Choices by Sara Marion Read Free Book Online Page B

Her thoughts drifted towards Jack. They used to sit out on the porch or balcony of their room and just relax, soaking up the rays of sunshine. They could sit and talk for hours outside. She just enjoyed being outdoors. The walk back seemed more ominous as her thoughts turned to better days, not that she wasn’t in a good place now but she missed Jack, hell she missed Duke even though she saw him last night. Duke’s silence bothered her.
     
    The short time she was gone, she felt her mood shift. She felt morose, which was the opposite feeling she wanted when she broke away from the gallery to get food. She wanted to feel better, energetic for the next round of kids, but it’s obvious it wouldn’t happen as she handed out meals and headed to her office for a quiet lunch with her thoughts.
     
    It wasn’t long before she heard the squealing of bus brakes again. She just finished her lunch and booking flight and hotel rooms for New York. She threw away her trash and prepared herself to go back downstairs. Paxton just had to get through this then she could go soak in her tub and relax. She checked her reflection and went down to the main floor to greet her new guests.
     
    She reached the main floor and froze in place. She spotted the chaperones and found one of Jack’s good friends when he worked at the high school. Drake Cordova stood in the middle of the kids but his eyes locked on Paxton. He gave a friendly smile and Paxton didn’t know how to react. She quickly recovered as she was supposed to be friendly with everyone no matter who they were and headed over to the group.
     
    “Drake, what are you doing here?” She asked as he pulled her into a friendly hug.
     
    “I was grabbed to chaperone when another dropped out. How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since Jack left.”
     
    Paxton gave her best smile. She didn’t want him reporting back to Jack that she wasn’t coping. “Doing as good as I can be right now. I am dealing with some things with my mother but other than that, just taking it one day at a time.”
     
    “That’s good.”
     
    Paxton felt a weird tension between them. She smiled as another chaperone came up to greet her. She put her business face on and let herself be distracted from Drake and Jack. She didn’t need to fill him in on things when they were there to see the gallery. 
     
    “Alright, if you all head this way,” she directed the group to follow her around the receptionist partition. She heard them all start to follow her but she was nervous. She felt like Drake was staring at her trying to figure out if she was really doing okay.
     
    Once they reconvened on the other side of the partition. Paxton gave her normal speech going over rules of the gallery and how to play I Spy. Since they were older kids, the gallery was going to give three random students a $25 gift certificate to the mall. The students became excited and quickly headed off to complete their tasks.
     
    Paxton watch them go off and quickly scatter around the gallery. She smiled and looked around. She heard some exclamations of pictures that were awesome and cool. She was so proud of the collection she built around Ella’s work. Starting next month they were bringing in a few other photographer collections. Ryan thought it would be a good idea to have Ella as a feature so that way they have her work last longer in the gallery.
     
    “She was amazing,” Drake’s voice broke in. “Her photography skills were amazing. She captured the raw emotion of her subjects.”
     
    “Yeah.” Paxton didn’t know what else to say. She missed her friend and she was looking directly at a picture of her and Jack. It was another stolen moment that Ella captured on film.
     
    “How are you doing without Jack?” He suddenly asked. Paxton wasn’t prepared for him to bring up this subject again.
     
    “Does it matter?”
     
    “I think it does. You two were good for each other.”
     
    “Were being the key