Chapter 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

T ully

My phone vibrated on the counter as I poured a to-go cup of coffee. Colson was also headed into work and I wouldn’t see him until Wednesday after his long shift. After the amazing weekend we’d had together, I wasn’t looking forward to being apart. Colson wasn’t feeling the same romancy vibes however. He was glaring at my phone like he wanted to throw it to the ground and smash it under his boot heel.

“What?” I asked, screwing on the travel lid and sneaking a peek at my phone. Ah. It was Joselyn texting me again. I was doing everything I could to make sure Colson knew I was committed to staying in Blueball—committed to him —but things from our past kept tugging us back into old patterns and fights.

I slid the phone into the back pocket of my work jeans and went up on tiptoes to wrap my arms around his neck. “Hey. I’m not going anywhere.”

Colson sucked in a deep breath and then let it out, resting his forehead against mine. It couldn’t have been comfortable to hunch down that much, but he did it. “I know. It’s like a knee-jerk reaction.”

“Can I suggest something?” I asked softly.

His eyes flew open. “Anything.”

“Let’s go to counseling.” I hurried on before he could object. “I know it’s the last thing you want to do, but I think it might help us work out some of these issues.”

Colson straightened. I held on to his neck tighter to keep him from pulling away from me and my suggestion, but he just put his hand over my mouth. “Shh. I’m in. Of course I’ll go. If it makes things better between us, I’m all in.”

“Really?” My voice was muffled from behind his hand. I kissed his palm and he dropped it.

Colson smirked. “I’m offended. You think I’m some kind of Neanderthal male who won’t go to therapy? Please. How do you think I survived after you left the first time around?”

“The only time around,” I reminded him, beyond pleased to have fallen in love with a man who wasn’t too prideful to go to therapy.

“Damn right, woman.” Colson slapped me on the ass and I dashed away, then dashed back for my coffee. He slapped me again, even as I shrieked at him to leave me alone.

“Never! I love that ass too much.”

His cocky smirk and smoldering eyes were the last thing I saw as I shut the door and hurried to my car to make it to the jobsite out by the cliffs with Em and the crew. I hadn’t stopped smiling the whole time I drove out there. Funny how I’d never driven into the studio with a smile on my face. I was proud of what I accomplished in Hollywood, but it never put this feeling in my chest. This warm glow that vacillated between giddy and so content I could have fallen asleep standing up.

“What’s that look for?” Savannah hooted as I climbed out of the car. She and Pip were already arguing over the back end of Em’s pickup truck right there in the long driveway.

“She got good nookie. You can tell by da’ red cheeks,” Pip answered, the word nookie sounding funny with her thick German accent.

I grinned harder. “Hell yes, I did.”

Savannah whooped and swiveled her hips. Pip smacked her on the ass, making her whoop louder. What was with all the ass smacking today?

“Are we working or dancing like street workers?” Em’s bark echoed off the pavement. She really did have a voice that could make you shake in your boots. Thankfully, I knew she was all bark and no bite.

Pip and Savannah got busy moving the large vanity out of the back of the truck, but Savannah made sure to keep jiggling her booty just to piss off Em as she supervised from the front door of the grand house. We ended up having to help to get it up the stairs and into the house without scratching the new floors. The granite top on that thing was heavy. When we got it in place in one of the six bathrooms in this house, we all stood with hands on our tool belts, catching our breath.

Savannah hip-checked me. “Hey, did you hear the news about Twatapotomus?” The girls all knew about the young girl who’d taken my spot on the show. In solidarity, they disliked her too.

I tilted my head. “No. What happened? Did she flash her vagina one too many times in that tiny skirt?”

Pip guffawed. “I have headbands longer than those skirts.”

We all snickered, but my attention was on Savannah. “So?” I nudged her boot with my own.

“Oh. So, she got fired. Apparently…” Savannah dragged out the word and leaned in to whisper, like there was anyone else around to hear her. “She was having an affair with the producer and the wife caught them. Big, messy scandal.”

I gasped. The producer for the show had always seemed like a decent guy to me. Just goes to show you never truly know what’s going on in Hollywood behind closed doors.

Em grabbed my arm. “Is that why your agent keeps calling your phone?”

She glanced to my back pocket where the thing had been vibrating the entire time we were muscling the vanity in here. I pulled it out and checked the screen. Sure enough. Four texts and three voicemails. All from Joselyn.

“They must want you back!” Savannah said on a squeal.

Em and I shared a look, clearly not joining in on her excitement. Em’s entire demeanor changed, like she was guarding herself. From me. From what this would mean to Colson, and ultimately to the entire Wolfe family. My phone buzzed again and I jumped.

“I better take this,” I said quietly, brushing past the girls to get outside where I could speak to Joselyn privately.

I knew what Em was thinking. She was thinking I’d bolt out of Blueball and break Colson’s heart all over again. That finding love again and being near my mama and building true friendships didn’t mean anything to me. Maybe they hadn’t to younger me, but forty-two-year-old me knew a few more things about the world. Those types of relationships were rare and treasured. I’d be an idiot to turn my back on all that now.

“Hello?”

“Tully!” I had to pull the phone from my ear. Joselyn could get loud when she was excited, a fact I’d forgotten about since she so rarely called me these days.

