Chapter 15
Jade
“Are you sure it’s okay?” Cat said, looking herself over in the mirror. I sighed.
“Why are you asking me a question and not looking at the answer?” I said, out loud, to a room with nobody who could hear me.
I finished pulling on my flannel jacket, and I stepped up next to her to answer where she could see me in the mirror.
“I know it’s uncomfortable, but if you want to move past everything, you have to step out there eventually.
Daniela’s seemed really nice about everything lately. ”
She turned, beaming at me. “Oh, yeah?”
“Uh, yeah.” I narrowed my eyes. “What’s with the sudden change of energy?”
She grinned and shoved her hands in the pockets of her big bomber jacket, over top of a heavy sweatshirt, and tiny jean shorts.
It was cold tonight, and her legs were going to freeze, but God help anyone who tried to convince her of that.
“Oh, just enjoying how nice Daniela’s been to you.
I didn’t realize this was that kind of event.
Should Alyssa and I be giving you some space? ”
Oh, for Christ’s sake. Daniela wasn’t the girl I was useless over right now.
But I’d die before I admitted how I felt about Alyssa.
I still didn’t even like to admit it to myself, and I’d been waking up in the mornings convinced I was going to pull myself together and act like a grownup and move past it, and then I’d be at work for two hours laughing like an idiot in the back of my car looking at a text she’d sent.
And I was definitely not going to admit how I’d been cataloguing every scent that Alyssa seemed to enjoy trying to figure out the perfect blend to make her.
“No space required,” I said, and Cat lit up.
“Oh my god, you’re embarrassed,” she said, jaw dropping, eyes sparkling. “You’re embarrassed!”
“No—”
“You do have a crush on Daniela.”
Kill me. “I don’t—Cat.”
“I knew it. She totally has a crush on you too! You should go for it!”
“Cat—” I put my face in my hands, and I covered up a loud groan so she wouldn’t see it.
I desperately hoped Daniela didn’t have a crush on me.
Which was a weird thing to think, when just a few weeks ago, I’d have loved to have Daniela come back and say I’m sorry, I was wrong and try to take me on a date.
But now the only thing I could think of was how Alyssa had looked when she’d been here the other day, nestled in the corner of the couch across from me, blue eyes sparkling as she looked out the window at the endless stars above the valley like it was the best thing she’d ever seen.
Alyssa was the absolute worst person in all Paxton Ridge to fall for. She was the one everyone wanted and nobody could have, so of course it was her I had feelings for. How embarrassing.
“It’s okay,” Cat laughed. “We can make this work. We’ll have a fun night together with the four of us—”
“Cat,” I signed, but she ignored me.
“—and once the evening is getting on, I’ll take Alyssa to go look at something else—”
I signed stop repeatedly, but she was stopping when she damn well pleased.
“—and you and Daniela can get some quality time together!”
“I’m not interested in Daniela,” I said. She laughed.
“It’s okay. I’ve suspected for a while that you had a crush on her—”
“Cat, for the love of god,” I said, “if you try to pair me up with Daniela, I am walking out of there.”
“Ugh. Fine. I’ll play it cool.” She beamed. “So, do I look all right?”
“You look like your legs are going to get cold.”
“Great, so I look perfect. Ready to go?”
This woman was a force of nature. We got in the car.
∞∞∞
Daniela’s house was nostalgic, like I hadn’t been inside in ages, and at the same time, it felt like I was doing something wrong by being there, pausing awkwardly at the door before I knocked.
It unlocked a second later, and my stomach dropped at the sight—not Daniela in the entryway as it had been a million times before, but Alyssa, dressed in a cream-colored cable-knit sweater with her hair up in a braided bun, soft makeup giving her a dewy look, blue eyes sparkling.
“Hey, you two,” she said, signing the keywords as she spoke. “You both look nice.”
“Hey,” I said, my smile flickering. “You too.” God, it wasn’t lost on me—the way I’d been nervous coming in here once already because of a woman I had feelings for answering the door and ushering me in and me feeling like I couldn’t say anything about it.
Different woman, same ordeal. “Cat’s legs got cold. ”
“Hey—I saw that,” Cat said, elbowing me. “My legs are fine!”
“I know you saw that, I was trying to provoke you.”
“Oh my god.”
Alyssa laughed, and she stepped back to let us into the entryway, music playing from inside.
Taylor Swift. Same album she’d been listening to when we first met.
