Page 51 of The Comeback Road (Leaving #2)

Lexie

Everyone started to filter out after that, the evening ending on a high note. I saw Jace slip on his coat. Even though his eyes were already trained on me and my movements, he started to make his way toward me.

“Starlight, it’s time for your present.”

“I thought you already gave me mine…The swing…it’s perfect. I haven’t had the time to thank you yet.” The swing really was perfect, like something crafted from my dreams, and I could already see the nights I would spend on it. Winter, spring, summer, and fall.

“What kind of guy would I be if I didn’t get you something to drink on the swing?” He handed me a card—a Moscato of the month club card—and I couldn’t help but squeal and throw my arms around him.

“How did you find this?” I asked, still not letting him go, and I felt the way his chest rumbled with laughter. I had to put some space between us so he wouldn’t feel the way my nipples pebbled at the sound.

“I have my ways, Starlight.” His voice was gruff-sounding, and I knew that he definitely didn’t miss the way my body had reacted to him.

Jace looked down at me, fingers digging into my side, almost like he was unwilling to let me go, but creating enough space to let me know the ball was entirely in my court.

My phone started to vibrate in my back pocket. For a moment, I told myself to just ignore it, let go, give in to what I wanted. But the second it stopped, it started again.

“Saved by the bell,” he murmured, and placed the softest kiss on my temple that had my knees shaking.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. Unknown name. Anxiety slithered through me. Jace must have seen it on my face because he took the phone from me and answered instead. “Hello?” His calm demeanor turned to ice within seconds.

“Uh…hi?” a melodic voice parroted back to him, and I knew who it belonged to. Without missing a beat, I snatched the phone from him. Lacy.

“Lacy?” I asked as I fully moved from Jace’s embrace.

“Hey, sis,” she said softly. I could hear the happiness in her tone that I had answered, and there was a bit of an awkward silence before she continued.

“I know you don’t want to hear from me often…

if at all, but it’s Christmas, and I just…

I just wanted to wish my sister a Merry Christmas.

” I found it ironic that she said that, considering she had a twin.

You know what they say about twins, though—there’s a good one and a bad one.

Lacy was the good one, while Tonya had always treated me like a stain on the family name.

To her, I probably was, just like she was a stain on my childhood.

She’d never reached out, and neither had I. Lacy was the only one who still tried.

“Merry Christmas, Lacy. I hope it was a good one.” Unable to form any more words, the silence continued to be awkward until she spoke again. “You know, I didn’t expect you to answer.”

“I didn’t have your number saved,” I told her truthfully.

“Ah, that explains it…” I could hear the sadness she masked behind her chuckle. “Hey, Lex?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you hate me so much?” It was as if her anguish in the question reached out and grabbed me by the throat. I didn’t hate her, I just…hated everything she had that I didn’t.

“I don’t hate you, Lace…I just don’t know how to separate you from him. From them.” Her twin, her mom, our dad.

“I get that…but he tried. Whether or not you want to believe it, he tried. Your mom…Well, she didn’t make that easy. I’m not saying it’s right. The older I get, the more I understand. But I do remember him trying, if that counts for anything.”

“Maybe one day it will, but right now, it doesn’t,” I told her, unable to keep the bitterness out of my words.

“You know, I always felt I had to choose between a relationship with him, and a relationship with you. It was easier to be mad at you for hating him than understand why you did. Because he was a good dad to me. Still is.”

“You don’t know what that felt like, Lacy, to be left behind, replaced. It’s not as simple as him being a good dad or not. And I’m glad he is to you. He just wasn’t to me.”

“I get it now, but don’t let his mistakes dictate your entire life, Lex.

Don’t let him dictate who you are now, who you let in.

That’s a sad and lonely way to live. Be better, love better, don’t let his choices define who you are.

You deserve happiness, sis. Merry Christmas.

” She didn’t wait for my answer, and I heard the dial tone of an empty line.

A weird sense of peace and reckoning washed over me at her words as I stared down at my phone, my thumb hovering over the screen. Without thinking too much about it, I saved her number. Lacy.

“You okay?” Jace inquired. I’d been so wrapped up in the conversation with her that I’d forgotten he was still standing there. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

His eyes roamed over me, trying to suss out any lies, but he wouldn’t find any. For the first time in a long time, I knew I was going to be okay.

“Merry Christmas, Starlight.” He turned to head out the door.

“Hey, Jace?” I called after him, and he stopped. “The sofa is much more comfortable and significantly warmer. It is Christmas, after all.”