Page 23 of The Last Key (Baker Girls #2)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

KENNEDY

Wednesday

“I wish you’d let me take you,” he whispers, holding me close in the house’s entryway.

My ride pulls up outside, and my heart constricts at having to say goodbye to him.

These last few years apart have sucked. I cried every time we said goodbye, and that was just as friends—even if I was in love with him but hadn’t admitted it.

I reason with myself, reminding my achy heart that I’ll be back tomorrow night.

He hugs me tighter, and this is why I won’t let him take me. I won’t get on the plane if he does. We’re still in the just-got-together honeymoon period. The last thing I want is to say goodbye to him, and no doubt my heart would take over if I tried at the airport.

“You have plenty to do at the inn, plus I don’t want you driving when you’re tired. Anyway, I’ll be back tomorrow. It’ll barely be thirty-six hours apart,” I say as much for me as for him.

He sighs, twisting his fingers through the strands of hair that have fallen out of my messy ponytail. “And I’ll be there waiting when you get off the plane.” He kisses the side of my head. “You’re going to kick ass, babe.”

“Assuming I’m not too jet-lagged to function.”

He steps back and squints at me. “You’ll do amazing. Come on.”

He picks up my bag—just a small carry on since I have clothes back at my apartment—and opens the front door. Reluctantly, I follow him out.

At the car, he puts my bag in the backseat, then presses me against the back of the car and kisses me again. “Call me tonight and I’ll see you tomorrow.” There’s a look of deep longing in his eyes that matches the feeling in my soul. “Love you.”

“Love you too. I’ll text you when I get there.”

After one last kiss and a lingering look, I climb into the car. He shuts the door behind me, but I immediately roll down the window.

“Fly safe,” he says, stepping back from the car.

“I’ll do my best.” As I wave, the car pulls away, and I feel the same emptiness I always feel when I say goodbye to him. Thankfully, the reminder I keep giving myself that I’ll be back soon is keeping me from bawling like I usually do.

With a deep breath, I open my foil-wrapped sandwich and munch on it while focusing on what’s ahead of me.

It’ll feel good to walk into that office with my head held high.

My former department head was a pig who got what was coming to him, and I’m returning triumphant, like a scene from a movie.

As a senior editor, I’d be overseeing other staff and helping them with their pieces.

And I might finally get the chance to do more human-interest pieces between reviewing books. It’s my dream job.

At least, that’s what my dream job would be if I wrote down a bullet point list. Not to mention finally feeling like I made it. That was always part of the plan. Get my foot in the door and work my way up. Have a strong career doing the thing I love—writing.

I thought all that was taken from me. Now I have a path back. Yet something feels off. Not to return to old analogies, but it feels like someone left the door open, and I’m wandering through. Seems like a good option. Might as well take it.

If I do take it, what does that mean for Devon and me? He said we’d figure it out together, that he’d be with me anywhere, but would he really just pack up and leave his life behind for me to take this job? Would it be fair for me to ask that of him?

I don’t know.

But it wouldn’t have to be forever. I could use this job to gain experience, then find something based in San Francisco.

We could move back here. Until then we could visit often.

The benefit of being a writer is that you can write from anywhere.

I could write at the inn, or even the library, so I wouldn’t have to completely give those things up.

Why hasn’t any of this excited me?

Writing is what I want to do, right?

“Would you like to listen to anything?” the driver asks, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I glance up at the rearview, then down at the phone in my hand. “No. That’s all right, thanks. I’ve got something to listen to on my phone.”

He nods, and I slip my earbuds in, pulling up one of my favorite audiobooks .

Can’t quiet your brain? Nothing like listening to a fictional character’s problems instead.

When we pull up at the drop off section of San Francisco International Airport, I’m not feeling any more confident than I was on the ride here. Instead of my audiobook distracting me, my brain kept twisting over whether writing is my dream. If I’m chasing it or running away from my own happiness.

Absolutely none of that is this driver’s problem, though, and he’s been great, so I hand him a cash tip—that way I know no one else is taking a cut of it—grab my bag, and climb out.

Standing in front of the massive building, my brain only speeds up, the sickening feeling in my stomach growing.

I don’t want to get on this plane.

But why not?

It’s the dream job, I tell myself for the thousandth time.

And then I hear a tiny voice inside of me.

A ghost from the past. How is it possibly the dream if you have to leave your family behind?

I thought those words when we moved here from New York.

Granted, that move worked for me. I found something in Brighton.

Maybe I found it all over again when I came back.

I found a home I didn’t know I’d been looking for.

Not because of Devon—though he’s a part of it.

He always has been. Something about this place, this community, it feels like home to me. And it’s where I want to be.

I love my cousins, my parents, and my friends in New York, but even if Devon came with me, I know I wouldn’t be as happy there as I am here.

That’s it. Decision made.

I’m staying.

My heart lightens the second the words move through my brain. A weight lifts, and the feeling of freedom and peace I’ve had since I got back to Brighton returns.

Looking down at my phone, I open the app to call for another car to take me back to Brighton, but when I spin around, I see Chris, Brighton’s number one cabbie, leaning against the side of his van. He grins at me.

I tuck my phone away and hurry over to him.

“Part of me wants to question if you’re some sort of supernatural being who appears whenever someone needs you, but the rest of me just needs to know if you’re heading back to Brighton.”

“I am,” he says. “To your other question, I just dropped someone off. Then I saw you standing here and recognized you from the other day. I thought I’d wait and see if you needed a ride before I took off.”

“Thank you,” I sigh. “You are the best cab driver ever.”

He smiles proudly. “That’s the goal. Hopefully, one day, I’ll have a better van than this.”

I laugh to myself at the wood paneled blue van that screams childhood memories. Everyone either had or knew someone who had a van like this. It reminds me of every early 2000s TV show I’ve ever watched.

“The van is epic,” I tell him.

“Glad you feel that way. Shall we?”

“Absolutely. I’m ready to go home.”