EMBER
By eight in the morning, the apartment is chaos.
Suitcases line the hallway, Jo is checking passports for the third time, Emmett is trying to figure out which bag has his headphones, and Sully is drinking coffee while watching everyone else run around.
Cassidy and I sit at the kitchen island with our own coffees, observing it all.
“Are you sure you packed your charger?” Jo asks Emmett.
“Yes.”
“Your actual phone charger?” Jo asks him.
“Yes.”
“Not your watch charger?”
Emmett stops. Jo closes her eyes. “I’ll get it,” he mutters, disappearing down the hallway.
Sully smirks into his coffee. “This is why I travel alone.”
“You forgot your passport going to Toronto once,” Jo reminds him.
“I found it, though,” he argues.
“At the airport in the gift shop, distracted by the pretty woman serving you.”
Sully rolls his eyes.
The front door opens, and Collette and Fish walk in.
“Morning all,” Fish says happily, making everyone groan. Fish seems like a morning person. “Ladies, it’s good to see you both again,” he says, walking over and giving us both a hug. “You’re not coming?” he asks, looking around for our bags.
“No.”
“I told them that Pierre and Issy said it was okay and we have room on the plane,” Jo calls out.
“We don’t have our passports,” Cassidy states. “And I don’t think we are up for a wedding at the moment.”
Fish’s face softens. “Understandable. So, you’re just going to hang around here while we’re gone?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Cassidy answers him.
“I did say I would shout them on a holiday instead of being stuck in New York,” Sully adds.
“And like we said, we have no passports, plus we’re not the best company. New York works for us right now,” she tells her brother.
“I can stay,” Sully adds.
“No,” Cassidy says immediately.
“I don’t mind.”
“You’re going to your teammate’s wedding. I would feel even worse if you didn’t go because of me,” Cassidy tells him.
“Cass.”
“No. Go have fun and please don’t worry about me. I’ve got Em.”
“They’re just going to sit here and watch terrible romance movies,” Emmett says, returning from his bedroom with the right charger.
“And?” I question him.
“And nothing. I was just saying that’s what you are doing.”
“It may not be as amazing as a wedding in the Caribbean, but Cass and I can still have fun,” I tell him.
“I’m sure you can. So, call me if you need anything,” my brother tells me as he gives me a hug.
“We’re fine. Thanks for the apartment and the fully stocked fridge,” I tell him, but I look at Jo, knowing she is the one who did it as I walk over and hug her. “It’s you I should be thanking.”
She hugs me back. “You’re good. It’s only a couple of days’ worth of goodies.”
“Come on, we’d better go,” Collette says as she hugs us goodbye.
The boys all grab the suitcases and start heading down.
“Now you’re sure? It’s your last chance to jump aboard,” Jo asks.
“Go, have fun, and congrats to your brother and Issy,” I tell her as we push them out the door and wave them goodbye.
Cassidy and I stand there for a moment in the quiet of the apartment. It feels strange with no one in it after the last couple of days with everyone hovering around us.
Cassidy looks around. “So …”
“So,” I say back.
“What the hell do we do now?” she asks.
“I honestly have no idea.”
“I was hoping you did.” She sighs. “Couch?”
I nod as we head back to our places on the couch. “Oh, let me make some popcorn before I settle in.”
“Okay, I’ll look at what’s on and get it ready,” Cass says, while I busy myself in the kitchen getting supplies for a day spent doing nothing, again.
Once I’ve got everything we need, I put it on the coffee table and get myself comfortable. She is still scrolling until she finds a movie where the man is wearing a suit and staring intensely at a woman in a ball gown.
“This looks awful,” she says.
“It looks perfect.” I grin as I hand her a bowl of popcorn.
We settle in.
One movie becomes two.
Two becomes three.
We order pizza from downstairs. Having room service in your apartment is dangerous. We eat more ice cream and cry at scenes that aren’t even sad. By the time it gets dark, neither of us has moved much.
“I think this couch has swallowed me,” Cassidy says as she plays on her phone.
“Me too.” I stretch out my crinkled limbs.
“Dammit, I think I am regretting our choice,” Cass says, staring at her phone.
Huh. What is she talking about? She turns her phone around, and it’s an image of Sully standing in a pair of boardshorts, with no shirt on, showing off his abs.
When the hell did he get so ripped? Has he always looked like that?
Behind him is crystal-clear water and a white sandy beach. “That could have been us.”
I will say, in that moment I might be regretting things. “Could you have handled all that lovely dovey stuff?”
Cassidy looks up. “Hell no.”
“We did the right thing by not going.”
“I know, but still, that does look stunning,” Cassidy says as she continues to scroll through her brother’s socials.
“It does, but we had fun today too,” I add.
Cassidy looks up at me and then around our pile of mess. “Fuck this.”
“What?”
She throws the blanket off. “We’re doing this wrong.”
“Doing what wrong?” I ask her.
“Being miserable.”
“We’re allowed to be miserable.”
“Do you think our husbands are at home being miserable?” Cassidy’s question catches me off-guard. “Do you think us leaving them has done anything to them? Do you think they have stopped sleeping with each other? Or do you think they can finally relax and not have to worry about us finding out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Here we are broken-hearted, miserable, eating our weight in ice cream, while those two assholes live their best lives together.” Tears well in her eyes. “Enough. I doubt they have even shed a single tear about the two of us.”
“They seemed worried when we left,” I tell her. “Yeah, they know where we are and yet … where the fuck are they? Nothing is stopping them from getting on a plane and flying here, if they really wanted to, they would.”
She’s right. “Are you saying we should have gone to the wedding?”
Cassidy shakes her head. “Hell no, I’m not ready for that. What I’m saying is, tomorrow we don’t sit on our asses and watch horrible movies. We go out and explore.”
“New York?”
“Yes, people save for years to come here and do all the things.” I stare at her. “Let’s pretend we are on holiday. Girls trip, you and I, exploring New York.” I think she has lost her mind. “What have you always wanted to do here that we haven’t done yet?”
“I don’t know.”
She grabs her phone and starts tapping away. “Oooh, what about a spa day? We get massages, facials, and completely pampered.”
“That does sound nice,” I tell her.
“Perfect, let’s find the best day spa and book us in. We deserve it.”
She’s right. Maybe us getting out of the apartment and away from wallowing in sadness might be exactly what the doctor ordered.
“We should check out the Met.”
“Yes,” Cassidy says as she continues to tap away. “We could head to the Hamptons for the day and check it out.”
I nod, excitement filling me. “We could do a Broadway show.”
“Yes, the boys never wanted to do that,” Cassidy agrees.
We spend the rest of the night coming up with plans.