Changing Fate (Changing Teams Series Book 3) Read online

  Thirteen Years Ago

  If my Tuesday had been any worse, it would have qualified as an honorary Monday. In fact, spillage from yesterday was part of what had made today so craptastic.

  Monday had begun with a morning shift at the diner; I hated getting up with the sun, but the breakfast regulars were the best tippers. Then I was at school by nine, sitting in the back of my Philosophy of Religion class and wondering why my coffee didn’t have more caffeine in it. I mean, what was the point of this evil black brew if not to keep me awake?

  When the first break rolled around I went to the library and logged into my email, and learned that my newspaper editor had sent my latest column back for revision. Mind you, these revisions had never occurred before I’d been picked up by a publisher; a few years ago, I could have turned in whatever nonsense I wanted and it would have been found acceptable. Now that I was a real author, the newspaper wanted me to earn it.

  So I revised the article, and missed the last half of my philosophy class and lunch while I did so. It had to be done, since my column was the only steady income Sean and I had. He did make the occasional large check working at the construction business, but those jobs dried up once autumn hit. I could always hit up my parents for money, or Sean’s, but I didn’t want to. We were big kids now, you know?

  After I resubmitted my article, I went to my professor’s office and begged—literally, not figuratively—for notes from the second half of class. After a short lecture on “taking school seriously” and “deciding how I should spend my time” she handed over a study guide for the test that would be administered the next day at 10 a.m. sharp. Then the diner called and offered me a dinner shift, and since Sean would be home for Britt, and we needed the money, I took it.

  So I worked, then I drank a gallon of coffee and studied, and after far too little sleep I was back at school Tuesday morning slogging through class. I hadn’t even seen Sean while he was awake since last Saturday, thanks to his current construction job and my crazy shifts at the diner. He had left me a note on the kitchen table yesterday that said he had great news he couldn’t wait to share with me, and I was dying to hear it. I could use some great news.

  After I survived my algebra class, I dragged myself to our apartment. It was a small place, just two bedrooms and one of those combination living room and kitchens, but it was clean and safe and ours. Compared to our last place, it was the Taj Mahal.

  I got home before Sean or Britt, and contemplated taking a nap in the quiet. My stomach, empty and rumbling due to me once again using my lunch break as study time, overruled my tired eyes, so I dropped my bag on the table and opened the fridge. Our larder consisted of ketchup, milk, and one very pathetic apple. I sighed and shut the door; it looked like it would be instant noodles again.

  “Mom,” Britt cried as she burst into the door. “Did Dad tell you?”

  “Hello to you too,” I replied. “And no, Dad didn’t tell my anything. Does this news have to do with food?”

  “We’re rich!”

  I put down my bowl of salt and preservatives. “What?”

  “He won the lottery!” Britt jumped up and down like a rabbit on speed, and I was glad we didn’t have a second floor apartment. “Remember how he was always buying tickets and you told him the lottery’s a tax on the dumb, so he got mad, and then you got mad, and then he said he wouldn’t do it anymore? He didn’t listen or stop doing it and he won!”

  “Really,” I said, wondering how much Sean had sunk into those stupid scratch tickets before he found a winning one. We would be lucky if he broke even. “Do you know how much he won?”

  “A ton,” Britt replied. “We’re rich, Mom! We’re really rich!”

  I smiled at Britt, wondering what a ten-year-old thought rich was. If Sean had won one hundred dollars, I’d be thrilled. “Well, where is he? I want to share in these winnings.”

  “He went to the place to cash in,” Britt replied. By “place” I assumed she meant the lottery commission, which is where you went if your winnings were significant, say over five hundred dollars. That amount still wouldn’t make us rich, but it sure would take the edge off.

  “Well, then, since we’re rich, would you like to order pizza?” I asked. “My treat with the last of my poor funds.”

  Britt frowned. “Dad said he would take us out to dinner. Can I just have a bowl of cereal for now?”

