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“No show today. But I need to talk to you about a few things, and if we go inside, then I’ll be too tempted to take your clothes off.”
She laughs, and my heart warms at the sounds of it.
I take her hand and pull her down to sit on the front porch steps with me.
“What’s going on?” Her eyes search mine, a hint of worry behind them.
“Nothing bad, I swear.”
“Phew,” she says, mimicking wiping sweat of her forehead. “I’m too excited about you being here to hear bad news.”
“Definitely no bad news.”
“I will say your timing is off.”
My heart sinks. Does she not want me here?
I frown. “How come?”
“Well, because the movers are coming in two days. How long are you planning on staying? Just for a night?” She bites her lip. “If you’re staying longer, then you’ll be asked to help.”
“As if I wouldn’t want to help you. But that’s actually one of the two things I wanted to talk to you about.”
“The move?”
“Yeah.” I pause, unsure how to proceed. I rehearsed this the entire ride over, but I still can’t seem to find the right words. I’ve made so many decisions over the last few days, and it only occurs to me now that maybe, just maybe, I should’ve filled her in sooner. But I also didn’t want to get her hopes up in case things didn’t work out.
Robin doesn’t push, but her eyes search mine with a hint of trepidation.
Fuck, okay, she’s worried, and I don’t like that.
“I have something for you.” I remove the envelope stuffed into my back pocket. “My mom helped me with this. It was her idea, actually. She’s been trying to make up for … well, everything. I’m sorry it’s so last-minute, but it took a few days to figure out.”
She frowns, no doubt noticing how nervous I am. I exhale and hand her the envelope. She takes it from me slowly, turning it over and opening it. She pulls out the document and unfolds it, her eyes skimming over the page. Her frown deepens as she continues to read, and I hold my breath.
When she finally looks up at me, her mouth hangs slightly open. “I don’t understand.”
I know she understands what the document says, she just doesn’t understand how or why.
“Well, like I said, my mom feels so guilty about everything, and she told my dad she needed some space. He’s living in Clarkswood now, and my brother is running things alone here.”
“O-kay.”
“In order to make things up to me, my mom insisted that he give me access to my trust fund again. Which is hilarious, because I don’t want it. I want nothing from him. But then I realized that I could do two things with it that would make him very mad and the people I love very happy.”
She looks down at the document in front of her again. “And this is part of it?”
“Yeah. Most of the fund is being transferred to Mira. It’s the least she deserves from her dad after he abandoned her. I know he gave Sarah some money initially, but Mira should have gotten more. And then, some of it was used”––I scratch my jaw awkwardly––“to buy this house from him. Again, he only agreed because my mom forced him.” I laugh, but my stomach is in knots. I can’t read Robin’s expression whatsoever.
“Hayden,” she says, her eyes wide. “You can’t buy me a house.”
“I didn’t. I just got the deed transferred to you.”
“You said money from the fund was used for it.”
“Yes, that’s the beauty of it,” I say, smiling. “I used his money to take it from him. So, he’s not making any money from it, and I’m not losing any. There was basically no money exchanged whatsoever, just a transfer in ownership.”
“But he lost the house.”
