Wonder if it had to do with Chandler.
After a minute, she takes a big breath and lays her head against my shoulder again. “Laney, Emma, and I used to walk through this part of the park after school as often as we could once we discovered an old treehouse right on the edge of Grandma and Grandpa’s property.”
I start to smile. “You had a clubhouse.”
“We had a club. We were the ugly heiress society.”
I clamp my mouth shut so fast, my jaw audibly pops.
“It was Theo,” she says. “Emma’s brother.”
“The porn guy.”
“Naked inspirational knitter, but yes. Laney and I met him in kindergarten, and when we were all in third grade, Emma leveled up and joined us. She’s a year younger but super smart. She’d get straight A’s—or whatever it was they gave us in third grade—and he’d get parent-teacher conferences. He and Laney hated each other, and I know it rubbed him wrong that his baby sister was outshining him at school, and we were all kind of heiresses. Me to Bean & Nugget, Laney to Kingston Photo Gifts, and Emma to their dad’s taxidermy business, not that she wanted it. Anyway, that’s what he called us. And it made Laney so mad that she told us we were going to own it and make him rue the day he made us tighter.”
“She actually said rue the day in third grade?”
“You haven’t had a chance to talk to her much yet, have you?”
“I have not.”
“She’s mellowed since third grade.”
“Haven’t we all.”
She sighs and tightens her grip on me. “I miss those days,” she adds quietly.
I can’t imagine missing being younger.
But I would’ve if I’d grown up the way she did.
“You talk to Emma yet since she got home?” I ask.
“Oh, good, the parking lot.” She squirms. “I think you can let me down now. The path should be solid enough for Jitter and me to get to the car. Thank you for the lift.”
We can barely see where the cars are parked from here, but I squat and let her down anyway.
I know when I’ve pushed too far.
Maybe.
“You have dinner plans?” I ask. “Zen and I have this fridge full of every kind of food you can imagine.”
“I do. But if you’re looking for someone to share with, the senior center would probably take you up on the offer. Hope you didn’t get too cold. See you at work tomorrow.”
“Sabrina—”
“You are entirely too attractive for my own good. Thank you for the help. Thank you for being kind to my dog. Thank you for considering leaving Bean & Nugget as it is. But I have to go before I do something stupid.”
“Maybe it’s not—”
“Oh, yes, it is. Just trust me. It very much is.”
24
Sabrina
I spend Sunday working at the senior center with Mom and Jitter, who probably does more work than I do for all of the joy he brings the residents. Seeing Grandpa and hearing stories from the old days from everyone at the center is usually all it takes to cheer me up, but it doesn’t work.
Mom spends all day telling me to go see Emma.
I keep insisting Emma will come to me when she’s ready. That she’s behind at work. That she’s processing things and needs space.
Even though I know I’m hitting a breaking point.
And going home, knowing I’m sleeping mere feet from Grey? That he’s on the other side of the wall? Hearing him moving around, occasionally clearing his throat or running water in the bathroom?
It’s torture.
Absolute torture.
I sleep like crap. When I doze, I dream Emma’s feeding me to a pot-bellied giraffe that her dad’s stuffing for his taxidermy business, and that she keeps saying gossip is for assholes while Laney and Theo ride mating hippopotamuses.
I am not okay, and I finally break.
I call in sick, and then I go huddle in my kitchen at the farthest point from the wall I share with Grey and Zen, and I call Laney. “Are you working today?”
“Let’s see… It’s a Monday, so in theory, I would be doing the things I usually do on a workday, except I’m exploring this whole be more fun side of my personality, but the last time I skipped work, I broke my leg, so—”
“You did not break your leg because you skipped work,” Theo says in the background on her end of the phone.
I slide to the floor in front of my fridge and rub Jitter’s belly when he flops to the ground and rolls over like he’s trying to get into my lap. “It’s remarkable how much I agree with him these days.”
“If I hadn’t skipped work that day—” she starts, but she cuts herself off with a shriek of laughter. “Okay! Okay! I would’ve just broken my leg in the breakroom instead!”
“Is he tickling you?” I am not jealous of my friend. I do not want a man in my life. I am not contemplating knocking on my neighbor’s door and asking if we can get naked in the name of stress relief when I’d be secretly thinking it was something so much more than that, much like I suspect he’d think it was more than that after everything that’s happened between us since he got to town.
Dammit.
“No, he’s piling kittens all over me and they’re climbing on my head,” Laney says. “And I’m working from home today. Are you working today?”
“Called in sick.”
“Are you sick?”
“Physically? No.”
“Are you avoiding your boss?”
“Some.”
“You want to go talk to Emma,” she says.
This is what Laney and Emma and I have always had. We’ve known each other for so long that we can practically read each other’s minds.
“I saw her Saturday and she’s just not her and I hate that,” I tell Laney.
“And she’ll know what Chandler loves.”
“No. No.” My hand curls into Jitter’s fur. “I will not drag her into this.”
“I can,” Theo calls.
“Go feed your cats or scoop some litter,” I retort. “Do not bother her with my problems. I refuse to pump her for information. I want—”
“Things to be normal again,” Laney finishes for me.
“Yes. They’ll never be the same. But we’ve always found normal again. And we can’t find normal if we’re not talking.”
We’ve been through so much together. Emma’s mom passing away when we were in middle school. Hard teachers. The heartbreak of break ups with first boyfriends. Whispered tales of when we each lost our virginity. Stressing over which colleges we could afford or which we hoped to get scholarships for.
My mouth getting me in trouble.
Laney stressing entirely too much about perfection.
Emma daydreaming about buying my grandparents’ house to live in with her perfect dream Ken doll man and having a million babies and dogs and cats, and watching deer and elk and fox and bears wander through the yard while she washed dishes.
She daydreamed about washing dishes.
And it was so perfectly Emma that neither Laney nor I questioned it. I still wouldn’t.
“Come get me,” Laney says. “I can reschedule my meetings. I’ll go with you.”
An hour later, I pull up to the old single-wide trailer that Theo lived in at the edge of their dad’s land before he bought his cabin further up the mountain in a more secluded area on a much, much larger lot.
I thought I was a gossip.
I have nothing on Theo Monroe when he wants to know something, and he’s apparently been tracking Emma’s movements very closely. I would’ve started at her office, but Theo was very firm in his orders to go to his old trailer. She worked late last night then went to Dad’s place. Should be up soon.
The lights aren’t on. Will she be mad if we wake her up? Or should we sit here and wait? Will she appreciate the items in the back of my car that I’m bringing as a peace offering? Will they even work on snow?
“It’ll work,” Laney says from the passenger seat.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did. It’ll work.”
I back up my SUV into the closest spot I can fit where Laney will have the shortest path to the front door. We haven’t had fresh snow in a few days, so I can’t tell if the tracks around Emma’s current hideout are old or new. There’s no visible movement inside the trailer.
“Should I have texted first?” I ask Laney. “Should we have waited until after work today? Do you think she’s still asleep?”
“No to all of that.”