Chapter Seven
A strange pang hit Blake directly in the chest the moment he walked out of his front yard and onto the street.
Not his front yard. His parents’ front yard.
It was hard to stop feeling like this was his home, which was what the strange pang had been about. Every cloud in the sky looked familiar, the breeze carrying the faintest hint of pine, the threat of rain in the air.
He hoped it’d be clear tomorrow for the wedding. Even if his sister was an idiot for having an outdoor wedding in February in Colorado, he still wanted things to go right for her.
One of them deserved to be happy.
The main street looked busier than when he’d left, and brighter, too. People were laughing and talking in the street, carrying their groceries home, coming out of the craft store with armfuls of colorful yarn.
Things were going well in Hope Springs. Everyone had been nervous about the new housing development when it’d been announced, but it seemed to be breathing life back into the town.
Blake loved the sleepy little town of his childhood, but this seemed better. More livable.
He’d never stopped regretting moving away, but he felt even worse about it now.
“Blake?”
He looked up, spotting a familiar face coming out of the apparently re-opened bookstore. Jude was waving over at him, holding a stack of books in one hand, and…
A little girl?
Blake grinned as he crossed the street. Jude had a little girl. He’d always wanted a family.
His heart swelled with joy for him.
“I’d hug you, but…” Jude trailed off, indicating the books and Kayla. “I’m out of hands. Are you back in town?”
Blake wet his lips. Jude sounded so excited by the idea, and he hated to let him down. They’d shared a few classes in college and become fast, close friends, though Jude was a year or so older than him. Jude was easy to be around, quiet and thoughtful, a lot more grown up than a lot of other people their age.
“I’m just here for my sister’s wedding,” he said. “Were you not invited? Consider yourself invited.”
“Oh, no, we are invited. I just… forgot.”
“So…” Blake looked down at the little girl. “Who’s this, and who’s we?”
“This is Kayla.” Jude nodded to her. “Kayla, this is Blake. Do you want to say hello?”
Kayla waved shyly at Blake, but didn’t say anything else.
Blake waved back, smiling down at her. He was probably terrifying for someone who stood all of two feet tall, so he understood why she wasn’t exactly running to him.
“I want her to know that she doesn’t have to like the people I like,” Jude said. “I mean, I know I can trust you, but… she needs to know she can trust me.”
“Oh, I get it,” Blake said. “One hundred percent cool with a wave. I’m pretty shy, too.”
“She’s Owen’s,” Jude said.
Blake looked up at him, blinking for a few seconds while he took that in. “Owen as in the Owen? The Owen you were pining for the entire time I knew you?”
Jude chuckled. “That Owen, yeah. Remind me to tell you all about it, there are some details that aren’t baby-friendly.”
“Not a baby,” Kayla spoke up, clearly offended.
“Of course not,” Jude cooed. “You’re a big girl. But Blake and I are very old, so everyone seems like a baby to us.”
“That’s… not how I would’ve put that.”
Jude laughed again. He seemed so much happier than he had the last time Blake saw him. Healthier, too, with more color in his cheeks. Married life had obviously been kind to him.
“I was actually thinking about you a while back. Are you in a hurry? I’d love to sit down for a while and catch up.”
“I’ve been sent to the bakery to confirm the delivery details of the cake in person,” Blake said. “If you wanna come with… I have so much to tell you.”
“Bakery!” Kayla enthused.
“We were on our way there.” Jude grinned down at his daughter. “I promised someone a cupcake. I think I could stretch to two cupcakes.”
Blake laughed. “I think I can pick up the tab. I owe Kayla a bunch of birthday presents.”
“She’s only three and a half,” Jude said.
“Almost four,” Kayla insisted.
“Almost four,” Jude corrected himself, smiling fondly down at her.
“I love her already,” Blake said. It would have been hard not to. Now that Kayla was starting to get over the fact that he was a stranger, she was a bright, happy kid.
If Blake could have had a wish for Jude, it would have been for his life to be exactly like this. Things had clearly worked out for him.
“She gets that a lot.” Jude smiled, obviously proud of her. As he should have been.
“Bakery?”
“Bakery!” Kayla repeated. Blake got the impression that she was a big fan of pastries, so they had that in common.
“It’s just down here.” Jude nodded ahead. Blake fell into step beside him, letting him lead the way.
“So are you staying with your parents?” Jude asked as Blake pushed the door open for him. He made a beeline for a table by the window, putting his books down and then grabbing a little wooden high chair from the side of the room.
The guy behind the counter smiled and nodded at him, turning to the coffee machine immediately. Jude was clearly a regular.
“Uh, I’m paying for this, and I’ll have whatever he’s having.”
“Latte, no sugar?” the guy checked. The baker was called Marcus, and there was only one person here, so he was probably Marcus.
“Sounds good,” Blake agreed. “I’m supposed to check on the delivery details for the wedding cake.”
Probably-Marcus chuckled. “Megan getting nervous about the big day?”
“I guess so,” Blake said. “You’re Marcus, right?”
