Elisa raised her eyebrows, then glanced around the wreck of Sophie’s apartment. “To be fair, if one hadn’t known what was going on and caught a look at this a couple of nights ago, thinking you must’ve died is a plausible conclusion.”
“I wish I’d been able to tell her I was going, but there wasn’t time.” And it hadn’t been safe. Anyone in contact with Sophie had been in danger and Mrs. Seong didn’t live within the protective influence of David Cruz or Alex Rojas or the police. “I don’t know how I’ll make it up to her. She might never trust me again.”
“I’d say she was happy to see you home.” Elisa wandered into the kitchen area and surveyed the array of casserole dishes across the counter and on the stovetop. “What is all this?”
“Why don’t we eat first, then we’ll pick a room to start cleaning?” Sophie waved her hand toward the breakfast table, still sitting in the living room by the sofa. It was the only relatively uncluttered surface in the place. “Dishes are clean in the dishwasher. I ran it as soon as I got in this morning.”
“Okay, come tell me what all this is. It smells like heaven.” Elisa had a plate out and was peering under covers at the contents of the dishes.
Lyn joined Sophie as she gimped her way over to the kitchen area.
“Here, you’ll need a rice bowl and a soup bowl, too. Trust me.” Sophie snagged the appropriate items out of the dishwasher and handed them to Elisa. “The pot on the stove has tteokguk. It’s a Korean rice cake soup usually made for New Year. It’s simple and tasty with bits of beef brisket and savory seaweed. Just be careful and only take a small amount. The rice cakes are super filling, and I swear they expand in your stomach. I love it, though, and make it when no one is around to judge me for having it in the middle of the year. I guess Mrs. Seong figured it’d be a nice treat.”
Lyn shrugged. “Or maybe she meant it as a new beginning. That woman is deeper than she wants to let on. I’ve only run into her once or twice, but I’ve always thought she uses her absent-minded chatter with a level of shrewdness bordering on masterful.”
Sophie stopped to consider. “You’re not wrong, and I kind of want to be her when I grow up.”
Assent all around.
“So what are these?” Elisa waved a skewer loaded with long cylinders coated in a brilliant orange-red, spicy-looking sauce.
Sophie smiled. “Tteok-pokki. More rice cakes, different shape, spicy sauce. I like mine super spicy. The rice cakes have a sort of bounce to their chewiness.”
Elisa’s eyebrows rose. “A bounce? Okay. Should be interesting.”
She set the skewer on her plate and lifted the lid to another huge casserole. Sophie inhaled the flavorful, spicy, sour scent and sighed happily. “Kimchi fried rice.”
Lyn chuckled. “You weren’t kidding when you said it was going to be a carb-loading kind of day. Move along, I want to try all of this, too.”
The three of them dished up their portions and juggled their way to the breakfast table. After the first few bites in silence, Lyn rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. “Oh, this is good. All of it.”
“Mmm,” Elisa agreed, waving a long-handled spoon.
“Told you so.” Sophie managed to actually form words around a mouthful of kimchi fried rice. “None of it is technically served together, but this makes me so happy.”
They all nodded.
Lyn swallowed and tapped her spoon against her plate. “I’m guessing we should dive into your bedroom first. You need a place to sleep.”
Elisa was watching Sophie intently. “Unless you plan to sleep at the kennels.”
Ah. Sophie shook her head. “No.”
“Did things not work out?” Elisa’s voice was gentle, sympathetic.
“They did, actually.” Sophie took a huge spoonful of her tteokguk and chewed slowly, savoring the beef and burst of salty seaweed in contrast to the soft and chewy rice cake. “The T-shirts came in handy. And we were good together. Really good.”
Lyn and Elisa waited.
“But I’ve wanted us to break the friendship barrier for so long, I didn’t stop to think about what it would mean when we started talking about the things I’d been wondering all these years. The stuff friends don’t need to talk about.”
Lyn nodded then. “The things lovers need out in the open to figure out where their relationship is going.”
Sophie nodded. Now it seemed so obvious. But then, Elisa and Lyn had been through the hard part of starting a serious relationship. And theirs hadn’t failed to launch. “It was me. I needed to know why he left town right after high school. And I couldn’t accept his reason.”
Neither Elisa nor Lyn asked what Brandon’s reason had been. They respected that privacy.
Elisa nibbled on the end of a tteok-pokki. “What do you want to do now?”
Sophie smiled, trembling a little. Oh, she’d been afraid her friends would dig too deep or question her decision. She’d worried they’d judge. After all, Brandon was their friend, too. This, though, was friendship.