I was going to spiral if I kept thinking things like that.
I could hear Daniela in the kitchen, cabinets opening and closing, the fast footsteps she only did when she was cooking.
Alyssa gestured us inside. “Okay, quit arguing and come inside, or you’ll both get cold. ”
“I’m just fine!” Cat protested, but she went in ahead of me, dropping to a squat to take her shoes off.
I stepped inside after, and Alyssa shut the door behind me, which put her uncomfortably close to me.
I instantly registered the scent—grapefruit, sweet and sparkling, and something floral, maybe orchid.
Maybe a very light perfume, maybe the detergent on the sweater, but it was different from how she usually smelled, something she’d chosen, something she must have liked.
She looked up to meet my gaze, and I felt a nervous flush when she stood this close, looking me in the eye.
This was why pretty girls were a problem.
“You’re wearing makeup today?” she said. Right… not just standing there gazing into my eyes.
“I do know how to dress up on occasion.”
“It’s really pretty. I mean, you look pretty without it, too, but I like the smudged brown eyeliner look for you.”
I smirked. “It’s okay, you can tell me I look sloppy and ugly most of the time.”
“Hey. Don’t antagonize me right now, I have a deadly weapon,” she said, holding up her hand to flash the ring at me. I laughed.
“I yield, I yield. I’m a beautiful butterfly.”
“That’s what I thought,” she laughed, and she put her hands on the lapels of my jacket. I stiffened. “This looks good on you too,” she said. “Haven’t seen this since the last time I slapped you in the face.”
“It’s my flannel body armor. I’m prepared for war.”
“Well, I’m going to take it off you, because you’re going to roast in the kitchen if you’re wearing it.”
Was she doing this on purpose? Tugging on my jacket and talking about what she was going to take off of me?
“You just want it for yourself,” I said lightly, but I slipped it off.
She laughed, taking the jacket, and she paused at the hook by the door, and with a glint in her eyes, she flipped it around and slipped it on, posing.
“How do I look?” she said, adjusting the hem. “Do I look outdoorsy and sporty and cool?”
She… looked like she was wearing my clothes, was how she looked. I always thought I’d be better than to be completely useless over a beautiful woman, but Alyssa did one thing like this and I was gone. “You look ready to run into a tree.”
“Jesus, woman,” she laughed, hands on her hips. “That’s a very serious, loaded trauma! How dare you?”
“I told you, I’m a mean bitch.”
She laughed, shaking her head as she shrugged off the jacket. “What,” she said, hanging it up by the door, “am I going to do with you? I’ll see if Daniela has any ideas. C’mon,” she laughed, heading for the kitchen, and it was only then that I noticed the look Cat was giving me.
“What?” I signed, and she shook her head, a cautious smile on her lips.
“Nothing. Sorry. I was just thinking about something.”
“Since when were you cagey, Cat?”
“I’ve gotta pee so bad,” she said, and she took off for the bathroom. That was so like her that I wasn’t even sure if she was avoiding the subject or if she actually did randomly need to use the bathroom.
Whatever. Her business was her business.
The kitchen smelled incredible, the oven running and three different pans on the cooktop, a couple of dishes already out on the table. Daniela, packing carrots into the food processor, turned and looked at me, and her eyes lit up.
“Well hey, you,” she said, standing up and wiping cooking steam off her glasses. “Nice to see you round these parts again.”
“I swear, you must redecorate every fifteen minutes, I barely recognize the place.”
She laughed. “Sit down. You can have a bread roll before dinner if you want, just don’t spoil your appetite. I’ve got compound butter and regular butter. Both are the fancy butter, because I’m worth it.”
“Because you’re worth it? Are we not allowed the butter, we can just look at it longingly while we eat bread?”
She grinned. “Well, since you asked so nicely, I’ll share this time. Now sit your butt down.”
She’d arranged the chairs with three of them across from one, the typical setup we did so Cat could follow our conversations.
On the bright side, it meant she was still being considerate for Cat.
But it also meant I had to take my pick: sitting right next to Alyssa, or sitting on the other end.
I wasn’t going to be able to focus on any of the conversation if I had Alyssa right next to me.
I pulled out the chair farther from her, and when I sat down, I noticed her smile had turned a little fake, a little glassy, when I’d started talking to Daniela.
Hadn’t she wanted us talking? Was she upset about it?
