Falling into Place - Forbidden Heart Series

1| Puzzle Pieces

No regrets.

Some close to me used to say that real regret was the road to unhappiness and bitterness. They said that every decision we made was one more piece to the puzzle of our lives. She said that if we made the wrong choices, we wouldn't like the picture that the puzzle would eventually represent. If there was a picture at all.

I always thought that was bullshit. Then there was that night in London when I was seventeen that changed everything.

In a way, it was a BIG puzzle piece.

She was going to say yes. She had to. She's mentioned it to me countless times. But what I wanted now was a little different than what I wanted before.

But this was Everly Reese we were talking about. She was my mom. Well. . . not my birth mom. She was the mother of my younger half-brother, Jackson. Blood relative or not, she has been in my life since I was one-years-old.

When she and my dad split up and she moved back to London with Jackson, it nearly destroyed me. The only time I got to see them after that was for holidays and a few weeks out of the year.

The tapping of those delicate fingers on my bedroom door caused me to stop pacing. I stared at it for a minute before I walked over and opened it. Just like I assumed, it was Everly. "What's up, mom?"

The white spots of flour on her red apron told me that she had stopped baking to come up here. That wasn't a good sign. You never interrupted Everly Reese when she was baking.

"Have a seat, dear. We need to talk."

Shit. Dammit. Fuck.

She knew something was up. Knowing I had no other choice but to do what she said, I walked over to my bed and took a seat on the edge of the mattress. It creaked beneath me. Had it always done that? Why hadn't I noticed?

"Is something wrong?" I asked even though I knew this was about me and not her.

She stepped into my room, pulled out the chair from under my desk, and took a seat.

"You tell me. I was downstairs just starting to make some baklava and I could hear you shouting all the way from up here."

"Mom, I wasn't shouting. I wasn't even talking."

She shook her head slowly. "Ryan Hale, how many times do I have to tell you and Jackson that you don't need to be speaking for me to hear you? Now, what's on your mind?"

God, how do I ask her this? How do I explain that this was what I needed and wanted? But I already knew the answer to that. You didn't really beat around the bush with this woman.

"What if I stayed here?"

She frowned and shrugged a shoulder. "I don't think your parents would mind if you stayed a few extra days. As long as you were back in time for---"

"That's not what I meant." I inhaled a deep breathe before I forced the words out. "What if  I didn't go back to New York? What if I stayed here?"

Everly wasn't stunned often. But right now, the way her lips parted and her eyes widened, I could tell that I surprised the hell out of her.

Even though a few minutes had passed, it felt like days went by before she answered me.

"Ryan, you made a deal with your father."

"Do you not want me to live here?"

She got up from the chair and came to sit beside me on the bed. "You know I would love to have you here permanently. Nothing would make me happier than to see both of my boys every day. But you made a promise to your parents, Ryan. You're supposed  to start Harvard in the fall and then--"