Chapter 5
Five
L eaving a dozen discarded outfits on her usually tidy bed, Tori walked out of her loft in tailored white pants, camisole, a loose white top, and her favorite mint green suede loafers. The likelihood of torrential afternoon rain in the summer was all but guaranteed, but it was still morning and the sky was an uninterrupted blue canvas. Plus, she kept backup sandals in the trunk.
It was only when she woke up at sunrise to run with her club that Tori realized two rather glaring issues with her day. Mia hadn’t told her what time to go by the house, and she hadn’t left her phone number. Tori blamed her brain having shriveled into a raisin upon the twin shocks of seeing Mia unexpectedly and learning that her mother died. A momentary lapse that wouldn’t be repeated.
A folder full of forms and agreements tucked under her arm, she crossed into the garage attached to her building. Normally, she’d have sent all the documents for Mia’s review over email, but she didn’t have that address either. Pulling out of her assigned space, she forgave herself for being unprepared. She hadn’t sold a residential property in so long; it was normal to be rusty. Yeah, that was it.
Joining the throng of cars crawling onto the highway, she took her usual route to work. Except this time she was going back to the house she never expected to see again. For years, she’d successfully avoided coming within a three-block radius.
Tori forced herself to release her death grip on the steering wheel. This didn’t have to be a whole thing. She’d have Mia email the executed forms when she was done and she’d send an assistant to stage and photograph the house. It’s not like she’d have to keep seeing Mia. And anyway, Tori had only been thrown by the unannounced visit. She didn’t have feelings for her anymore. She didn’t even freaking know her.
Fifty minutes later, Tori’s Jeep was turning down a street that had barely changed in fourteen years. Old trees blanketed the residential road in shade and complimented the 1920s Spanish-style homes. The City of Coral Gables’ notoriously Draconian—and definitely snobby—Board of Architects made sure that everyone’s house fit the same manicured, Mediterranean aesthetic.
Tori smiled at the memory of Grisel going before the board to plead for a variance to paint her house a color outside the pre-approved list. When she lost, she painted the house stark white in personal protest.
Lungs burning when she rolled to a stop in front of Mia’s house, Tori forced herself to breathe. She’d forgotten about Grisel’s Volvo until seeing it parked in its usual spot in the driveway. She hadn’t anticipated that it would shove her down a rabbit hole of fond memories. Clawing her way out of it before she could drown in the nostalgia, Tori jumped out of the Jeep and took long strides up the walkway.
A chunk of yellow paper wedged into the jamb of the arched wooden door made Tori hesitate. Even half hidden, its trapezoidal shape was apparent. When the nuns at their high school banned cell phones during school hours, they’d gone back to the ye olde passing of notes between classes. The sisters of solitude hadn’t loved that either, but it had been an acceptable lesser evil.
Tori’s heart jumped on a treadmill when she pulled the note free. They’d passed each other thousands of notes. She could still smell them burning in the dirt on her first summer home from college. Her then-girlfriend had been right, and she’d known it even when it felt like she was setting part of herself on fire. To get over Mia, she had to purge her from her life.
She unfolded the note without ripping it because her fingers still remembered how.
Let yourself in!
p.s. can you believe I remembered how to make one of these lol I won’t remember my freaking password when I get back to work, but this I couldn’t forget!
p.s.s. fine I had to practice a few times—don’t judge
p.s.s.s WHY ARE YOU STILL READING!? COME ON!
p.s.s.s.s. Are you still reading because you’re not Tori? If you’re an axe-murderer, then you should know the door is unlocked, but I have a 200 pound Rottweiler that will def eat your face. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED
Tori laughed, her skin dancing with heat and easing tension.
Despite the unhinged invitation, Tori knocked on the door that had been painted a rich blue. While she waited for Mia to answer, she imagined Grisel’s delight at having gotten such a bold color approved by the city.
When Mia didn’t come to the door, Tori tried the buzzer. Nothing.
It was too weird to just walk into her house. To a place she hadn’t been in so long. To see someone she wasn’t friends with anymore. It was too familiar. Too intimate. She was just there to do a favor for someone in need, not rekindle a dead friendship.
Tori considered leaving the folder on the welcome mat, but she thought of all the things that could go wrong. Papers flying down the street, a stranger picking them up, looking childish and unprofessional.
Muscle memory made Tori try the doorknob and madness made her pull it open. She was just going to drop the folder inside and go. She wasn’t a weirdo for not wanting to traipse through a stranger’s house. Who the hell even left a note like that, anyway?
“Mia? It’s Tori,” she projected as loudly as possible. “I came to drop off the listing agreement and some stuff for you to review.” She leaned in through the doorway.
It was like stepping into a dream. The house smelled the same. Lemon-pine cleaner and wood and sunshine on linen. She drifted through the small foyer and into the living room packed wall-to-wall with things.
“Mia?” she called again. The four-bedroom house wasn’t that big. Mia should hear her calling from the living room that acted as its heart.
Tori didn’t know how long Mia had been in town, though Grisel’s obituary said she’d passed three months earlier. However long Mia had been there, it was obvious she’d made no progress with packing. A massive stack of boxes was still bound with plastic bands and untouched. From where Tori stood, she could see that the boxes in the kitchen were the same.
The place was a time capsule. A vivid dream. Tori could almost smell the popcorn jumping to life in the microwave. Feel the softness of blankets fresh out of the dryer piled on top of them while they watched Mean Girls for the hundredth time.
Snapping herself out of it, Tori cleared her throat. She wasn’t there to take a sojourn through time. She was there to do a job.
Folder tucked under her arm, Tori crossed the living room and opened the French doors leading to the backyard. The space was only big enough for a glorified lap pool, a hundred square foot pool house, and a strip of grass. Tori forced herself to forget how many times the pool had served as the backdrop to her fantasies and stepped outside.
Outside, Tori’s surroundings faded. The sight of Mia relaxing in the floating lounger was a jolt straight to her unprepared heart. Water beading on her gorgeously thick thighs and sweat glistening over her full cleavage, Mia was unfairly stunning. Tori worked hard to be a good person. She gave generously to charity, volunteered her time to at-risk youth, fed stray cats. And yet, the universe had deemed it fit to punish her like this.
As soon as she approached the pool, Mia pulled off her sunglasses and greeted her with a beaming smile. “Okay, but how impressed were you with my folding skills?”
Tori smirked. “Meh,” she teased.
“Oh, please.” Mia laughed. “I bet you were overcome with delight.” A smile etched itself into her cheeks. “Admit it.”
It had only been two days, and already Tori was tired of swimming against the current. Mia was only going to be back in her life for a few weeks at most. Was it so bad to go with the flow? To indulge just a little in something that felt so good? Tori always made the reasonable choice, but with the sun on her skin and her judgment sinking somewhere in Mia’s crystal blue pool, she went for reckless.
“I thought you were in need of a real estate agent, not a fan club.”
Mia’s smile brightened—gaze scorching where it landed on Tori. On her eyes. Her mouth. Her eyes again. “What’s so bad about wanting both?”
“Still so greedy after all these years?” Tori dropped the papers on a folding chair and slipped her hands into her pockets.
Mia cocked her head slowly to the side. There was a challenge in her glinting hazel eyes. A dare in the curve of her lips. “You used to love when I was greedy.”
The words, unmistakably flirty, were the heat coursing through Tori’s body. The jump in her pulse. The weightlessness in her belly.
Shit .