Chapter 12
Twelve
T ori should have been heading to work. As managing broker, she liked to be physically present in the office even if most agents did little more than pass through. There were always problems to solve and staff to manage. Plus, she liked it there. Liked the ritual of getting dressed and driving across town and sitting at her desk. Liked the structure of routine and order.
But then there were Mia’s texts asking her to come over to contend with. Her messages were wildflowers breaking through a manicured lawn. Watercolor bleeding over carefully drawn lines. The uninvited chaos of her touch left the world more vibrant—even if also unsettled.
Tori laughed to herself when she turned down Mia’s street. She was losing her damn mind.
She parked next to the Volvo and strode to the front door. In charcoal trousers and a thin black top, she’d slicked her hair back in a tight ponytail. Picking it up was the only defense against seven-thousand percent humidity.
Even though Mia opened the door immediately, Tori had started sweating the moment she was out of AC range.
“Hi,” Mia breathed, face flushed like she was the one standing in the heat. Her gaze floated over Tori’s body and back to her face. “You just go to work like that? Every day?”
Tori’s pulse stumbled and restarted too fast. “Looking like what?”
“Looking like...” Mia gestured vaguely at her. “That.”
Heat flooded Tori’s skin while she tried not to notice Mia’s bare legs under an oversized T-shirt. Notice the strands of hair that had escaped her messy bun. Notice the unreadable glint in her hazel eyes while she peered up at her.
“Well, I tried to talk the partners into letting me wear basketball shorts and a muscle tee, but they wouldn’t bite.” Tori chuckled to spend the nervous energy that was building up too fast. “You finally going to give me those forms or what?”
Mia’s expression darkened when she stepped back to let Tori in. “Are you seeing clients today?”
Escaping the heat, Tori sat at the kitchen counter. “Why?”
On the other side of the counter, Mia studied her like a human lie detector. “That’s not an answer.”
“Technically it’s an answer, since it’s what you got in response to your question.” Tori’s grin broke free and she had to bite her bottom lip to pull it back. “It’s just not the one you wanted.”
Mia’s energy was blinding. She laughed, throat flushed and bobbing. “When did you get like this?”
“Like what?” Tori teased, afraid she was bordering on obnoxious but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. She loved chasing Mia’s delight. Loved it even more when she was the cause.
With her brow raised and her full lips curved in a way that screamed don’t be such a smartass , Mia crossed her arms over her chest. With just her glare, she pinned Tori down.
Tori happily gave up her power with a chuckle. “A lot has changed in fourteen years.”
The moment Tori spoke, she wished she hadn’t. The light flickered in Mia’s eyes right before it died. It had been the wrong thing to say, Tori knew it instantly. Knew it in the way her stomach dropped and her skin prickled and her mouth went dry.
“I haven’t wanted to bring this up.” Mia dimmed so much, there was nothing left. “Actually”—she shifted her weight in a rare moment of uncertainty—“I didn’t want to bring this up at all. I was kind of hoping you’d say something first.”
Tori tried to swallow, but all the moisture in her body had migrated to the sweat pooling at the small of her back. She didn’t want things to change. Didn’t want to talk about whatever was casting a shadow across Mia’s face.
“Why, Tori?” The question was so small. It was the first pebble starting an avalanche. Two syllables had enough force to bring down the mountain of defenses she’d built around herself. “Why did we stop being friends?”
There it was. The fork in the road and Tori couldn’t bring herself to pick a lane. Deluded with hope that she could just keep what they had now—that they didn’t have to dig up what Tori had buried away—Tori tried to deflect. “People grow apart,” she said because the platitude was true enough. “How many adults do you know are still friends with their high school?—”
“We didn’t drift apart,” Mia drove the truth like a spike through Tori’s chest. “You threw me away.”
Digging her short nails into her palm, Tori failed to dodge the jab. “That’s not true,” she snapped, because it was woefully incomplete. Like calling a freezing hiker who breaks into a cabin a thief. Like saying a shipwrecked sailor who ate the last of the rations was selfish. Sometimes survival meant making impossible choices.
