Chapter 18 #2
Without warning, the door to Maddy’s house flies open, my grandma’s voice ringing through the room.
We all turn as one to watch my mom, followed by Tyler, Caitlin, and Maddy’s moms—Julie, Hallie, and Emma—come piling into the living room.
They are led by Rachel Parker, technically Caitlin, Jack, and Tyler’s grandma, but in actuality, the matriarch of the Parker family has long since claimed all of us, and our parents, as her own.
“You invited the moms?” I hiss at Maddy.
“Oh, honey,” Rachel says, nudging Emmy aside and plopping down right between us. “You should know by now that no one has to invite us anywhere.”
“Sorry not sorry,” Julie says with a shrug, dropping a kiss on top of my head and grabbing a taco before taking the seat on my other side. “Tyler told us you were all hanging here, so we decided to crash.”
Shit. My stomach does a nervous little shimmer at the reminder of who, exactly, Julie is.
She’s always just been Aunt Julie, my best friend Tyler’s mom and my mom’s best friend.
But considering we’re sitting here talking about how I am head over my damn heels in love with her son, it might be time to reframe that relationship in my head.
Except my traitorous brain chooses this moment to serve me up a three-year-old memory to remind me that Julie does, in fact, know I’m in love with her son and the exact circumstances surrounding her acquiring that little nugget of knowledge.
“He said you would have tacos.” My mom sits behind me and slings an arm around my shoulder, tugging me into a backwards hug.
“Besides, I think the better question would be why didn’t you invite me?
It’s been a minute, Soph. If your dad wasn’t keeping tabs on your house renovation, I wouldn’t know anything about you, and you know how much I hate not knowing things.
How come you didn’t tell me about the fireplace? ”
“Uh, what about the fireplace?” I ask, turning to face my mom, trying to remember if Tyler told me anything about a fireplace.
I can’t even remember if my fireplace was damaged in the flood.
Or what it looked like before the flood, if I’m being honest. The salient details of home ownership are not my forte.
“Don’t ask her anything about the renovations, Aunt Molly,” Caitlin says with a rare grin. “Soph is on a strict need-to-know basis. As in, she wants nothing to do with it, and Tyler took control of everything with Uncle Gabe.”
“Did he?” Hallie says with a full-blown smirk as she takes the seat next to Caitlin and grabs a taco from the platter. “How thoughtful of him.”
“Tyler has always been the most thoughtful of our boys.” Emma runs a hand over Maddy’s bright red ponytail and helps herself to a margarita. “He’s good like that.”
“Isn’t he just,” Rachel says thoughtfully, leaning to the side to bump my shoulder with hers, and I watch as she, my mom, Hallie, Julie, and Emma exchange a look that manages to be both knowing and gleeful all at the same time.
“Uh, what is happening right now?” I ask suspiciously.
“Nothing,” Rachel says, her voice giving I know nothing at all, but her body language and amused eyes telling the opposite story. “We don’t know anything.”
“We definitely don’t know anything, and we definitely didn’t crash this taco night to see if maybe you were finally spilling your guts about your feelings for Tyler.
We wouldn’t know anything about that.” Julie gives me a wry grin when I cough out a laugh because this night isn’t turning out at all the way I thought it would.
“What do you mean, finally? How do you know I have feelings for Tyler?” is all I can think to say, even though I know exactly how Julie knows.
All at once, Julie, Rachel, Emma, Hallie, and my mom start laughing.
“Sorry,” my mom manages, leaning forward and squeezing my shoulder. “It’s just…well, you haven’t been all that subtle, Soph. What’s it been? Like, two years now?”
“Three,” Julie says, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Ever since the night that…”
“No,” I say, holding up a hand, feeling my face flush with embarrassment. I don’t get embarrassed easily, except for anytime I get a reminder of the night my feelings for Tyler stood up and introduced themselves. “We are not discussing that night.”
“Wait,” Emmy says, studying Julie like she holds the secrets of the universe. “You know what happened the night Sophie realized she was in love with Tyler?”
“You never told them?” Julie asks, her voice full of surprise, and I have a brief internal argument over whether running out of this room or just melting through the floor would be a more effective escape route.
“She didn’t,” Maya confirms. “She keeps that secret in a big file folder marked classified.”
“Because it’s embarrassing,” I grumble, sliding the chips and guac closer to me, because if I’m airing my feelings for Tyler in front of all the women in my family, you better believe I’m doing it while injecting a steady stream of junk food directly into my veins.