“That’s me,” Marcus nodded, pouring milk into one cup and then starting on the second one. “The cake is finished and in the refrigerator. You can come through and see it if you want.”
“I have no idea what it’s supposed to look like,” Blake said. “And I trust that you know what you’re doing. She just wants to be sure that you know you’re supposed to be delivering it at four, which I’m sure you do.”
“I do,” Marcus said. “But it’s okay to double-check. Weddings are stressful. I can also tell you that Lexi knows he’s delivering the flowers at eight. Save you the trip over.”
“I actually wasn’t sent to deal with the flowers, but thank you.” Blake smiled. He liked Marcus already. He vaguely remembered someone taking over the bakery before he left, but he hadn’t been in the habit of coming in here.
It was nice, though. The smell of bread hung in the air, and the display cabinet was full of pastries in all kinds of pastel and chocolate shades.
“Oh, and I’m supposed to be getting a cupcake for Kayla. I’m guessing you know which kind better than I do.”
Marcus grinned at him. “I got your back. You can sit down and I’ll bring it over.”
“Thanks,” Blake said, backing away from the counter. He didn’t expect Marcus to take long, but he wasn’t used to walking so far anymore. He took the bus to work, and it took him from his front door to the front door of his office building, so he was out of shape.
“Don’t think I haven’t seen that wedding band,” Jude said as Blake pulled his chair out.
Blake sighed as he sat down, touching the band automatically. Rusty had shown up with it, pointing out that people would expect them to wear one. It had been surprisingly thoughtful.
He couldn’t lie to Jude. His parents were one thing, but this was his friend.
“It’s… complicated,” he said. “It’s a long story, but the short version is that I got married in Vegas, except I didn’t think I was really married, because it was Valentine’s Day and I figured it was kind of meant to be a fun thing to do, and there was this guy, and he dragged me over and we signed some papers I guess. I didn’t really know him, I’d just met him while he was there, and he was fun.”
Blake paused as Marcus brought over their coffee and Kayla’s cupcake. It was one thing for Jude to know the truth, but the whole town didn’t need to.
“Anyway, fast forward to Saturday and he just… appears in my office, tells me it’s a fully legal marriage for both of us now, and that he wants a divorce. So I made him come with me to this because I wanted my parents to think I wasn’t a complete failure and I’d managed to find someone to love me. Which actually sounds even more pathetic than it is.”
“It’s not pathetic,” Jude said. “And you’re not a failure, and you are worthy of love.”
Blake sighed. “Yeah, well. I’m signing the divorce papers after the wedding. And then Rusty can go home, and I can go home, and everyone will think I live a nice life with a beautiful man who cares about me.”
“That’s still not pathetic, but it is kinda sad,” Jude said. “I just want to hug you.”
Blake snorted. “I’ll take you up on that before I head back. I could use all the hugs I can get right now.”
“You can have unlimited hugs from me. And if you need to escape, my door is always open. You can come over anytime, day or night.”
“Thanks,” Blake said. “You were always too good to me.”
Jude shrugged. “That’s what friends are for,” he said.
Blake nodded, remembering a time when he’d had friends, when he’d had a home, when he hadn’t felt like he’d be miserable forever.
He’d missed this place. He’d missed the warmth, and the familiarity, and the only sense of home he’d ever known. Part of him wanted to call into work and tell them to send his last paycheck, he wasn’t coming back.
That he was staying here, where people smiled at him, and where he didn’t feel like he was in the wrong place.
But he wasn’t sure he could ever really have this place back, either.
He wasn’t sure he was even brave enough to try.
“So… catch me up on your life? Aside from the suddenly having a husband thing,” Jude asked, sipping his own coffee.
“There’s not much to tell.” Blake shrugged. “I just… fell into a job with a construction company who initially needed someone to organize their files. Eventually they made me a project manager when one of them retired. He told me that if I kept my head down and worked hard, there was no reason I couldn’t have forty years in the job.”
At the time, that had sounded like security to Blake.
He was beginning to think now that security was overrated.
“That… sounds like hell,” Jude said. “I’ve had some rough times, but…”
Blake smiled wryly. “Thanks.”
“I’m not… pitying you, or anything,” Jude rushed to say, wiping frosting off the table where Kayla had managed to fling it in the process of demolishing her cupcake. “I almost died while you were away, and I still probably wouldn’t do an office job in exchange. I need my soul.”
Blake blinked at Jude saying he almost died, but judging by the casual way he said it, that was a story for another time.
“I… need my soul, too,” Blake said, sighing. “I just… don’t know. My life is kind of a mess right now, and I’m not sure I can fix it.”
“Well, if you need anything, just let me know. We got each other through some pretty tough times before.”
“I’ll be okay,” Blake said. “But I appreciate that. And if there’s anything I can do for you…”
“Noted,” Jude said, deftly taking Kayla’s cupcake wrapper away from her as she finished tearing it up, barely even needing to look.
He was a good dad, and he seemed to have gotten everything he could have wanted.
Maybe good things did happen, and Blake just needed to be patient while he waited for his.