Chapter 3
three
Reese
There’s mail for Cole in my box for the next three days in a row. I set it in what’s become his spot on my kitchen counter, then pull up the text thread with him. His number isn’t saved, and the only message there is the link he sent to the Home Depot website.
I haven’t ordered the part yet, but I have set a new, bigger cup under the sink to catch the water. I’m a regular Chip Gaines over here. Money isn’t exactly oozing from my pores after the costs of buying a house, though, and Cole said it wasn’t urgent, so I’ll make do with the cup for now.
I do a quick Google search, then copy and paste a link into the text thread.
Reese
Thought this might be helpful
The link is to the USPS site for address forwarding.
A few minutes later, my phone lights up on the counter.
Cole
Been there, done that. Days ago. Just like I said I would *winking emoji*
I snap a photo of the pile of mail and attach it to my next text.
Reese
My counter begs to differ. See Exhibit A.
Cole
Must be a delay in forwarding. Let’s get that counter cleared off, though. I’ll swing by tomorrow after work if that’s okay? I found a spare seal I can bring for the kitchen sink.
I’m far too willing to agree to this plan. Cole is attractive, charming, and fun—the devil’s trifecta. He’s picking up his mail, so the stakes are low. Besides, after the distinct downer of Brady ending things with me only to start them up with Megan, I could use twenty minutes of charm.
Megan’s response about driving to the cabin together was to tell me she’d get back to me about it.
I don’t know what my next move should be.
The ball is in her court. I have no intention of letting Brady ruin our friendship, but I’m not the only one with a say here.
All I can do is make it clear that I won’t be the one making things weird.
Am I a little hurt over everything? Sure.
But it seems silly and territorial to make a big deal out of it.
So I won’t. This weekend at the cabin will provide the perfect opportunity for me to make that clear to her.
We’ll spend some quality time together and shore up our friendship to the tune of Mistletoe by Justin Bieber, her favorite Christmas song.
On my lunch break at work, I get a text from Hannah asking if we can chat about final details after I get home. Our office stays open until six on Wednesdays to accommodate people who can’t take time off work. My last patient, however, is a retired woman in her 70s named Laney.
Ever since I started working here, Laney’s requested me as her hygienist. She’s a jabberer, which makes my job…interesting. One skill you develop working in a dental office is understanding people who have their mouths open and full of equipment. I’m absolutely unbeatable at Mad Gab.
“How’s that boyfriend of yours?” Laney asks.
Sidebar: I’m not the type to disclose personal information to my patients, but Laney always manages to weasel things out of me—probably because she overshares, so I feel bad dodging all of her questions.
To be fair to myself, I never claimed Brady was my boyfriend. I just told her I’d started seeing someone.
“Oh, he wasn’t my boyfriend,” I say. “But we’re not seeing each other anymore.”
“Kicked him to the curb, did you?” she replies with a wink.
I smile. “Something like that.”
“Hope you haven’t been wearing the willow for him.”
“Wearing the willow?” I repeat as I scrape plaque off her 24 lingual.
“Grieving,” she clarifies. “Mourning.” The v in the first word and the m in the second get lost in the abyss of her wide-open mouth.
I laugh. “I haven’t been wearing any willows. I’ve been too busy buying a house.”
She smiles, and I wait until her lips relax enough for me to continue my work.
But she keeps talking. “Good for you. You’re too young to be doing anything but having fun and making poor choices you can laugh about when you’re my age. Besides—that’s what no one tells you when you’re single. You don’t find love; it finds you while you’re busy enjoying life.”
I feel like I saw that on a canvas at Hobby Lobby. “You should get into the inspirational home decor business, Laney.”
“I should do a number of things,” she says as I set aside my tools. “But I’m too busy enjoying retirement.” She winks.
I’m still in my scrubs and have just gotten home when my phone rings and Hannah’s picture pops up on the screen. I grip the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I unlock my door and answer.
Hannah’s a bundle of energy, and it’s good to hear her voice after a long stint of texts. Marriage hasn’t changed her, but she’s still in the honeymoon phase, which means we don’t call just to chat like we used to do. Maybe we never will. Maybe we’ve just entered a new phase of life—or she has.
“You’ll be getting to the cabin at three, right?” she asks.
“That’s the plan.” I walk straight to the bay window to cuddle up while we chat.
“I was kind of waiting on Meg to decide for sure. I texted her asking if she wanted to carpool, but she hasn’t texted me back to say yes or no.