  “Sure baby,” I said as I stood and grabbed the box from the top of the bridge. “I don’t want to ruin Dad’s plans.”

  ***

  Sean got home just as Britt and I finished our cereal and noodles. “You ate?” He looked at Britt, his face stricken. “I wanted to take you both out to dinner.”

  “We’re still hungry,” Britt said as she jumped into Sean’s arms. “I told Mom.”

  “How much did you tell her?”

  “Only that we’re rich now,” I said as I put the bowls in the sink. Maybe Sean had won enough that we could move to an apartment with a dishwasher. “I put out an ad for a butler. Would you like to share in the interview process?”

  Sean set down Britt, then he approached me and slid his arms around my waist. “Cin, baby, you don’t know how right you are,” he said, then he kissed my neck in a way that was not appropriate with our daughter looking on.

  “Sean,” I protested, pulling my head and shoulder closer and squeezing him away from my neck. He chuckled, and squeezed my butt in retaliation.

  “Come on, let’s go,” he said. Britt squealed and grabbed her coat.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Dinner, then there’s something I need to show my best girls.”

  ***

  Sean brought us to the Japanese restaurant on Main Street for dinner; it had been our fancy place when we were kids, also known as the only place with cloth napkins that we could afford. Britt and I had sushi and hot cups of miso soup, while Sean had some kind of fried chicken meal with too much sugary sauce. It was a great meal, and not just because it was hot and I hadn’t cooked it. After dinner we piled into Sean’s pickup truck, and he drove west.

  “Where are you taking us?” I asked. “And when are you going to tell me about these supposed winnings?”

  “Supposed?” Sean glanced sideways at me. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

  I smirked and held my tongue. “Are you even going to tell me how much you won?” When he remained silent, I pressed, “Not even a hint?”

  “I can give you a hint.” Sean navigated an intersection, and said, “It was the Sunday numbers.”

  “What? I thought it was one of those stupid scratch tickets!”

  We stopped at a red light, and Sean gave me a look. “Didn’t I promise to stop those?”

  “Yeah, you did,” I replied. “Wasn’t Sunday’s jackpot over one million?”

  “One point one million, actually.”

  I couldn’t breathe. “Sean, how many winners were there?”

  He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Just me, baby.”

  “See, Mom,” Britt said. “I told you we’re rich!”

  I leaned back on the seat, my head spinning with so many thoughts it was like a whirlwind.

  “I collected the winnings yesterday,” he said. “It’s where I was all afternoon. I did the lump sum payout option, had it wire transferred right into my account.”

  “You mean we already have the money?” I asked. “As in we’re not the poorest kids in town anymore?”

  “That’s right, baby.” Sean pulled the pickup into a dirt parking lot. “Then I came here.”

  “What’s here?” I asked. The only structure was an old boarded up store that had seen better days. “Is this where your construction job was?”

  “Nope.”

  I stopped walking. “What? Then why are we here?”

  “Come on, check it out.” Sean withdrew a key ring and unlocked the front door. The three of us stepped inside, and Sean turned on the lights. The store was packed with dusty old magazi
ne and book racks.

  “Is this a book store?” I asked.

  “Better. It’s a comic book store.” He approached the front register, and pulled a dust cloth off of a glass display case. “Remember the old comic store I used to spend all my allowance at? The one where Kevin used to work?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “That doesn’t explain why we’re here now.”

  “Check out this stock.” Sean crouched down before one of the wire racks and pointed out a few graphic novels. “I’ve never even seen most of these books in real life, and there are stacks of them here. This place is packed with vintage finds. Plus, there’s all the display racks, some action figures—”

  “Sean.” He stood, finally giving me his attention. “Why are we here?”

  “You know how I’ve always wanted to open a comic store? Here it is.” Sean spread out his arms, encompassing the store with a gesture.

  “You bought this place?”

  “The building, the stock, everything. Of course, I’ll sell the store and the land, and move to a better location. This place went out of business once the bridge was finished, just didn’t have enough foot traffic. I’ll do online sales too.”

