16. Dove #2
Reverie came to a skidding halt in front of us, jarring me from my contemplation, and threw open her door. She hopped down and opened her arms wide. “ Surprise!” she sang, a large grin fixed on her face.
My warring thoughts were pushed aside as a tidal wave of emotion overcame me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d really missed her until she was standing right in front of me.
“Rev!” I threw myself at her, wrapping my arms around her middle as hers slid around my shoulders. We hugged tightly and something that had been missing clicked back into place. I needed my best friend right now. I had no idea why she was back in Haven, but here she was.
“What are you doing here,” I mumbled into her hair, inhaling the fancy shampoo she always used to take care of her artificial blonde locks.
“What, am I not welcome back home anymore?” she teased, then leaned down to whisper in my ear. “It’s a long story, I promise we’ll talk later.”
She squeezed me once before she said pointedly, “I think we have a lot to talk about.”
I pulled back, seeing the questioning glint in her eyes and the knowing smirk quirking her glossy lips. Okay, she’d totally seen how close Josh and I were.
“Reverie,” Josh drawled, stepping up from behind me. “Good to see you.”
Reverie kept an arm around my shoulders, still hugging me to her side as she purred, “You, too, Josh.” Her eyes perused him up and down. “Always a pleasure.”
I pinched her side, and she yelped, which had Josh suppressing a chuckle as she turned a scowl on me.
She waved a hand at him and whispered loud enough for him to hear, “You didn’t tell me he looked like that now!”
My face burned, and I refused to look at Josh. If she didn’t shut up, she was asking for more than a pinch. I shot her a wide-eyed warning but, all she did was smirk, like she knew exactly what she was doing.
She probably did. Rev had always been way too invested in my crush on Josh. I would have wondered if she wanted him for herself by the way she fixated over it, if she hadn’t been obsessed with Zeke the moment she’d laid eyes on him.
“You should’ve called,” I told her, guilt tugging at me. I hated that I couldn’t drop everything to hang out with her, but I couldn’t leave Josh to do this by himself. “Josh and I are in the middle of?—"
“Nothing pressing,” Josh interrupted, and while I could still feel the flush on my face, I risked a look at him now that I wasn’t completely beet red. “We were almost done here anyway. I can finish it up. You go on ahead, catch up with Rev.”
“You’re the best, Josh!” Rev all but praised, but I hesitated. We had a much larger portion of the fence done than not, but he’d still struggle to do the rest of it by himself.
I shook my head, turning to Rev. “Let me finish this and then maybe?—”
Before I knew it Josh was in front of me, his hands tight on my shoulders, turning me to face her car.
“No.” The warm puff of his objection caressed the shell of my ear, and I swallowed, throat running dry. “I got this. Go with Reverie.”
I took an obedient step toward her Jeep, watching as my friend pulled herself up into the driver’s seat.
“What about the rest of the chores?" I asked, stalling.
“I can handle them, too. Don’t worry.” His hands pressed along the curve of my shoulders, urging me forward. When I planted my feet and refused to budge, he let out a huff. “Don’t fight me on this.”
It didn’t feel right saddling him with all the chores just because Rev unexpectedly showed up. She gazed at me through the windshield, eyes volleying back and forth between us, likely jumping to conclusions I wasn’t a hundred percent certain I could deny.
Even if all I wanted to do was sit down and make up for lost time, there were responsibilities I couldn’t just dip out of.
“ I can’t let you?—”
Josh’s low growl cut off my feeble protest.
“Dove.” The weight of his hands slid from me and my beathing came easier. Until one of them skimmed down my spine to prod low at my back. “ Go. With. Reverie.”
His tone left no room for argument, and I grew hot, thighs pressing together at the ache that formed between them at his commanding tone.
The hand at my back pressed harder, slipping lower until I could feel his fingers grazing the tops of my jean shorts, curling in a tease just under my T-shirt that had ridden up at the base of my spine.
His fingers were hot along the soft skin there and just a hair away from dipping inside my waistband.
I all but crawled into her Jeep after I rounded the front at lightning speed, my face on fire as I kept my head down, unwillingly to risk even a glance at Josh. Not when the touch of his hand still throbbed along my lower back like a brand.
Rev put her Jeep in drive the moment my door closed, throwing a jaunty wave out her window to Josh as we drove away.
