I’d made a mistake, and that I couldn’t do it.

  But then it always came back around to Adam. I’d picture his face, his smile, the warm weight of his hands against my back. How incredibly unselfish he was, and God, the amount of bullshit he’d had to deal with from me.

  And yet he still loved me. It was a goddamn miracle. And even if I’d fucked everything up beyond repair and I’d never be in a relationship with Adam, I still needed to tell my mom. Adam had always stressed to me that it was important to be true to yourself, and as long as my mom didn’t know that the man who paid her medical bills was the man I loved, I wouldn’t feel right.

  By the time my shift ended, I was practically vibrating. I hadn’t eaten all day, and had barely slept at all the night before. My hands shook as I started the walk back to our street, and I seemed to notice every detail that I never usually saw: the crunch of gravel under my feet with each step, the gentle breeze through the trees, the song of the birds in the late afternoon. I was hyper-focused on everything, in a fight-or-flight panic, and for once, I knew I couldn’t flee.

  It took me three tries to get the key into the lock of my mom’s front door. When I walked in I was shocked to find that I didn’t smell any smoke, and the TV wasn’t blaring news, but instead the radio was on, tuned to a channel with a nice jazzy music playing. And as I stepped into the living room I noticed that it looked… amazing.

  My mom had totally cleaned the place up. I’d always done my best to keep up with the regular maintenance, like dishes and yardwork, but she always had kept stacks of magazines and newspapers and general kitsch all around the living room.

  Now, everything was clean and organized, the blankets folded nicely over the back of the couch, and she seemed to have acquired a huge, beautiful leafy green houseplant that now saw in the corner of the living room.

  In other words, it looked fucking fantastic.

  “Ma?” I shouted into the house, not seeing her anywhere. I crossed through the house to the kitchen, then saw that her back door was open, and she was outside.

  “Mom,” I repeated as I stepped outside and smelled charcoal.

  “Oh! Grey! I didn’t know you were comin’ over tonight!” she said, turning slowly on her walker to smile at me. The Texan guy she met at the hospital was also there—Mark, his name was—and he was setting up the grill and had a bunch of veggies and sausages ready to load onto it. I didn’t even know my mom’s grill still worked, but it looked completely clean and certainly smelled good already.

  I waved hello to him and bent to give my mom a hug. She was wearing perfume that I hadn’t smelled on her in years, and immediately it sent me into a wave of nostalgia, her signature scent from when I was growing up.

  “Mom, Jesus, you look amazing,” I said. She’d put on some minimal makeup and was wearing a long floral dress.

  “Oh,” she said, waving a hand, and I could see her blush slightly and dart a glance at Mark. “Mark just got out of the hospital tonight so I invited him over to grill,” she said.

  “Clean bill o’ health,” he said, pointing down at his knee. “I’ve gotta wear this contraption on my knee for the next month, but it barely even hurts. The doctors over there really know what they’re doing.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “So good to hear, Mark.”

  “So what brings you here, sweetie?” my mom said.

  In all the shock I’d completely forgotten for a second the reason I’d come over. It all came rushing back to me at once, all my nerves and hesitation. For a second I considered brushing it off—clearly my mom was on some kind of date and I didn’t want to ruin it for her—but another, louder part of my brain knew that if I didn’t tell her now, I never would.

  So no matter what she was doing, I had to bite the bullet. I was going to do it.

  “Um, actually, I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Sure, what’s on your mind?”

  “Could we, uh…” I said, looking over at Mark, “Could we go inside for a sec?”

  “Sure!” she said. She turned back to him, letting him know she’d be back in a minute, and he stayed out there tending to the grill while we went inside.

  “Isn’t he awesome?” she said once the back door was closed and we were inside again. She was absolutely beaming, smiling in a way I hadn’t seen in years, and I couldn’t even describe how warm it made me feel inside.

  My mom had found someone. And it didn’t take someone who loved romance novels as much as I did to see how sweet that was.

  “Mark does seem awesome,” I said to her with a smile as we walked into the living room. “And hell, mom, your house looks great, too. Did you do all this yourself?”

  “Sure did,” she said. “The medication the doctor put me on really seems to help with my energy levels—I’ve been doing a lot more the past few days then I’ve been able to in months.”

  “God, that makes me so happy, ma,” I said, sitting on the couch. She sat next to me, taking a deep breath and eyeing me.

  “So what’s up, Grey-bird?”

  I took a deep breath. Her eyes were fixed on me, happy and bright as I’d ever seen them, and I had no idea how she was going to react to what I was about to tell her. I realized my hands were shaking again, and I gripped them against my thighs to steady them.