” I kick off my shoes and pull the chunky knit blanket over my legs.
Buying a house was worth it for this spot alone.
Maybe it won’t be as great the rest of the year, but being able to look out over the street of twinkling Christmas lights from the warmth of my own home is a level of happiness I hadn’t experienced until now.
All I need is some snow falling through the window and some melancholy background music, and I’m ready to star in a breakup montage in a Hallmark movie.
“Right,” Hannah says slowly. “About that…”
My chest clenches. “What?”
Is Megan not coming? Did she decide it’s too weird between us now? Or maybe she just doesn’t know how to tell me she doesn’t want to spend over an hour in the car with me.
“So,” Hannah continues in that voice that says she’s walking on eggshells, “I think the reason Meg hasn’t responded is because Brady really wants to come, and she’s been trying to figure out how to handle the whole situation.”
People describe their heart dropping into the pit of their stomach, but my stomach has no pit. It’s an endless abyss, and my heart free-falls until it reaches my toes.
“Oh,” I say, my voice higher than a kite.
I had no idea Meg and Brady’s relationship had progressed to the point of it making any sense at all for him to come to something like our annual Christmas cabin getaway.
I mean, there hasn’t been time for that sort of progress to happen.
They have to jump through other relationship hoops first, like surviving a trip to IKEA together without breaking up.
Hannah’s bringing her husband, and Tess is bringing the guy she’s been dating for almost a year. But that’s not at all the same as Megan bringing Brady, who I was dating two months ago.
Granted, Brady and Hannah’s husband, Tyler, are cousins, so that might have something to do with it, but still…
“She already thinks you hate her, so she—”
“I don’t hate her!” I interject, horrified. “That’s not even possible.”
“Well, she thinks it is.”
“Oh my gosh, of course not!” I say. “Tell her to bring him! It’s totally cool with me!”
It’s totally not. But it should be. It will be.
My cousin Kim dated a guy for eight months, and he ended up marrying her younger sister. They’ve managed that weird history—married six years now. If they can get through that, I can handle my friend dating a guy I went out with for a couple measly months.
But it means I’ll be a third wheel.
No, a seventh wheel.
You know what has three wheels? Tricycles. Rickshaws. Tuk-tuks.
You know what has seven wheels?
Absolutely nothing.
A vivid image presents itself to my psyche: me icing a gingerbread man to the sound of my three friends making out with their significant others.
I shudder.
I can just…not go. I’ll figure out some excuse. Maybe I can slip on the ice while packing up my car or fall down a mountainside while skiing.
Sure, I don’t ski, but that’s what would make it so believable.
They’ll know, though. They’ll know I’m avoiding the situation, and I hate that thought.
I wish I could just waltz into the cabin and smile at Brady and Megan with not a care in the world and no willow-wearing.
I wish I was as nonchalant as Laney encouraged me to be—so full of pluck and so focused on sucking every bit of adventure out of life that Megan and Brady wouldn’t faze me.
“Reese,” Hannah says, her voice full of suspicion. “Are you sure?”
I laugh like she’s being ridiculous and hope she doesn’t hear the crazed undertones. “Of course I am!”
“But will it be weird?”
“Not because of me.”
“I don’t just mean weird in that way. I meant weird like…will you feel left out? I really didn’t intend for this to become a couples thing, I promise.”
Headlights illuminate my driveway as Cole’s car pulls in. His door opens, and his head of blond hair rises into sight. He’s honestly beautiful, this man who was my fake boyfriend for five minutes.
My heart beats a quick pace against my ribs, and I swear I can hear the faint but rhythmic whisper of it saying, you’re crazy. You’re crazy. You’re crazy. Even louder is Laney’s voice in my head as she gleefully rubs her hands together over the idea and says, Do it!
“I’ll bring someone too,” I blurt out while the idea is still only half-baked.
A surprised laugh bursts from Hannah. “Bring who?”
“I’ve kind of been dating someone,” I say, winging it in a way even Laney might side-eye.
It’s a lie. A total and complete lie, which makes me a total and complete liar. But in this moment, that sounds preferable to a total and complete seventh wheel. Or the girl who fell down a mountain to avoid seeing PDA between her ex and her friend.
“Reese Witherspoon Cameron,” Hannah says severely. “You’re dating someone and you didn’t tell me?”
“It’s new,” I defend. So. So. New.
“Ty!” Hannah calls to her husband. “Reese has a new man in her life!”
A muffled cheer sounds in the background.