When he was nothing but a speck in her rearview mirror, she let out a low whistle.
“What?” I pretended I had no idea what she was alluding to.
When she pulled up to the front of our house, she threw her car into park so fast I rocked forward from the sudden stop.
When she turned to face me, her hazel eyes were gleaming with anticipation.
“Tell me everything.”
We settled in the kitchen. Rev was in need of some caffeine since the jet lag was getting to her, and I needed something to do as I struggled to get my frazzled thoughts in order.
When the coffee was freshly brewed and poured, we sat across the kitchen table from one another.
“When did you get in?” I sipped tentatively at my steaming coffee, attempting to ignore the sight of Josh out the kitchen’s bay windows, nothing but a tiny figure against the sprawling countryside.
Rev sighed into her coffee, eyes closing in bliss as if it was something much fancier than classic Folgers. “Late last night. My sleep schedule is fucked .” She blew at the liquid before taking a sip, humming in satisfaction.
I rolled my eyes. “What sleep schedule? You’re the queen of staying out late and still being able to look presentable at a reasonable time in the morning.”
Her smile turned devilish. “I’m not denying that. In Cali, sure . But jet lagged? That’s a whole other beast.”
Speaking of California…
“How long did you get off for?” Even with the text she’d sent me mentioning coming home, this was certainly a random visit from her, what with there being no holiday in sight.
Even then, the call to visit home for the holidays didn’t always lure her in.
I considered her from across the table, but her focus remained on the gleaming cherry wood of the tabletop, steadfastly not meeting my eyes.
“I imagine your schedule will really be thrown out of whack when you go back.”
She only made a noncommittal sound before taking another drink of her coffee.
My eyes narrowed in suspicion. Reverie was a lot of things, but a bullshitter wasn’t one of them. If she had something to say, she had no problem saying it. Her avoidance was a giant red flag.
“You are going back, aren’t you?” I asked, thinking of the most preposterous thing I could think of to loosen her up, expecting her to laugh at the ridiculousness of my question until she told me what was really bothering her.
But once again her silence was deafening, and her eyes met mine only to dart away again, which could only mean one thing.
“Rev.”
Her mug clanked down on the tabletop. “Renzo wants to sell the salon to me,” she blurted.
I blinked. “You mean he wants to make you a partner?”
“No.” She shook her head, her loosely curled blonde locks swaying around her shoulders. “He had some sort of spiritual awakening while tripping balls at a festival two months back. I guess it directed him to greater things than LA, apparently. Go figure. He wants to sell, pack up, and go .”
“Go where?” I couldn’t imagine upheaving your whole life over a drug-altering experience. Angelenos were a whole different breed…
“I have no fucking idea.”
“Isn’t that good news? You love that salon, you love Los Angeles.”
“I do,” she answered slowly. “But…”
My brows furrowed. But? This was the first time I’d ever heard her unsure of her decision to move to California.
The plane had barely landed on the tarmac before she’d been texting me, exclaiming how in love she was with the city all those years ago.
It hadn’t surprised me one bit. LA suited her personality, which had always been just a tad too big and a little too loud for the small country town we lived in.
“But?” I prompted, curious.
She let out a gusty sigh, pushing her coffee aside so she could flop down on the table, her head cradled in her arms. “I don’t know, Dee. I asked him for time to think on it, and he said he’d give me till the end of this month but I…”
“Packed up and flew home instead?” I finished for her.
Reverie had a knack of running from her problems. Up to and including moving to LA—even though it had been a lifelong dream of hers.
It had also been fueled by her avoidance of a particular six-foot-three, two-hundred-something-pound problem she called her boyfriend.
Ex- boyfriend now.
“Yes,” she groaned. “I panicked . When I think about owning Rouge , a part of my heart soars, but another part…”
I didn’t interrupt her this time, knowing she needed to work through this on her own, with a listening ear. That’s what best friend were for, weren’t they? Knowing when to step in and advise but also knowing when it was time to step back and just be a comforting presence.
I’d missed being there for Rev, and I hated that she’d been going through all this alone. But she was here now, and I would help her with this dilemma as best as I could.
“Another part,” she began again quietly, her hazel eyes peeking over her arms at me, “tells me it’s not what I want.” She paused, as if looking for the right words to describe what she felt. “It’s too permanent. It feels like I’m… missing something.”