Page 71 of Made for Mayhem

“I should check on Junie,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” I replied, though the word cost me more than it should have. “Good idea.”

She turned toward the hallway, glancing back at me. Then she was gone, her bare feet padding down the hall.

I stayed where I was, my chest tight in a way that felt unfamiliar and right all at once.

I’d spent most of my life thinking love meant doing—fixing, carrying, stepping in before anyone else could fall. But Daisy didn’t need me to rescue her.

What she needed was someone steady.

Someone who wouldn’t disappear the moment things got hard.

Someone who could weather the storm.

And, maybe most importantly, someone to help her find the light again once it had passed.

I was that someone, and this time—no matter how messy or ill-timed or complicated it got—I wasn’t walking away.

16

I didn’t sleep much that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the flicker of the TV on Ty’s face, the quiet steadiness in his eyes when I didn’t know what to say.

He never rushed to fill the silence or tell me it would all be okay.

He just listened.

No fixing. No escape hatch. No plan.

For someone like me who’d built her entire life on outrunning the hard things or fixing them as fast as possible, that kind of steadiness felt terrifying. Nothing he said had been earth-shattering, but all of it together? It made me feel seen. Maybe even wanted. And that confused my brain.

When I finally drifted off, it was to the faint scent of pine clinging to his sweatshirt and the echo of his voice still threading through my head.

I’ve thought about you every day for the last three years.

By morning, I had convinced myself I was fine, or close enough to fake it. Sure, I stayed in denial longer than Violet gave me permission for, but each day it got easier to come up with another reason I couldn’t stop to grieve today.

I had to keep moving, to stay busy, running from the invisible monster biting at my heels.

Luckily, the next week in Linwood went by faster than I expected. The days fell into a rhythm—early morning coffee on Ty’s porch, the mountains pink and hazy in the sunrise, followed by the sound of Junie’s voice drifting in from the barn.

Ty had her helping with the animals, which meant she followed him around asking endless questions about feed schedules and how many chickens was too many chickens. I didn’t know the answer, but one rooster seemed like one too many.

Piggie Smalls was an eight-week-old menace with hooves and had declared herself queen of the barnyard. The little black-and-white mischief-maker followed Rowdy everywhere, who then followed Junie, making them a chaotic train of cuteness as they paraded around the property.

Meanwhile, I stayed busy outside Violet’s house. The flower beds were free of weeds and full of bright colors that screamed Colorado summer. I also swept the porch and removed the rotted boards—the front steps no longer looked like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Every time Ty asked if he could help, I politely told him no. He was already doing plenty to save my ass; the last thing I wanted was to take anything else from him.

And yet, Thursday morning when I walked down to her house ready to work, the exact supplies I needed were in a neat pile on the driveway. I looked over at the truck where he was buckling Junie in, heading to the rink. He was staring right back.

Moments later, they rolled down the drive, stopping in front of me. Rowdy hung out of the open window, tongue lolling off to the side, and Piggie was in Junie’s arms. Ty was busy typing on his phone, then dropped it into the cup holder.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out.

Ty

I’m not helping.