  “Well, there’s… there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I said.

  She nodded, urging me to go on.

  “It’s something I’ve been thinking about for years—actually, over 10 years, now.”

  “Yeah?” she said softly, her expression unchanged.

  “And I don’t know how you’re going to react, but—”

  “Grey, jeez, what is it? Is everything okay? Tell me what’s up.”

  Shit. Now she was getting worried. I was making too big a deal out of everything, as usual.

  I took in a deep breath. “Uh, well… mom, I’m… I’m in l
ove,” I said, my throat feeling weirdly constricted.

  She took in a sharp breath. “Oh my God, Grey! Grey, that’s so wonderful!” she said.

  “Wait, ma—I have to tell you—”

  “Oh, I’ve been waiting for the day when you’d find someone—”

  “I’m in love with Adam, mom.”

  She paused for a moment, her shocked expression going from elation, to slight confusion, and then finally to recognition. “Adam?” she said, her eyes wide.

  I nodded, swallowing hard. “Adam. I’m… I’m totally and completely head over heels for him, ma,” I said, and was utterly embarrassed to feel a tear streaking down my cheek as I said it.

  “Oh wow, honey,” she said, “Oh, Grey, it all makes so much sense now—oh, gosh,” she said, and then her arms were around me, tighter than ever, holding me against her in a hug. “I’m so sorry I had no idea,” she said.

  I laughed a little as she hugged me, a couple more tears coming out of my eyes. “You’re sorry?” I said with a smile, leaning back and meeting her eyes again. “What do you have to be sorry about? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner that… that I like guys, too.”

  I was so relieved to see a smile creep over her face that another tear fell from my eyes, this time out of the sheer weight that had been lifted from my shoulders. I’d told her, and she was still talking to me. I’d told her and she didn’t even react badly.

  “That’s okay, Grey, I can… I can understand why it might be hard for you to tell me, but oh, sweetie, I’m so glad you have,” she said, taking a deep breath and hugging me again.

  “God, I’ve wanted to for so long,” I said. “I thought… I thought you’d react badly. You always talk about me finding a nice woman and having kids….”

  “Hey,” she said, drawing back and giving me a sharp look in the eye. “That is a very heteronormative thing to say. I know you can still have kids if you’re with a man.”

  Now it was my turn for my jaw to drop. “Heteronormative? Ma, how do you even know that word? Holy shit, you are awesome.”

  She shrugged, a slight grin appearing on her face. “I’m hip. I’m up-to-date. There was a program on the news the other day about millennial slang, I think they call it ‘woke’ now, don’t they?”

  I broke out into a full-body laugh. “Yeah, ma. You’re actually super woke.”

  “Oh, Grey, you couldn’t have picked better,” she said, giving me a serious look. “Adam is… amazing, and I could tell why you’d fall for him.”

  I gave her a confused look. “How do you know? Wait, did Adam talk to you?”

  She nodded. “We talked, when I was in the hospital. Based on my impressions, I’d say you’ve caught yourself one fine boyfriend. Don’t let one that good get away.”

  For the first time in the conversation, my heart sank. I looked down at the ground. “I think I might have already messed it up, though,” I said sadly.

  “What?” she said loudly. “What are you talking about?”

  I met her eyes. “You know how he… paid off all the medical bills?”

  “Oh yes… we really do need to thank him for that in a big way,” she said.

  “He used money his parents left him to pay for it. And I kind of got in a huge fight with him about it last night. I told him I don’t just want to be seen as a pity project,” I said, grimacing.

  “You always did have a fierce pride, Grey,” she said to me, nodding and narrowing her eyes. “I understand that, I really do. You can’t be a single mom and not have pride.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But somehow it doesn’t feel right.”

  She looked at me closely. “People express love in different ways, Grey-bird,” she said. “If it’s something that makes you uncomfortable, talk to him about it. But from what I could tell, there isn’t a bone in Adam’s body that pities you, or us. Actually, now that I think about it, it really just seemed like Adam loved you.”

  I swallowed hard again, taking in a deep breath. “I know,” I whispered. “I hope I didn’t… mess everything up. And I’m going to Portland, and I’m sure Adam doesn’t want to leave Fox Hollow, anyway.”

  My mom let out a sharp laugh. “Have you asked him?” she said.

  “Asked him what?”

  “If he’d go to Portland with you. I mean it, Grey, people do things for the ones they love. And if he’s willing to help us with something like those bills, I’d bet a million bucks he’d go to Portland with you.”

  As stupid as it sounds, I had barely even considered it. I’d only known Adam for such a short time, and Portland was my dream, not his. “Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to ask him something as huge as that? Ask him to move with me?”