  “Sean. How much did you spend on…on this?”

  “With the inventory, just under four hundred.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Tell me you don’t mean four hundred thousand dollars.”

  “I know it’s a lot, but the previous owner wouldn’t sell the stock without the store and the land,” Sean said. “The real estate agent assures me we can resell the land though, so I’ll have that coming back. I just need to get the books into the storage unit.”

  “Storage unit?”

  “Yeah, I bought one this morning.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I said.

  “I know.” Sean grinned. “This is what we’ve always wanted.”

  “No, this is what you’ve always wanted,” I snapped. “We’ve been living on instant soup and generic cereal, and you come into money and do this? Buy a crap ton of comic books?”

  “To open a store,” Sean said. “So we can have a stable income for our future. Cin, I did this for us!”

  I opened my mouth, shut it. He’d done this sort of thing too many times, and this was the last straw. “Can we go home now? I’d like to get to bed.”

  “Sure, Cinnamon.”

  Sean locked up the pit of a store he’d purchased, and we all went home to our tiny, crappy apartment. An apartment we would live in for the rest of our lives, until Sean’s lack of common sense got us evicted.

  The next morning, I called in sick to the diner, then I called my mother and asked her if Britt and I could stay with them for a while. While Sean was out doing whatever idiots did with money, and Britt was at school, I packed up my and my daughter’s things and left the apartment. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

  “But why are we staying with Gran and Gramps?” Britt asked. I’d picked her up after school, and told her about out new living arrangements.

  “Dad and I need some space,” I replied. “We need to sort some things out, and I think this is best.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “Then why can’t we figure out everything together?” Britt whined.

  “Together wasn’t working,” I said, then I dashed the back of my hand over my eyes. “I hope this will help.”

  “It better,” Britt said. “I’m gonna miss Dad.”

  “Me too, baby,” I said. “Me too.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cindy

  Present Day

  Tuesday morning found me sitting in a café, eagerly awaiting Britt’s arrival for our lunch date. She and Sam had returned from their honeymoon two days ago, which they spent on a tropical island doing nothing but being young and in love. We should all be so lucky to have such times. I couldn’t wait to hear all about it, and live vicariously through her.

  I remembered my own honeymoon, which had been two weeks at a luxury hotel in Paris. I’d once made an offhand comment about wanting to visit Paris in springtime, and Patrick surprised me with the trip. The city was as stunning as I’d imagined, full of museums and culture and almost more beauty than I could comprehend.

  About a week into my honeymoon I grabbed some hotel stationary and began a journal, for the sole purpose of chronicling my time abroad. When Patrick noticed what I was doing, he asked if I wanted to keep up my writing career; when I said that I’d never intended to stop writing, my new journal pages were somehow misplaced. As were the next batch, and the few pages I’d scribbled out after that. By the time Patrick and I boarded our return flight, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake in marrying him. I also knew that, thanks to the ironclad prenuptial agreement he’d tricked me into signing, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  What I could do was keep on writing, which I did, but now I upload my writing onto memory sticks and hand them off to Britt for safekeeping.

  “Mom!”

  I shook my head, and saw Britt walking toward me. She was a little burnt across her nose and cheeks, and her hair was streaked with blonde in that way only a tropical vacation can do. As always, she was beautiful.

  “I missed you,” I said, giving my girl a big hug. “How were the Bahamas?”

  “Frickin’ gorgeous,” Britt replied. “The water is the most perfect shade of blue, and the beaches are pink. Pink! Can you believe that?”

  I could, because I’d seen them myself. “So it was a good trip?”

  “It was a very good trip.” Britt set her bag in the center of the table and unzipped the side pocket. I set my purse next to hers, angling it so a memory stick fell onto the table between our bags. “What’s that one about?” she asked.

  “Oh, the usual,” I replied. “The choices we make, and how we try not to regret them. And a few more chapters of the novel.”

