Page 4 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls (Kissing At Work #2)

It sounded too bougie to know there was a full-on house sitting there year-round, uninhabited.

More use came of it while Celene and her adult siblings were children, but lately, Byron grew conflicted about what to do with it.

On one hand, he could just shove it into an investor’s arms, but after all the money he’d spent upgrading the essentials—heat, the roof, electricity, plumbing—he refused to let go.

The drive to Pennsylvania wasn’t the most convenient, and he’d gotten spoiled by his amenity-rich home with Shanice.

Edna had washed her hands of it since their failed rekindling. Lonnie stayed there on two occasions before moving states away. And the Vale children...

“Don says he’s not into all the painting, refinishing, you know...” Byron shrugged, his point further proven by Briana nodding through a loud yawn. They were too tired as it was. “Celene, you visited it last year.”

“I did.” That doubled as the day she’d met with Quinn for the apology. Celene had scaled the perimeter of the unremarkable 1980s-style house and didn’t bother to venture inside. “It needs a lot of work, Dad. You should sell and make it someone else’s problem.”

“It’s a great space,” Edna said more to the magazine than to anyone specific.

“You can wait for the market to work to your advantage,” Shanice chimed in. “But yeah...we don’t have the bandwidth to restore it.”

“Man.” Byron drew a dispirited face, the skin around his mouth pronounced. “It’s a shame to throw out all those memories from Celene, Elise, and Don’s childhoods.”

“Those memories live on, though. You carry them in your heart.” Shanice’s optimism was admirable, but misguided. Any heartwarming summer memories had been locked away before Celene turned twelve, in the wake of her parents’ second break-up.

Grasping for anything, Byron said, “Elise wants to keep it.”

“She doesn’t want to deal with its challenges,” Edna emphasized, as if it meant something deeper. She retied her robe’s sash. “And Big J’s half-hearted about it, too.”

Celene hushed her embarrassment for Theo’s benefit. “Big J? Mom, why are you calling him that?”

“It’s his nickname.”

“New rules, then,” Byron interjected, knocking the recliner arms with his knuckles. “All renovations would come out of my pocket. I’d fund everything.”

Met with averted gazes and renewed interest in empty cups, he backed off.

As he’d done the last three times he’d raised the subject.

“I just assumed. Elise and Big J could use it as a romantic getaway. Don and Bri’s girls—as energetic as they are—would appreciate its yard, the mountain air.

Theo deserves some of those summer memories. ..”

Nobody budged. He grumbled, changing topics to the easiest one—the spectacular wedding. The room visibly relaxed, pivoting to standout moments, flavors, and silly moments Celene missed out on.

Celene had been missing out on a lot lately. She ran her palm over Theo’s warm back, accepting her inability to make an easy escape.

The most damaging part of losing Quinn wasn’t the breakup. Relationships end, as her father espoused. And the abandonment revealed more about Quinn than Celene; she’d accepted that. What humiliated her was Quinn staying that long out of duty. Or pity.

Its effects trickled into the present day, like tonight, when Byron considered a future at the house for all his children except Celene.

It wasn’t enough that she boasted a remote, well-paying work life. Or took time reflecting, meditating, adopting a more mindful lifestyle to find herself again. It flushed out the bad, even if it meant ridding herself of some softness, too.

“I’ll take him,” Shanice whispered, so closely it startled Celene. She’d been out of it. “Thanks for getting him back to sleep.”

“You’re welcome.”

Singing softly, Theo’s mother scooped him up, relaying him to Byron’s open arms. In his absence, Celene’s midsection went cold, and that made things worse. Any caffeine she’d ingested dissolved to nothing, leaving her drained. Lethargic, a touch angry.

Celene soon took leave for her hotel room, not remembering her trek down the white halls, from the elevator.

She sat on the edge of her bed an hour later, wondering if she’d taken a devastatingly wrong turn in her thirty-six years.

She’d finished packing and set out her outfit for her morning departure.

So she thought and thought and buried herself under the covers so the thinking would stop.

How did her self-improvement help if she looked forward to nothing ahead?

The next day went smoothly. Hotel checkout, farewells. The adult Vales were all sleep-deprived, besides Donovan nursing a hangover while Isolde begged him for “one more go” at the ice machine.

Celene arrived at her Upper West Side one-bedroom. Answered emails and tied up some loose ends, despite reserving this Monday for rest.

Last night’s distress lived on. In fact, it’d intensified. That afternoon, she’d abandoned three novels in their first chapter, returning them to a plain cardboard box of unread books. Nothing held her interest. Everything annoyed her.

By 4:15 p.m., her head pounded. Not from a headache per se, but a heaviness. A sense of something wrong .

Celene gulped a glass of water, squeezing it with a clammy hand.

For reasons she couldn’t quite name, her gaze drifted to the empty travel suitcase resting against the wall.

In four long strides, she reached her dresser, then moved to the closet, pulling out enough clothes for several days.

Nothing too flashy—athleisure, jeans, light blouses, a few pairs of shoes, the intimates.

She folded everything into packing cubes as if she had a plan.

And the facsimile of a plan, indeed, eased the distress.

Celene kept going, placing toiletries until her phone buzzed.

She groaned. Emailing on her supposed day off incited a client to ‘touch base’ in person within the next hour. They offered double her rate, so she accepted.

In heels and a two-piece skirt set, she reached as far as her front door. Then she backtracked, rolled the small luggage out to the elevator, and headed to her car. She couldn’t explore why, but the heaviness reduced dramatically when she did.

One basic proposal later, Celene’s client team thanked her—payment secured, requests unproblematic. She’d sanitized her hands after all that handshaking, wished their receptionist a nice evening, and took the glass elevator down to the parking lot.

Unmoored again, she could order dinner and go to bed early, but...

Celene rested a hand on her gear shift, gliding a thumb over its curve.

Who was she kidding? She knew exactly where she needed to go. Clinging to denial gave her a fragile sense of control. It kept her from making a rash decision or ending up in a position where her family could take advantage of her again.

Regardless, she left the parking space and drove three hours to Yielding, PA, in the Poconos.