Chapter 35
Fable
“I brought supplies” is the first thing Tessa says as she barrels into Millie and Finn’s kitchen door, fresh off her flight from Chicago.
What would Tessa do? Apparently fly halfway across the country last-minute when her sister needs her.
I had no idea where Baby Blue and I were headed until the forest-green door appeared in front of my windshield. My subconscious had steered me straight to Millie’s doorstep, and into the arms of my sister and nieces.
Millie noted my puffy eyes and tearstained cheeks immediately. “What can I do?”
Six hours later—after a much-needed evening of dance parties and coloring with Avery and Eloise—Tessa’s here with several bags full of snacks and two bottles of wine that she must’ve made Finn stop to get on their way from the airport.
Leaving my perch on the kitchen barstool, I let her pull me into a hug.
A heartbeat later, Millie’s there, too, her arms around me for the hundredth time today.
My body relaxes into the embrace. This is exactly what I needed—to be sandwiched between the two people who’ve had my back since the day I was born.
And as I breathe in their familiar scents and feel their arms tangled around me, I finally let out a sigh of relief.
“It’s going to be okay.” Tessa’s voice is so sure that I can’t help but believe her.
Thirty minutes later, my sisters and I are sitting cross-legged around a giant charcuterie board, with glasses of wine and 10 Things I Hate About You playing on the television.
Avery and Eloise helped us set up an air mattress in the middle of the living room, complete with a fluffy duvet and at least ten pillows, for what we called a sisters’ sleepover.
“Can we have a sisters’ sleepover too?” Ave had asked as she climbed onto the mattress.
Eloise stuck her bottom lip out and flashed some puppy eyes that almost had me giving in.
But Finn promised their own sleepover upstairs, and I swore to take them to the park in the morning.
Which garnered enough excitement that they were running to their bedroom, their dog, Pepper, bounding after them.
“Okay, catch me up.” Tessa pops a grape into her mouth. “What did you already tell Millie?”
I roll my eyes. “We waited for you to get here.”
“Knew how mad you’d be if you missed anything.” Millie gives her a knowing look.
Tessa grins. “You two get me.”
“Or we’re scared of you,” Millie murmurs into her glass.
“Whatever works.” Tessa flutters her lashes. “So fill us both in, Fabes.”
I sip my wine and sigh. “It’s a whole lot of things that seem unrelated, but they’re somehow tangled up together.”
“Then give us the pieces and we’ll sort them,” Tessa assures me, which is exactly what I need—someone to make sense of this for me.
Grabbing a slice of cheese, I tell them, “I think I messed everything up with Theo.”
Millie’s smile is sympathetic. “I find that hard to believe, but tell us what you mean.”
The emotions from earlier prickle behind my eyes again. There’s no great way to explain everything, so it tumbles out in a messy string of sentences.
“I finally worked up the nerve to call the property owner for the bookshop, but it’s already rented to someone else.
So I was falling apart, and I wanted to leave.
Just run away and not think about it anymore.
But the Bronco died—which ended up being a stupid battery cable issue, but I was already losing it at that point—and I just . . . wanted to quit everything.”
They exchange a look, but I can’t stop to clarify. I’m on a roll, and if I pause, I may never get going again.
“Then Theo shows up and says he won’t let me quit.
We’ve been doing this fake dating thing—with a contract and rules.
It’s supposed to be casual, but out of nowhere, he says he has real feelings for me.
He’s the one who’s been telling me this can’t be real—that he doesn’t trust himself enough.
This whole time I’ve been keeping a wall up, trying not to let myself fall for him, but then he said that and”—my hands go wide, frazzled—“I was trying to leave, and he didn’t want me to, and then I .
. . said something awful.” I gulp in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Millie’s eyes are full of concern. “What did you say?”
I swallow against my dry throat, not wanting to repeat it. But at the same time, I think the only way to face it might be to let it out and be honest. I can’t hide it if I want to fix it. “I said I was leaving just like he did at the parade.”
Both of their faces confirm what I feared—the jab was unnecessarily cruel. Guilt gnaws at my insides.
“Okay.” Tessa takes a big swallow of wine. “A lot to unravel there.”
“We should’ve taken notes,” Millie chimes in.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“Don’t apologize,” Millie says quickly. “This is a safe space. No sorries needed. This is what we’re here for.”
