Crossroads/Borrowed Lives — 2026-03-11 (Patreon)

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Chapter 35: ACT TWO by Mara Voss

Evan and I are sheltering in place as Shay and Devon at the Ryder family compound north of Chicago. On the flight, one of the higher-ups told us we could relax and that we don’t have to act like we’re dating while we’re here.

Kind of a bummer. We had become accustomed to being affectionate.

So, upon our arrival here, the first act of our little drama ended. Act Two has begun. Now, we are acting like we aren’t dating. Or something.

Technically, we weren’t. And aren’t. But acting like we were certainly confused matters.

We decided our time here at the compound could let our thinking catch up with our feelings. So far, so good.

Honestly, the weeks we spent on the bikes didn’t lead to many long, meaningful conversations. Call it six hours riding and eight hours sleeping… add getting ready for bed and getting dressed in the morning, and not much time was left over.

Most of the time we had was used—as Evan says—instrumentally. Where to? What shall we eat? Do we need gas?

Yesterday we spent the whole day just getting to know each other. We talked about everything from elementary school to our worst dates to dreams for retirement.

We also talked about the fact that wanting this to work out probably biases everything in that direction. However, we also agreed that we didn’t actually mind if it did.

Chapter 36: NEW DUTIES by Melissa Gaines

Late yesterday, I got a call from Izzy Duffy telling me that something had come up and that she and I would need to work together on it.

“There’s going to be some new units built for the Stop-Gap housing program. There will be some grants and a lot of donations that we’ll pass through to the builder.”

Habitat Housing has worked with a businessman named Tom Jenkins in getting all of the Stop-Gap units built. Mr. Jenkins has a few businesses and several real estate holdings. Some of them are apartments, so when the idea for Stop-Gap housing came along a few years ago, the woman whose place I took enlisted him to own the properties.

Essentially, he leases them to Habitat Housing for the cost of utilities. Yesterday, he decided to launch another apartment project and wants to add more Stop-Gap units to it.

“There are going to be a lot of small donations and some big grants,” Izzy explained.

It turns out that the woman I replaced is none other than David Ryder’s daughter. She loves Habitat Housing, but needed to take some time away for personal reasons. She’s in the Chicago area now but is still interested in what we’re doing here.

“Shay’s mother,” Izzy went on to say, “will be inviting a lot of people to make donations, plus she’s going to help us get a few grants. We’ll pass all that to Tom for the construction. It will go in as a credit on our account, so we won’t owe him anything for a long time.”

My part in it all will be to deal with the grant applications and the donors. Izzy will handle who lives there and for how long once they get built. She also said we’d get to look at the building and the plans and weigh in on the designs.

“Your son… Isaiah might like to see some of the construction process,” Izzy added.

He’s coming up on seven in August. I’m sure she’s right about that.

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