  She hitched one arm up in a shrug. “You said you love him, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And does he love you?”

  “I can’t believe it, but yes. He does.”

  “Then what do you have to lose? I say you should ask him. You never know when you might find somebody.”

  I hugged her again, laughing. “This is the most times I’ve hugged you in one day in forever,” I said to her.

  “I’m not complaining,” she said. “But I do need to get back out there. I’m on a date, sweetie.”

  I beamed at her. “I know.”

  “Go get him,” my mom said, slowly rising up from the couch and gripping the sides of her walker.

  I raced down the block. I was about to go straight to Adam’s house and knock on the door, but I saw something, something big, protruding from the mailbox on my own deck. It looked like it was about to rain out, so I went up to grab it, planning to put it inside before heading over to Adam’s.

  But when I picked it up, I realized that it wasn’t just a large piece of mail.

  It looked more like a gift, wrapped neatly in butcher paper and ribboned with twine.

  I gently pulled away the twine, releasing the paper and unwrapping what looked like a thick-bound notebook of some kind.

  I opened it to the first page and immediately my hands started shaking a little. The page read: “Grey. Our time together has been short, but has given me so much. Inside this book you will find all kinds of moments we’ve spent together, from the serious to the silly. Maybe some of them you won’t even remember. But to me, they were all more meaningful than you’ll ever know. Yours, Adam.”

  My breath caught in my throat as I turned past the first page. There was a small sketch, clearly done in Adam’s style. It was of me and Chewy, her brown fluffy likeness captured perfectly, and me with a mop of dark hair and a black hoodie.. Underneath it, he’d written a description of a small memory: it was about the first night he’d met me, and how apparently he’d been worried Chewy’s sounds had been a burglar at the door. At the bottom of the page there was a little figure holding a baseball bat, face in terror, and I figured that must have been him.

  Just seeing it brought a smile to my face.

  I flipped through page after page, and every single one had a new sketch and memory on it. There was one from the diner. From the farm to table restaurant. Pictures of the gifts I’d brought for Adam, and the streets we took walks on, everything.

  As I paged through the notebook another few tears dropped from my eyes, scattering over the pages. I quickly wiped them away, not wanting to destroy the drawings, but I couldn’t seem to stop the tears from coming.

  I felt something sticking out from the back of the book, and I turned to it. I realized that it was a CD with a note attached to it.

  It was a mix. Like Adam’s version of a mixtape. It had songs from my favorite movies on it, songs we’d listened to on drives in his car, and a couple I didn’t recognize.

  “God, Adam,” I muttered under my breath. My hands were shaking in earnest now, and I kept sniffling, probably looking like a total idiot to anyone who drove down the street.

  I turned back to the final page of the notebook, where Adam hadn’t drawn anything. It was just a note.

  “Settling dow
n doesn’t mean just staying in one place forever. It’s about finding where your heart belongs. If you would still have me, Grey, it would mean everything to me to come with you to Portland. Because I’ve been looking for home all my life, and with you, I feel like I’ve found it.”

  I shut the book quickly because I was suddenly wracked with sobs—deep, unrelenting ones that definitely would have ruined the beautiful notebook if I’d left it open.

  I struggled in my pocket for my keys, knowing I needed to get inside, literally blubbering on my front stoop over a notebook.

  And as I swung the door open, I heard him behind me.

  “Grey,” Adam said, and I turned to see him walking down the sidewalk, Chewy on the leash in front of him, running to my house.

  “Oh my God,” I said quietly. I put the book down on the table near the door, and then stepped back outside, closing the door softly behind me. As he approached the front steps I felt a few drops of rain coming down from the sky, and I walked down the steps as he came toward me.

  Chewy was nuts on the leash, running in circles, not sure if she was happier to see me or wanted to stay with Adam.

  Adam walked close to me, pausing a few steps away, just regarding me hesitantly.

  “Grey,” he repeated again, softer this time, looking right into my eyes as the rain started to come down a little quicker.

  “Adam,” I said back.

  “I’m—I’m so sorry,” he said, “The money—I didn’t want to impose, God, that’s the last thing I wanted, I just—”

  “Shh,” I said, holding a finger to my lips. “Stop.”

  I closed the distance between us, reaching up to brush a lock of dark hair away from Adam’s forehead. I looked at his eyes, his lashes, the tiny freckles that dotted the tops of his cheeks.

  It was a face I’d come to love. A face I wanted to see whenever I could, as much as I could. And when he looked back at me, I saw not a shred of pity—for the first time ever, I saw, and accepted, that he loved me.