“You don’t have to tell us,” Caitlin says, looking at me in that serious way of hers. “Now or ever. We can stop this conversation right now and never say another word about Tyler Hansley ever again. But if you want to talk, we’re here, Soph. We’re always here.”
“Always,” Sarah says, reaching over Julie and laying a hand over mine as emotion tightens my throat because no, I’m not at all sure any job is worth leaving this. “We want what you want.”
“You’re our best friend, Soph,” Maddy says quietly.
“We want you to be happy, and if we can help you get there, then count us in. But if all you want to do is eat tacos and not talk about you at all, Maya can regale us with the latest installment of her dating misadventures and we can forget Tyler Hansley even exists.”
Maya nods emphatically. “Last week there was a gym-bro who told me I would look better if I worked out regularly and then proceeded to draw me up a five-day-a-week workout plan on a cocktail napkin.”
Emmy points at Maya. “We’re definitely getting back to that. But it’s Soph’s call.” She turns to me. “To Tyler or not to Tyler? Or maybe you want to share your adventures with football guy with the class.”
“Who’s football guy?” my mom asks, but before anyone can answer her, the moment is interrupted by Rachel’s dramatic sniffle, and when we all turn to her, she’s wiping tears from under her eyes.
“Ignore me,” she says, waving a hand in front of her face.
“I just love you girls so much, and I’m so proud of the family you are to each other.
You remind me of another group of friends who used to angst about their impending relationships and lean on each other through it.
And me,” she says a little smugly, tears suddenly forgotten.
“I’m excellent at relationship advice.” We all follow her gaze as she looks at my mom, Hallie, Julie, and Emma.
“You guys angsted over relationships?” Sarah asks.
All four of them laugh in unison. “You girls think you have the market cornered on relationship drama?” Hallie asks with a grin.
“Ask Rachel about the time I came to her all confused because Ben started acting differently with me and I had no idea what it meant or how to handle it.” She gives me a meaningful look, and I have no idea how I could have forgotten that Caitlin’s parents started off as best friends—a lot like Tyler and me.
“Or when I was kind of a mess because Asher was working through some stuff over the end of his career when we first got together and I didn’t know how to handle it.” Rachel leans over me and covers Julie’s hand with hers, and Julie smiles at her mom. “I ran directly to my parents.”
Emma turns to Maddy. “When your dad found out he had a brother he never knew about, and then discovered the truth about his biological dad, it messed him up for a bit. It was Hallie, Julie, Molly, and Rachel who helped us both through it.”
“Your dad and I had our share of angst at the beginning too,” my mom says in a low voice.
“There isn’t one single relationship in the world that’s perfect, but if it’s right, you work through it.
And you lean on your friends. Not everyone is lucky enough to find the loves of their life in the women around them.
Their sisters,” she says, looking around the circle at Emma, Hallie, and Julie.
“But I was.” She reaches forward and squeezes my hand. “And you are too.”
“Shit,” Hallie mutters, wiping tears from her own eyes. “I fucking love you, Mol.”
“And don’t forget about me,” Maddy says with a smile.
“It wasn’t that long ago that you were there for me when I was figuring out how I could have the guy and his kids and also have the career I loved.
And now I have all three, but I couldn’t have done it without you.
And you don’t have to do it without us. If you want to do it, that is. ”
Sitting in this circle full of my mom’s friends and my own, sinking into the company of these women I love so much and who I know love me too, makes me feel a little invincible. Like maybe, with them on my side, I can find my brave and finally go after what I want.
Tyler. It’s always, always, always been him.
“I want it,” I say immediately. Emphatically. “Him. I want him. Sorry if that’s weird,” I say to Julie with a shrug because I’m actually not that sorry.
Julie laughs and shakes her head. “It could never be. I love you like you’re my own daughter, Soph, and Tyler has always been yours.
I knew it when I found the two of you in my backyard celebrating your birthdays at midnight the year you turned eight, just the same way I know it today.
He’s been waiting for you, honey. I just think maybe he doesn’t know it yet. ”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I mumble, watching Julie’s eyes sharpen with interest, and seeing my mom sit up straight, like she’s prepping herself for gossip.
“Tell us everything,” my mom says dramatically.
And with laughs all around the circle, and margarita refills for everyone, I sit surrounded by all of my women, and I do exactly that.