“Makes me feel useful. I live for this kind of stuff,” Tessa assures me, tying her long hair into a bun, like she means business. “Let’s chat about Theo, then we’ll circle back to . . . a bookshop? Did I hear that right?” I nod, my cheeks heating. “Coming back to that, then.”
“First, nothing is beyond repair.” Millie rubs a hand over my back soothingly. “People say things they regret all the time in the heat of the moment.”
“Absolutely.” Tessa stacks some cheese and prosciutto on a cracker and hands it to me. “The important part is apologizing and trying to do better next time.” She shrugs. “At least that’s what I’ve been trying to tell Harrison, not that he takes my advice.”
My gaze meets Millie’s for a beat. Harrison and Tessa have been together for a few years and recently got engaged on a trip to Bali.
The photos were beautiful and everything in their relationship seems to be progressing exactly how Tessa hoped it would.
The only problem is, we have yet to meet him, and in a tight-knit family like ours, none of us know what to make of that.
Tessa shakes her head, seemingly clearing away her train of thought. “Did you really not know he had feelings for you?”
“There were times I wondered. Times I hoped.” I grab a grape and twirl it between my fingers. “But he insisted he didn’t trust himself in relationships. He has a lot of leftover trauma from his dad, and I didn’t know how to convince him they are nothing alike.”
Millie hums. “Poor Theo.”
“I want to give him a hug,” Tessa agrees.
“But it’s not your job to convince him of that,” Millie says. “You can be a piece of that puzzle, but not the whole thing. There are a lot of other parts that need to come into play.”
“Do you have real feelings for him?” Tessa asks. “Because the pictures I’ve seen in the group chat make it pretty clear that—”
“What group chat?” I interrupt.
My sisters have a silent conversation with their eyes. “The one you’re not part of?” Millie says with a wince.
“Who’s in it?”
Tessa gives me a look that says, Oh, sweet summer child. “Everyone else.”
“The two of us, Finn, Mom, Dad, Eva, Mia, Bree.” Millie ticks them off on her fingers.
“And Logan,” Tessa adds.
I gape at them. “My boss too?!”
“Really, it’s just us gossiping about how to make you two realize you have feelings for each other. And sometimes we share pictures,” Millie supplies. At my frown, she adds, “How else are we supposed to know how adorable you two are when we don’t get to see it in person all the time?”
Tessa’s expression goes dreamy. “Remember the photo Logan sent?” She pulls out her phone and swipes until she finds it.
PROJECT THABLE is entered across the top as the group chat’s name.
“Thable?” I glare down at the screen. “That’s awful, actually.”
Tessa waves a hand in the air. “It was between Thable and Fabeo.”
“Fair enough.” I take in the photo Logan sent last week. It seems he snuck the picture when Theo came to visit on his lunch break and ended up following me around the store while I changed price tags for some items Logan was putting on sale.
In the image, my focus is on the sticker gun in my grip, but Theo’s is all on me.
He’s leaning a shoulder against the shelves, one ankle crossed over the other, and even in the grainy quality, I can tell he’s giving me the look I keep teasing him about.
Like he finds me adorable and wants to scoop me up and take me home.
Like there isn’t a damn thing in the world that could pull his attention away.
Logan’s text says, the boy is quite smitten.
Tessa reaches over and swipes down to a photo from Mom.
In this one, Theo and I are in our Unicorns shirts after our first soccer game.
The girls convinced me to help them dump their water bottles over his head, and even though he’s tall enough for it to not work, he pretended not to see us coming and let us pull him to the ground.
His mouth is wide open with faux shock, water darkening his hair and shirt.
Our soccer team is all around him, laughing their butts off, and I’m looking at him with hearts in my eyes, smiling so big I almost don’t recognize myself.
Mom’s message below the image says, she’s smitten too. Followed by a text from Mia: this is totes working.
I fold my lips together to suppress a grin. “I can’t believe there’s a secret group chat.”
Tessa makes an amused sound. “We’ve had to witness the tension between you for years.
Of course we’re going to celebrate when you two idiots come to your senses.
” She grabs the phone and zooms in on my smiling face.
“You can’t look at this and tell me you don’t have very real feelings for that man. ”
Millie leans her head on my shoulder, looking at the image with me. “You’ve fallen so hard that you’re silly and giddy around him.”