Broken Series by Dawn Pendleton

you to know who you could be without Luke so that if you were with him, you would recognize your own potential. And hopefully, so would he.”
    “My dad, the philosopher,” I said.
    It was true. He knew so much more about me than I knew about myself. He’d known I would need to separate myself from Luke in order to figure out who I was and what I wanted. For a while, I thought I wanted my life in Boston, but now I was starting to see how much I wanted to be in Casper.
    “Dad, I’m going to start looking for a job here,” I said with resolve. “I think one of the girls I went to high school with is one of the managers at the bank. Maybe they’ll hire me.”
    “Are you sure that’s what you want?” he asked.
    “Yes.” I was surer of the decision to move home than I’d been about anything in my life. “I want to move home. Permanently.”
    His eyes lit up and his smile was wide. “I’m glad to have you back, baby girl.”
    He pulled me into a hug. I blinked away tears, but I didn’t mind. They were tears of happiness. I was finally moving on with my life instead of running away from it.
    “I’m happy to come home,” I whispered into his T-shirt.
    When he finally begged me to let him sleep, I meandered back into the living room and found Rainey and Gabby with an open bottle of wine watching reruns of Friends. They both stared at me.
    “What’s wrong?” Rainey asked.
    “Nothing. In fact, I guess I should tell you guys. I’m moving back to Casper for good.” I smiled.
    They both shrieked and jumped off the couch to envelop me in a hug. It felt right.
    “What made you change your mind?” Gabby asked once we were settled on the couch.
    “My dad. He wanted me to be able to really choose this life, much like he did when he was my age. And being back just makes me realize how much I’ve missed it. I want to spend the rest of my life here.”
    Another round of shrieks and hugs had me laughing hysterically. Once we calmed down, we watched Sixteen Candles as if we were all fourteen again.
    Several movies later, we were somewhat passed out around the living room and on the verge of sleep. When the house phone rang, we all jumped.
    “Who the hell is calling this late?” Rainey asked.
    She was curled into a ball on the floor while Gabby and I shared the couch. I rolled off the couch and managed to get to the phone on the fourth ring.
    “Hello?” I muttered into the receiver.
    “Mallory Wells?” a male voice asked.
    I cleared my throat in an attempt to clear my head. “Yes, that’s me.”
    “I have Lukas Bates, Christopher Baker, and Wolfe Landon here at The Landing. They’ve given me your number in hopes you’ll be willing to give them a ride home,” he said.
    I groaned. “Tell all three of them to go to hell,” I said, then hung up.
    Rainey sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Who was that?”
    “Luke, Baker, and Wolfe want a ride home from the bar,” I explained.
    “They’re with Wolfe?” Gabby perked up. “Since when do they hang out with Wolfe?” She sounded incredulous.
    “I hung up. I’m not giving them a ride,” I said. “One of you is more than welcome to, though.”
    “We can’t, Mal. We’ve both had several glasses of wine. You’re the only one who stayed sober,” Rainey said.
    She was right. I sighed. The phone rang again and I picked it up on the first ring.
    “Yeah, I’ll pick them up,” I said and slammed the receiver down. I felt just a pinch of satisfaction, but it wasn’t a lot.
    I checked on my dad, who was fast asleep, and then grabbed the keys to Rainey’s minivan. If they were going to puke, they could do so in her car, not mine. I drove to The Landing alone since Gabby and Rainey were already back to sleep by the time I left the house.
    I pulled into the parking lot of The Landing and honked. The three men stumbled out of the front door and I watched, amused, as they made their way to the van. Luke was the slowest of the group and when he tried to maneuver the