How could she possibly explain without painting the entire picture? The truth was radioactive. It would reach back in time and contaminate every sleepover, every hug, every innocent moment of intimacy between them.
Shame and embarrassment kept Tori’s jaw clenched tight. Kept her from revealing how desperate she’d been. How she hadn’t meant for Mia to be collateral damage. All she’d wanted was to stop the gnawing and irrepressible ache of loving someone who didn’t love her back.
“Why couldn’t you talk to me?” Mia’s cracking voice was the crumbling of Tori’s foundation. The numbing in her hands and the trembling in her bones. “If you didn’t want to be friends anymore?” Her eyes were so big, so full of hurt Tori was ashamed of causing. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you know you were going to do it?” The single tear rolling down Mia’s bright red cheek made Tori want to crawl out of her skin. To run away from herself. “Before we left—” She wiped her face, but it did nothing to strengthen her faltering voice. “Before we left for college, did you know you were going to leave me? When did you decide?—”
“It wasn’t like that, Mia.” Tori couldn’t take the agony rampaging in her chest. “Every decision in my life wasn’t centered on you.” The words assaulted her own ears, sounding so much harsher than she’d intended them. She couldn’t rephrase before Mia’s face transformed into pure devastation.
“Is that what you really think of me?” Mia’s expression vacillated between shock and pain. “That I’m some selfish asshole?”
“That’s not what I meant.” Tori swallowed hard, trying to regain herself.
She couldn’t complete a full thought. Couldn’t make her brain work. She was a jumble of nerves. She couldn’t explain without making things worse. How could she tell Mia that she was every stereotype: the lesbian in love with her straight best friend. She was no better than the dudes waiting in the friend zone, desperate for a chance to shoot their shot.
It was too mortifying to admit, so Tori had to choose silence. To let Mia project whatever she wanted onto her like a blank canvas. To let her think she was callous rather than crushed.
“So then, what do you mean?” Mia pleaded. “Talk to me.”
The plea obliterated Tori’s sore heart. The truth was climbing up her throat like bile, and she had to physically clamp her jaw to keep it contained. She couldn’t explain without changing everything, and she couldn’t bear to watch Mia rewrite their entire history through the lens of Tori’s feelings.
“People change, Mia.” She gave her the sliver of truth she could find in her shredded heart. “We didn’t spend years talking about your med school dreams for you to become an MRI tech?—”
“What the hell is wrong with being a tech?” Mia snapped, but there was more confusion than anger in her voice.
Tori shuddered. Her words weren’t coming out right. “Nothing,” she swore. “I just meant that it wasn’t your dream?—”
“Well, I don’t remember you dreaming about being a real estate agent. You’re not managing a team.” Mia slung the accusation like a well-aimed arrow. “When’s the last time you even played basketball?”
Confused by the strange change in topic when all she meant to do was make a point about life winding its own path, Tori furrowed her brow. “You can’t possibly compare a kid’s stupid dream to an achievable goal—” She shook her head. “The point is, we grew up?—”
“I made the concessions I needed to make.” The lethal edge in Mia’s tone was a bat to Tori’s knees. “That doesn’t make my life invalid.” Everything in Mia’s body language screamed that she was shutting down. “And it doesn’t give you the right to judge me.”
Tori slid off the stool. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish drowning in fresh air. She didn’t know how they’d gone so far off the rails. Worse, she didn’t know how to fix it. Everything she said was landing like a blow she didn’t intend.
“I don’t judge you, Mia,” Tori said weakly, wishing she had a white flag to wave. That there was a signal she could send without speaking. A way to disengage without making things worse. “And I’m sorry?—”
“Maybe you’re right. We’re not the people we were in high school. You don’t owe an apology to someone you don’t know,” Mia said, gaze distant and expression unreadable.
The words forced Tori to take a step back on unsteady legs. “Yeah,” she agreed, her handle on her emotions slipping. She turned, fleeing Mia’s house before she started crying. Whoever said the truth hurt underplayed the casualties.