𝐀𝐛𝐛𝐲
I will admit attacking Rosemary wasn't my best moment, and I will probably come to regret it later on. God knows what revenge Rosemary has planned for me?
"Night night mommy." Baxter tells me as I tuck him into bed. Looking over Ace is already out cold in his own bed. "Night my love." Leaning down I kiss him on the forehead before making my way to my room. I have given it some thought for months now, Nathan left me to follow his own dreams.
I have dreams of my own. Dreams that I have long since buried since becoming a mom. My sons are my world, and I love them to death. Yet something feels empty inside me, I think it's because all these years I haven't been following my dreams, now it's time for those dreams to come out of the dark and see the light of day. It's equal parts scary and exciting, but I'm more than ready for this new adventure.
I wake up early the next morning to look up places around town selling. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right. I won't rush things, and the place I'm looking for has to be perfect. So far none of the places seemed like the one for me. My phone tweets as a text from my mom comes in.
𝐌𝐨𝐦: 𝐇𝐞𝐲 𝐀𝐛𝐛𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲?
𝐀𝐛𝐛𝐲: 𝐖𝐡𝐲?
She doesn't normally text to ask me if the boys are coming in advance unless something has come up, or is seriously wrong. When she doesn't answer me my thoughts wander to terrible things.
𝐌𝐨𝐦: 𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐬 𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐬, 𝐈 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲.
𝐀𝐛𝐛𝐲: 𝐌𝐨𝐦 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲. 𝐈𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐤?
𝐌𝐨𝐦: 𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 :) 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞?
𝐀𝐛𝐛𝐲: 𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲!
"Sorry I'm late." I tell Val stumbling through the back door with the boys attached to me. I hadn't been expecting to have them with me but when you are a single mom what else can you do? Val takes one look at the state I'm in; messy bun, no makeup, and the boys still in their pj's, and takes pity on me.
"Boys why don't you follow auntie Val while your mom gets breakfast ready?" It works they follow her all the way to a deserted booth, and I whip up two plates of chocolate chip pancakes.
As the boys dig into their food Val joins me at the counter. It's a quiet morning, we get most of our business during lunch. "You should really think about getting another babysitter."
"I know—"
"Why not Lucy? She loves the boys so much."
She can't be serious? Sighing I say, "you know perfectly well why it can't be Lucy."
"Something else is bothering you, what?" Val knows me so well; it's getting harder and harder hiding things from her. "I have been giving a lot of thought about my dreams."
She pauses staring me down. "Do the dreams include opening up your own bakery?"
"Val...I'm not trying to complete or anything. It's been a dream of mine since I was a little girl."
"It's a perfect dream really." She pauses smiling at me, "I'm not getting any younger someone's going to have to take the crown once I'm gone."
"Oh Val," wrapping my arms around her we hug. "Don't oh Val me, get out there and follow your dreams. I would love to see you in business before I go." Yeah, that would be great. Val over here running her eatery, and me running my bakery. It would be different though not being here everyday with Val by my side. She's the one who's been here for me since high school, she's the person who inspired me wanting to run my own bakery in the first place.
"What is it?"
"Even if I wanted to open my own bakery, I couldn't. Stuff like that cost's money, money that I don't have." She reaches under the counter grabbing her checkbook. "Val no," I try taking it from her but she moves it out of reach. Writing fast, she hands me the check and HOLY WOW! That's a lot of zeros.
I swallow, "Val I can't take this it's too much."
"You can and you will." She says shoving the check back my way. "How will I ever repay you?"
"You can repay me by giving me free cookies for a month after you open." No way is a month of free cookies going to be payback enough. "No, a year." Val laughs, "deal." This is it my dreams are finally coming true. Sooner than I thought, next step finding the perfect place to open my bakery.
Turns out finding a place was harder than I thought. The buildings I have looked at are either too small, too big, too expensive, too much damage. At this point I'm thinking on calling it quits. If it were not for mom and Val reminding me that good things take time, I would have quit by now. I'm glad I didn't though. The perfect place needed to find me, and find me it did.
The perfect place is an old rundown bookstore that got abandoned after Magnolia Creek got its very first Barnes and Noble. It could use some repairs but other than that it's perfect. Closing my eyes, I imagine what it will look like with tables, and people, with the delicious smell of coffee brewing and treats baking.
I couldn't dream up a better place for it to be.
Putting an offer down, I hurry home to start planning the interior design of it all. My brain tells me to slow down on the excitement because I don't own the building yet, but my heart is telling me that it's mine. It has to be I can't imagine my shop going anywhere else but there.
A tiny voice calls out taking the place of all my excitement. "Momma I can't sleep." Ace tells me. "Come here my love." He joins me on the couch snuggling close to me.
"Nightmares again?" He nods once starting off into the distance. "Momma how come me and Bax don't have a father?"
I always knew it would come to this me having to explain things to the boys. I just didn't think it would be this soon. How do I even explain this to a four year old? "Sometimes that's how these things work. Sometimes only a mommy, or daddy are the ones taking care of the little munchkins."
"But why?" He asks and it about breaks my heart.
"Because sometimes that's how life works. You will learn as you get older that not everything works like it does in fairytales. Sometimes the prince doesn't always choose the Princess."
"I love you momma." Ace tells me hugging me closer. "Love you too little bug."
He yawns dosing off a little. "Can you sing me a song?" His eyes flutter again as I start to hum the toon to 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒔𝒖𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆. It's the song my father used to sing to me and my siblings when we couldn't sleep. He would take us in his arms like this and sing the soft verses til we drifted off to sleep.
As my singing drags Ace back to sleep, I think about the mess that me and Nathan caused. It's not fair to the boys their father should be here, I should be more put together, we should all be together here as a family. However, that's not how the world works, we don't always get the perfect life we dream up as kids, I had to learned that the hard way.
𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷𖧷
Sorry this chapter was so short. It's been a busy week, and I have been trying to focus more on me. I hope everyone's week has been fantastic I promise next Friday's chapter will start to pick up and get more into the storyline. 😊
If you're enjoying my book All in the Game. Please click the star and share your thoughts in the comments. I will update chapters every Wednesday so be on the lookout.–Morgan 💕
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