  “Uh huh.” Britt picked up a menu and scanned the lunch specials. “So, you know how Sam and me flew into Logan,” she began.

  “Sam and I,” I corrected, my inner editor bubbling to the surface. “And no, I did not know that. Wouldn’t JFK have been more convenient?”

  “It would have,” Britt replied. “We had dinner with Dad on the way back,” Britt raised an eyebrow, and added, “Dad, and not Emily.”

  “Oh,” I mumbled, nearly jumping out of my skin with all the questions I wanted to ask. “How is your father? Did he mention the girls?”

  “Dad’s good, the girls are good,” she rattled off. “Where’s your watcher?”

  I glanced around the restaurant, and spotted TJ nursing a drink at the bar. “There,” I said, nodding toward him. “Why? Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

  “Always.” Britt took her phone out of her purse and held it toward me. “Is this phone the same model as yours?”

  “I think so.” I took the phone, and saw that it was indeed the same model as mine, and was housed in an almost identical white case. “The only difference is this silver stripe around the edge. Did you get this on your honeymoon?”

  “Actually, Dad got it. For you.” When I only stared at her, Britt continued, “There’s a definite thought process here. Dad wants to talk to you, but he knows that if he calls the house or your phone Patrick will find out, somehow listen to your entire conversation, and have one of his epic fits. Therefore, Dad got you an almost-identical phone you can use to call anyone you want. Dad’s numbers, home and the shop, are already programmed in.” Britt leaned over and tapped the screen, and brought up the contacts. “Mine and Sam’s are too. Just so you know.”

  I stared at the phone, furious and embarrassed and so freaking happy I was on the verge of tears. I thought about all those lonely nights I spent in the mansion; Patrick always worked late, and the servants usually retired by eight. Of course, I could call or email whomever I wanted, but I was always wary of saying something—anything—that would earn Patrick’s ire. Now, it looked like
those days were over, at least for a little while.

  And when that “little while” was over, Patrick would make me truly regret this phone nonsense.

  “He’ll figure it out,” I said. “It might take him a week or two or even a month, but eventually he will figure out that I have two phones.”

  Britt shrugged. “When that happens, trash this one and Dad will get you another one.”

  “Britt, all of these phones will get awfully expensive,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t want Sean wasting his money on me.”

  “He wants to.” Britt unfolded her napkin and draped it across her lap. “He wants you to be happy.”

  The waitress stopped by and took our drink order. Once she was gone, I said, “Britt, what do you really think will come of this? It’s not like Patrick would ever let me divorce him. He’d destroy me rather than deal with the embarrassment of me leaving him.”

  “Yeah, like it’s not embarrassing to have your wife followed around like a criminal,” Britt muttered. “Listen, just take the phone. Give Dad a call now and then. Maybe you two can run away together, to someplace Patrick will never find you.”

  If only. “What about the girls?”

  “Take them with you,” Britt suggested. “It’s not like Emily would mind. She only had them to land Dad.”

  I laughed at the sheer absurdity of my and Sean’s lives. “Britty, I’m so glad you have Sam. You have made better relationship decisions than me and your father put together.”

  Britt grinned. “Yeah, Sam’s pretty awesome. And who knows what will happen with you and Dad? Life’s all about second chances.”

  ***

  Later that night, I hauled my purse into the bathroom and withdrew my new and somewhat illicit phone. I sat on the edge of the tub and stared at it for almost a full minute, while Britt’s words about second chances rang in my ears.

  It had been fifteen days since I’d last spoken to Sean. Sixteen since we’d made love. And that time we had spoken…we’d bumped into each other in the hotel lobby, exchanged pleasantries, held hands…and then the elevator doors opened and Emily was there, her hair mussed and her eyes rimmed in red. I said a quick good morning to her, and a goodbye to Sean, and then I left the hotel with Patrick. In a few hours I had returned to my boring, loveless life in New Rochelle.