Cat joined us before long, walking in tentatively with a measured smile at Daniela. “Hey,” Cat said. “Thanks for having me.”
“Thanks for coming,” Daniela said, signing as naturally as if she hadn’t gone a day without talking to Cat.
I’d expected connecting Cat and Alyssa to work, as far as getting Cat back into the community, but I hadn’t expected it to be this quick nor this dramatic.
“Food’s almost ready. Help yourself to some bread and butter. Do we all want some drinks?”
She opened a bottle of sparkling cider and poured us all drinks as Cat joined us at the table, and it wasn’t much longer before Daniela took a rack of lamb from the oven and started the plating on everything, a big spread on the table before we knew it, and Daniela sat with us, in between me and Alyssa.
I felt like it was symbolic somehow, even before Alyssa closed off, not talking as much as Daniela led the conversation.
It was an amazing dinner and a good conversation, and I loved seeing how much Daniela and Cat got on like they hadn’t missed a day, inside jokes and signs we’d invented and nobody outside of our group knew as we caught up on everything from our lives since we’d last been like this, but I found my thoughts circling around the way Alyssa was getting quieter and quieter.
She smiled and nodded, and she focused on her food, giving a quick answer whenever someone addressed her directly.
It wasn’t any of my business. But my brain was intent on making it my business.
The food ran down as we ate our fill, and Daniela stretched and let out a long, satisfied groan, her arms up over her head, before she stood up. “Well,” she said, “what do you say—”
“A walk to help us digest,” I said, and she laughed, swatting my shoulder playfully.
“Let me say it myself!”
“You never change,” I laughed, standing up. “But it sounds good to me. Alyssa, are you—”
“Oh, I’m good,” she said, flashing a smile that was almost convincing. “I’m exhausted, so I’m just going to sit and try to figure out this board game with Cat before you two get back.”
Cat stifled a laugh—Alyssa clearly didn’t know how to sign board game and instead went with bored game, but it got the point across. “Yeah, I’m wiped too,” she said. “Have fun! Look at some trees for me.”
“I can’t believe I knocked you both out that easily,” Daniela said. “It wasn’t that much food.”
“It kind of was,” I said. “But let’s leave your knocked-out victims here to fend for themselves a bit.”
Daniela led me through the front to grab our jackets and get our shoes back on before we headed outside, and I didn’t do a good job playing it cool, because we’d barely gotten outside before I shifted closer to her and spoke in a low voice.
“Is Alyssa okay?” I said. “I feel like something was eating at her for most of dinner.”
“Mm.” She shrugged, looking down as we walked along the edges of the lot, following an old wooden fence to a gate that she unlatched.
Opening the gate out to the nature trails behind Daniela’s house really took me back—such a post-meal routine that I couldn’t have eaten a meal at her house and skipped the walk if I wanted to.
“I dunno. But she went to have dinner at Charlie’s and Linda’s yesterday, and she’s seemed to have something on her mind since then. ”
Oh, god. If she’d sat with the two of them listening to them talk about me, it would explain why she’d been stiff in a conversation with me. But she’d been just fine talking to me in the entryway… it was just until Daniela and I started talking. “She didn’t tell you what it was?”
“I didn’t really ask,” she said with a shrug. “It seemed like she didn’t want to share. You know when you can just feel that someone isn’t looking to talk about something?”
“Huh… I hope she’s okay.”
“Me too. I know, um…” She trailed off, walking ahead of me while the path turned single-file through a clutch of trees, and we came down the rough stone steps onto a dirt path that wound upwards.
I knew where Daniela was taking me—same spot on the overlook she always liked. I followed along next to her.
“You can say it,” I said. “I’m not sensitive.”
“I know you had a whole thing with Charlie, and Alyssa’s really close with you and all, so I’m worried… she wasn’t being different with you since then, was she?”
“No. Not at all.” And I’d have noticed. Alyssa was taking up too much of my mind these days.
“Weird. I’ll probably ask tomorrow, once it’s less recent. In the meantime,” she said, flashing a smile at me, “it’s perfect timing to see a sunset. C’mon.”
“Yeah… just one second,” I said, slowing down behind her, and I knelt to rummage in the brush. One little precocious bush among the still-dry foliage, lush with blue flowers. I slipped out my phone, and I took a picture.
Cat would be devastated to know I was taking pictures of Alyssa’s favorite flowers instead of watching the sunset with Daniela.