“Hi, Joselyn. How are things?” I hit the back deck that looked out at the steep drop to the ocean below. The view was stunning, probably the sole reason this house had so many zeroes attached to the price tag.

“I’ve been trying to reach you!” Joselyn brushed right past normal pleasantries.

“I know. I texted you back I’m not interested in any television jobs. I’m happy here.”

Joselyn scoffed. “I understand that. That’s why I’m so excited about what literally fell into my lap this weekend.”

“I’m not coming back to Flip or Fail . Even if they begged me.” I cut right to the chase.

“Uhh, they didn’t ask for you back, babe.”

I winced. Ouch. Okay. Typical Hollywood: brutal. “Then why are you calling, Joselyn?”

“I was at a party on Saturday night and literally had a producer trip and fall into my lap. Thankfully, her drink didn’t ruin my Dior skirt. Anyway, she and I got to talking and she follows your socials. Such a small world, am I right? So I pitched her the idea of a reality show. I mean, come on. How perfect is Emmerleigh Slaywright’s business slogan: the sisterhood of the traveling tool belts?? It’s pure television gold, babe.”

Joselyn finally took a breath. My heart was pounding in my chest, mostly from dread. Or from feeling like everything I’d built since coming back to Blueball was being threatened. Sure, I knew I held all the power to say no, but when Joselyn wanted something, she had a way of making it happen whether you wanted her to or not.

“I already said I wasn’t interested.”

Joselyn scoffed again. “That was just an idea we were batting around. Now I have an actual producer interested, babe! She’s going back to her investors with the idea today. We should have an answer by this afternoon or tomorrow on whether it’s a go!”

I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration, probably making my curls go frizzy. “I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Listen,” Joselyn cut me off. “Give it some thought. Talk to Emmerleigh. This could bring in significant money for her and her whole crew. Life changing, Tully. I’ll call you later.”

And then she hung up on me.

I stared at the phone in my hand, letting the breeze off the ocean ruffle my hair into an even bigger mess. Then I stared at the waves lapping onto the rocks below, wishing my old world and my current world had never met. Nothing about this felt right, though my brain did get stuck on one thing Joselyn had said. This could help my new friends financially. It wasn’t really up to me to say no. I had to see what Em, Savannah, and Pip thought about the idea.

“I think I liked the smile on your face this morning a bit better than this pacing.” Em came up behind me. That’s when I realized I’d been pacing the deck, my thoughts tumbling around in my head.

“You ever have a dream in your head so real you could taste it, Em?”

She stopped next to me, forcing me to stop pacing too. “I do. This isn’t the first construction company I’ve built from scratch.”

I only knew a little bit about her past. She’d had Georgia from a prior relationship, one that wasn’t exactly healthy from the little bit I knew.

I nodded. “I had stars in my eyes, but also a work ethic and an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time. I was waitressing when I spilled coffee on a guy who’d stopped in for a quick lunch. We got to talking as I apologized profusely. He liked me, despite the stained pants. Invited me to come audition for some show he was just hired to work on. Ended up not getting the part, but the producer liked me enough that when I pitched my own show idea on my way out of the studio, he called me back. The rest is history.”

“What you accomplished is nothing short of amazing,” Em agreed.

“Reaching your dream is a weird thing. It’s great on the one hand, but leaves you feeling empty on the other. Like, what do I reach for now?”

“Do they want you back?” Em asked quietly. I could see the concern on her face, but I appreciated the way she kept judgement out of her tone.

“No.” I smiled. “Joselyn has another producer interested in you. Us. The whole female-construction-crew thing.”

Em nodded. “So now you have to choose between two dreams: the old one or the new one.”

I knew Em was a smart woman. One just had to look at the company she’d built herself. But she was also insightful in a way I needed. “Yeah, I guess that’s it in a nutshell. I have to let go of the first dream to reach for the next dream, even if that one’s not certain.”

Em chewed on that for a bit before speaking. “You know, as adults, we have the choice to operate out of old hurts. Or we can choose to put those aside and build our lives the way we want them. There was a time when I vowed never to trust a man again. My ex screwed me over in every way a man can hurt a woman. It’s not easy to get past all that. Or to trust again.” She turned to walk back inside the house. She paused at the French door. “But if I’d held on to that hurt, I wouldn’t have Warrick, or Viv, or this business.” She shot me a wink and headed inside, leaving me to stew on that.

I didn’t know how she knew I had wounds from my past that had shaped my decisions. Then again, I was a woman in my forties. Of course I had wounds. Life just does that, unfortunately. But she was spot-on. I’d run away from Blueball because I was afraid I was becoming my mother, my entire life wrapped up in a man. I didn’t want to rely on Colson and then be devastated and handicapped if he died. I wouldn’t do that to my children. I refused to repeat the cycle.

Colson hadn’t listened to me back then. He’d put his head down and worked toward all the things he thought we still wanted, refusing to actually listen when I told him my dreams had shifted. He was different now though. He’d also grown and changed over the years. There was a maturity and confidence to him that hadn’t been there before.

I shoved my phone back in my pocket and headed inside.

No matter what Joselyn called back with, I wasn’t going to let the past steal my future.