Julia
Six Months Later
“This is the last of them,” Naomi announced, dropping another box onto the floor.
I glanced around the kitchen, the place a bit of a disaster after I went through all of Lachlan’s kitchenware, deciding what to keep and what to replace with mine.
So far, I was keeping a lot of mine.
After everything went down with Nick, I never wanted to step foot into my old house again.
Neither did Imogene.
She already had enough nightmares, although they were slowly fading as time went on. But I wasn’t going to do anything to add to them. Staying in that house most certainly would have done that.
So Lachlan hired movers to box up our belongings, and I put it all in storage for the time being while I figured out the next step. Lachlan suggested the next step should have been making our temporary living arrangement permanent, but I wasn’t quite ready to admit he was right about that just yet.
Instead, I began a half-assed hunt for the perfect house where Imogene and I could start over yet again.
But no matter the upscale appliances or long list of amenities, I always seemed to find something wrong with each property. And with each, Lachlan renewed his offer for us to move in with him. Said he liked having me here. Imogene, too. Liked cooking us breakfast before taking Imogene to school and driving me to the office.
Although there was no office for me to go to anymore.
While I was initially reluctant to sell the company I’d built from scratch, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was hanging onto it because of some twisted idea in my mind that if I sold it, I’d be a failure.
Plus, every time I walked through those doors, looked at the desk Rina once sat at before she left Atlanta for a fresh start, saw the logo on all the official mail I received, I was reminded of Nick. I didn’t want that for me anymore. Didn’t want to be miserable.
So, after months of negotiations, I sold The Mad Batter and was free to start the next chapter in my life… Provided it didn’t include opening up a new bakery within fifty miles of any current Mad Batter location for the next three years.
But I had no plans to do that. At least not anytime soon. Instead, I was going to enjoy simply being a mom. Doing all the things I couldn’t do for years because I was too busy building my baking empire. Now I was able to be there for my daughter for the little time I had left with her before she went off to college.
“Oh, my god! Look at this!”
At the sound of Naomi’s voice, I looked her way, furrowing my brow. “What is it?”
She held up a bunch of crumpled napkins, faded writing on it. “Your Forty, Fabulous, and Free list.”
“Where did you find that?” I grabbed it out of her hand and hoisted myself onto one of the barstools.
As I sifted through the napkins, memories of that fateful week in Hawaii returned. Who would have thought a jellyfish sting could have led to all of this?
“It was in here.” She set my wooden tea box on the island, then scooted around to sit beside me. “I opened it to fill it with some tea. Low and behold, I stumbled across this.”
“‘Have sex in a bar bathroom,’” I read, remembering being horrified at the mere thought of doing anything indecent in public.
Little did I know that less than twenty-four hours after making this list, I’d allow a twenty-seven-year-old to go down on me at an overlook where anyone could see. It wasn’t a bar bathroom, but the lesson learned was the same.
That it was okay to let loose.
To live.
To do something unexpected.
“I was probably drunk when I suggested that. Bar bathrooms are gross. Unless it’s an upscale bar.” She flashed a smile. “Next year, I’ll make sure to include ‘Have sex in a ritzy bar bathroom’.”
I rolled my eyes. “There won’t be any more lists.”
“Good.” She squeezed my bicep, then returned her gaze to the napkins, both of us reading through all the things I wanted to accomplish this year. Or that she thought I should accomplish.