—C. B. McCallister, “The Coin of the Realm.” Hightower & Jax, New York.
Advance reader’s copy. Not for review or quotation.
Chapter TWENTY
I took a sip of my latte and looked across the table at Flask’s. I’d switched to hot lattes at the end of September, when it officially got too cold for iced drinks, and now that we were getting close to Halloween, the leaves outside the coffee shop window had all turned color and started to cover the ground. “How are you not done yet?” I asked, shaking my head.
Toby glanced up from where she was currently doctoring her caramel pumpkin latte with sugar packets and cinnamon sprinkles, as she had been doing for, I was pretty sure, the last twenty minutes.
“You can’t rush these things,” she said, dropping in a very precise amount of sugar, giving it a stir, tasting it, then nodding and looking back at me. “Perfect. What were we talking about?”
“I don’t know. It was ten years ago, and I’ve forgotten.” I looked automatically to the chair next to Toby—the one that was sitting empty. This was when Bri would have chimed in, defending Toby or making a joke. But silence just fell between us, and we both took a sip of our drinks in unison.
“So,” she said, before the pause could grow uncomfortable. “How’s it going with the DMV thing?”
“You mean DVM?”
“Sure,” Toby said with a wave of her hand. “If you say so.”
I smiled. I was pretty sure Toby actually knew what it was called and was just doing this to tease me. But there was a chance that she was actually still getting used to it—the change had taken me by surprise as well. In the last month I had switched my focus from premed to veterinary medicine. Now, whenever my dad and I went through my college options, narrowing down where to apply, we were focusing solely on schools that had good veterinary programs. I wasn’t sure if the idea had taken root during the night of Bertie and the chocolate, but by the end of the summer, I’d come to my decision. Maya was thrilled.
Even though I was no longer working full-time, I was still doing weekend walks for Maya and Dave. Folding a dog into my regular routine seemed like good practice for the winter. Because now my dad and I were spending far too much time on pet rescue websites, either when he was here or video chatting when he was in D.C., arguing about what kind we wanted to adopt when he was out of Congress and home in January. One thing that seemed to be clear was that the dog was going to be named Duke. Every time we talked about our potential puppy, that’s what my dad called it, and I was trying to accept that I was going to have a dog with John Wayne’s nickname.
“It’s good,” I said, before Toby could ask me if I would be the person who took people’s license pictures—I’d heard all these jokes from her before. “How’s the track team?”
Toby groaned, but good-naturedly. “It’s killing me,” she said. “These people are maniacs. And did I tell you that we have practices on Saturdays? Like, in the mornings?”
I smiled as I took a sip of my drink. “You may have mentioned it.”
She shook her head and started going off about how weekends were for rest, not running, but I had a feeling it was mostly just Toby being Toby. She’d joined the track team right after school started and seemed to eat lunch most days at the track table, laughing with her new group of friends, wearing a ribbon in her hair on the meet days. Palmer and I had gone to one, holding up the signs she had made, but that was before we’d realized just how long they could take. “Anyway,” she said with an exaggerated sigh when she’d finished complaining. “We have a meet next Saturday. You know, if you’re free.”
I pulled out my phone, scrolling through the social media apps that were now mine to do with as I pleased, until I got to my calendar. “I’m in D.C. next weekend,” I said, dropping my phone back in my bag. “My dad’s giving a speech and he asked me to be there.”