“Yes, but that’s not all.” She turned the handle on the door and opened it with a, “Tada!”
I dreaded going back outside into the cold, but I couldn’t wait to see what else she had to show me. The cold wind made me shiver as I pulled up the collar of my coat.
A gray cottage like building sat in the backyard, complete with a front porch, a matching roof to the main house, and the cutest windows I’d ever seen. “A pool house?”
“Not just a pool house.” Her smile grew even larger. “A guest pool house.”
Harry smiled at me as he passed, lugging my largest bag onto the porch of the little cottage.
“I thought you’d like having some privacy.” Whitney’s smile warmed me, even though the wind tried its best to freeze me to the core.
I was stunned. Excited, but stunned. Was she saying what I thought she was saying?
“You mean?” I paused and cleared my throat. My eyes began to well up with warm tears, and I feared they would freeze once they hit my cheeks.
“Come inside.” Whitney met Harry at the door and pulled a key from her pocket. I watched with anticipation as she opened the door and let Harry inside to deliver my bag.
It was much larger than I imagined from outside. The front door opened to a tile entry, gray of course. The carpet was a deeper gray, thick, and much more expensive than what was in my childhood home. A narrow staircase led to a loft that Whitney said held a computer desk featured an oval window overlooking the pool. I followed her through the house, into the kitchen that looked nothing like what I’d expect in a pool house. A single bedroom was situated at the end of a wide hallway. A fireplace, king size bed with a red down comforter, and a master bathroom to die for filled my heart with excitement. A set of beautiful white French doors led to a private patio complete with a hot tub, separate from the one Calvin and Whitney used.
“It’s all yours,” she told me.
I couldn’t speak. Even if I could, I don’t know what I would’ve said at that moment. Tears streamed down my face. Harry set my last two bags in the bedroom and smiled as he made his way back out of the room. The door closed as he left, leaving me alone with Whitney, my best friend, who had just offered me more than she could ever imagine.
My arms opened, and I reached out for her, pulling her into me closely. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“Okay, enough mushy shit,” she sobbed, wiping tears from her cheeks as she pulled away from our embrace. “I have wine.” Her tone shifted to a more upbeat one, and her smile widened.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked, following her into the kitchen, my kitchen.
This was all so overwhelming. I didn’t have to go back home. I didn’t have to live with my dad anymore. No more abuse.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, pulling a bottle of white wine from the fridge.
“And Calvin?” I asked.
“It was his idea.”
I had a hard time imagining that Calvin would have made such an offer. Whitney, yes, but Calvin?
“Get that look off your face. Calvin loves you,” she insisted.
I shook my head, still in disbelief.
“Grab a couple glasses,” she ordered with a wink. “After all, I’m the guest here.”
I reached out, grabbed two wine glasses from the rack, and set them on the granite countertop while Whitney opened the wine.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll start working on getting your own bakery. You can’t live here forever, ya know.” Whitney twisted the corkscrew and unleashed the cork from the bottle. She looked really pleased with herself.
“Yes, I want to do that,” I admitted, still feeling dazed. “I’ll be able to afford it.”
“I’ll help,” Whitney offered.
I raised a hand. “No. You’ve done enough already.”
Whitney rolled her eyes as she poured us each a glass. I loved how she filled the glasses nearly to the top. “Why make wine glasses so big if you’re only gonna fill them half way,” is what she always said.
She handed me a glass and moved to the kitchen table. It was a cute wooden set, painted white with spindled legs and a tile center. “Sit.”
I sat down at the table. My table. This was all too much, too generous.
“You can’t do it all on your own, Holly. You’ll need help.” Whitney sipped her wine and leaned back against the padded chair.
“I know. But I don’t want you to have to take care of me.”
“What about Ace?”
I blinked at her, shocked by her question. She hated Ace, or at least everything he stood for.
“Ace?” I laughed and took a large gulp of my wine as I tried to read her. What the hell was she thinking?
“He’s never offered?” she asked, her head tilting to one side.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “To help me start a bakery? No.”
“Oh.” Her tone was odd, like she was hiding something.
“Why?” I pushed for more. There was a reason she asked me, and I wasn’t leaving until I found out. Wait, I live here. This is my house. Okay, she isn’t leaving until I find out.
“It’s just something he said,” she admitted, biting her lower lip.
My heart picked up speed, although that wasn’t unusual when Ace’s name was mentioned. “What did he say?”
She kept chewing on her lip.
“Tell me!”
“Well, he said something about financing your business.” Her words were so confusing to me that they might as well have been spoken in Chinese.
My mouth opened and closed a few times, surprise rendering me speechless. “Ace Newman said he would finance my business?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. He was going on and on about how talented you are.”
“Wait.” I sat my wine glass down but didn’t loosen my grip. I knew I needed that glass close, ready to deliver alcohol to my lips at any moment.
“Are you fucking with me?”
She laughed, then transitioned her face into pure seriousness. “I wouldn’t fuck with you about your business.”
I knew she wouldn’t. Whitney wasn’t much of a liar either; she never had been. In high school, she told on herself for ditching school when she delivered a note to the principal in her own handwriting. “I’m sorry, don’t tell my mom,” she pleaded after telling the woman in the office, who was more than willing to accept the note that she lied and it wasn’t her mother’s handwriting. Whit even told the woman what she did the day she ditched — she was hanging out with me at the mall. Yeah, so she got me in trouble, but the point was, Whitney didn’t lie.
“When did he say this?” I asked. I pressed my fingers into my temples, trying to get my brain to start making sense of this.
Her shoulder lifted again. “A few months back.”
“Oh.” I scanned my mental calendar. “Before he left for Hawaii?”
She nodded and took a sip of her wine.
I gripped my glass, lifted it to my lips, and downed the rest of it in one big gulp.
“Well, that was then, this is now,” I said, trying to be objective. “Besides, I haven’t seen him in months. The season was over. I went home. Life went on for both of us.”
“When are you seeing him again?” I squirmed in my seat, not liking how pushy she was getting.