Until Harry(96)

I chuckled. “It was fine. I think we actually just became friends. He was visiting Lav and found me here instead.”

“I see him here a lot,” Kale commented. “He brings her fresh flowers every week. Sometimes his wife and kids are with him, and they keep her headstone clean and the area around it nice and tidy. He’s pretty close to her parents too.”

That brought me a great deal of comfort.

I exhaled. “It’s insane to think he is married with kids. So many people that I went to school with are all moving forward and doing normal things people do when they grow up. They fall in love, get married and have kids. I feel stuck in time. Right now, I feel like I’m twenty again and just buried Lavender.”

“I feel like that every day, kid,” Kale sighed. “It’s been five years since my Kaden died, and it still feels like I just lowered him into the ground.”

My heart hurt for him.

“I hope it gets easier for you, Kale, I really do.”

He didn’t reply, but looked back to Lavender’s picture.

“She was one of the greatest people ever,” I said, smiling. “She came into my life right when I needed her; it was like she was my guardian angel. She helped save me from myself.”

I shivered when Kale’s arm slid around my waist.

“I’ll be forever grateful to her for that,” he murmured.

I looked up at him and sorrowfully smiled. “This hurts.”

“I know, darling.”

“Before anyone I knew had died, there was a time when I used to come here with my dad,” I mused. “We’d take a shortcut through here to get to the playing field through the hedges, and I remember thinking, even though I was little, that I wouldn’t like to say goodbye to anyone I loved. Now my aunt, uncle, friend and best friend’s son are buried here. I still can’t believe Lavender is gone, and I don’t think I’ll ever get over my uncle and Kaden.”

Kale kissed the crown of my head.

“Life throws curve balls at you, Laney Baby. There will always be something unexpected. We just have to pick up the pieces the ball smashes and try to put them back together.”

I frowned. “I’m not as strong as you, Kale.”

He turned me to face him. “Are you joking?”

I shook my head. “I’m a coward.”

He almost growled at me. “Don’t you ever say anything like that about yourself again. After all the shit you’ve been through, you’re still here, and that counts for something, Lane.”

I stared up at him, mesmerised that I was finally seeing some emotion in him.

“I met Drew when she was on her way out,” he commented. “She said you both spoke.”

I nodded. “I apologised to her for how awful I used to be, but she was adamant that I had nothing to be sorry for. She’s pretty great.”

“Yeah,” Kale agreed.

I glanced up at him. “She told me that you used to talk about me a lot, and that you used to have nightmares about—”

“The day I lost you.”

I frowned. “Kale, don’t do that to yourself.”

He tried to smile, but his lips never did fully curve. “I can’t help it.”

“Hey,” I murmured.

His whisky-coloured eyes roamed my face. “Yeah?”

I licked my dry lips and said, “I think it’s time we had our talk.”





CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Day four in York

Explain this to me one more time,” Kale said as we entered his apartment. “Your uncle left you his entire estate, but under the condition that we . . . talk? Am I getting that correctly?”

Thank God it sounded just as insane to someone else.

I nodded. “Yeah, it was written in black and white. If we don’t talk, and we both know what talk he means – he worded it exactly like that – then his estate will be liquidated into a lump sum and donated to . . . to the Liverpool Football Club.”

A gasp of pure horror left Kale.

“That manipulative bastard,” he said, scowling.

I couldn’t help but laugh. Kale, like the rest of my family, was a hard-core Man United supporter.

“I just can’t believe he had to take such drastic measures. I hate that I made him feel like he had no other option. He probably thought if he asked me to talk to you that I would have cut him off like I did everyone else.”

My lower lip trembled as shame filled me.

“Hey now,” Kale murmured as he moved closer to me and placed his hands on my shoulders. “He knew you loved him, but he also knew you needed to figure everything out for yourself. We all did. Your brothers and parents just took it harder because they were caught in the crossfire of losing you.”