Chapter 5 #2
In her defense, though, who wanted to hang out with people who were grossly in love all the time? She was happy for her best friend, truly, but spending time with Reese and Sydney only served to shine a light on her own idiotic resistance to moving forward.
Finally, the exit to the airport came into view, and Hallie was shocked at the breath of relief she let out. Getting on that plane was really becoming the lesser of two evils.
Sydney, however, didn’t seem ready to leave their conversation where it was. “If you don’t want to share about yourself, I have some news of my own.”
Hallie looked over and saw Sydney’s whole face overtaken by a vibrant smile. “What’s that now?”
When Sydney said, “Now, I know it’s fast,” Hallie already knew what was coming, even as Sydney followed with, “but I’m going to ask Reese to marry me. Over the holidays, on New Year’s Eve.”
Blinking slowly, Hallie absorbed the words as the airport came into view.
God, she felt like such a shitty friend.
Sydney deserved all the happiness a person could suck from this insane world, especially with what she’d gone through over the last year—finding out that her serious partner of six years had been cheating and then being forced to retire from professional tennis due to injury, when her star had only been on the rise.
It wasn’t fair. And sure, Sydney had done what any normal, reasonable person would do and had spiraled about it for a week, back in Stoneport, where she’d stayed with Hallie at the inn.
But then, Sydney had found her drive. Even if it was by fake-dating Reese to annoy Grant, who was in Stoneport for the summer to get married. And now, Sydney was going to ask Reese to get married. Talk about having a best friend who never did anything half-assed.
Hallie smiled, a joke about taking the fake dating thing way too seriously on the tip of her tongue.
In spite of her own tumult—if she could even call it that, since it implied that she was in the midst of some sort of upheaval instead of being so static that moss may grow on her—she wasn’t going to be even a small part of something that diminished Sydney’s happiness.
And Hallie could tell, from the way that Sydney was knuckling the steering wheel, that she cared deeply about Hallie’s response.
She wasn’t going to disappoint. “It is fast, but I don’t know that beautiful millionaires live in the same world as we mere mortals.
And, really, you’ve already retired from tennis.
Doesn’t that make you practically geriatric?
Sort of behind the curve, if you ask me,” Hallie said, flashing Sydney a winsome smile before she added, “So, Sydney King, I am thrilled for you. I couldn’t imagine this happening to a better person. ”
Sydney’s whole face softened. “You don’t think it’s crazy?”
“Oh, it’s absolutely insane.” Hallie laughed boisterously before quieting, turning thoughtful.
She was good at this, focusing on other people’s needs and problems. It helped the dull ache inside her practically disappear, and she leaned into it.
“But when you know, you know. And the two of you have been through more in the last six months than a lot of couples face in years together.”
Sydney let out an affirming sound, and Hallie decided to keep going. She knew that Sydney would make whatever decision was right for her no matter what, but most well-adjusted people liked to feel supported.
And Hallie could support her best friend better than anyone, dammit.
She held up her fingers and started counting off.
“Reese’s mom’s health issues. Both of you coming home to Stoneport.
Entering new careers. Having tough conversations.
Unrelenting family drama. High jinks abounded when you fake-dated.
” She gave Sydney a look. “Though I’m not sure how long that actually lasted before feelings took root. ”
She didn’t miss the look in Sydney’s face, like she was basking in Hallie’s confirmation. It seemed she was taking a walk down memory lane, marveling at how much she and Reese had experienced in these last six months together.
“Probably a lot sooner than I wanted to believe at the beginning,” Sydney admitted with a smile.
Hallie wanted this type of love for her best friend: steadying but exhilarating. The sense of having found a person that made Sydney feel brave while also keeping her tethered to safety, just by virtue of the fact that Reese was by her side through it all.
Hallie had never considered herself an especially romantic person, but sitting here now, as she thought about Sydney and Reese’s unfailing support for one another, she couldn’t imagine anything better.
Especially not when it was responsible for the look of utter contentment on Sydney’s face after her best friend’s turbulent year.
It was amazing for Sydney, sure, but Hallie also liked it as an idea to cling to in a world where it was easy to feel adrift.
They pulled up to the departures drop-off area; there were only a few seconds until Hallie would hop out and make her way to Colorado.
A few minutes ago, she hadn’t expected to find this conversation so invigorating.
But now, she felt like it would be possible to survive her family for ten days, even without the inn to act as a buffer between her and the rest of the Thatchers.
When Sydney eased into a spot along the sidewalk, Hallie put her hand on the door handle but didn’t open it. “I love you, Syd. And I’m so happy that you and Reese found one another.”
Sydney looked at her then, her voice full with emotion. “You’ll always be my best friend, Hallie. That’s never going to change. I want you to know that. And I couldn’t imagine taking this next step without you.”
Hallie smiled, focusing on how her heart squeezed with Sydney’s words.
She reached across the console and grabbed Sydney’s hand.
Maybe she didn’t understand, specifically, what it was like to have the type of love that Reese and Sydney had found together, but she was always going to support her best friend.
“As if you could keep me away.” She shot Sydney a playful smile and added, “And I prefer the middle if we’re all sleeping in the king-size bed together. Just to be clear.”
It was another glorious morning at Mason and Claire’s house in Colorado. Her seventh in a row, in fact, of waking up on a sofa.
Each morning with the rising sun, like she had been shipped off to military school, she stood up, stretched, and then removed any traces of herself from the room that would become the hearth for seven humans.
At least two of them, Henry and Elliot, only weighed about twenty-five pounds each and didn’t take up too much space, but what they lacked in size, they more than made up for in enthusiasm.
They’d learned to crawl on furniture, so she was playing Beat the Clock when it came to making sure that she could wake up to an alarm instead of a tiny, sticky hand in her mouth.
Or ear. Or nose. Kids, she was learning, were really creative and curious like that.
By her battle-tested calculations and multiple morning run-ins with different members of the Thatcher family—always while she was in various states of undress—she figured that she had somewhere between fifteen and thirty minutes to grab a shower in the downstairs bathroom and get herself ready for the day.
Brushing her teeth, she wondered again why her family had acted surprised that, in a house with five bedrooms, she’d assumed that there would be a bed for her to sleep in.
Definitely not her. But, as she’d learned upon arrival, her parents had a standing guest room along with Mason and Claire both having home offices.
Still, when you considered the additional three bedrooms at her parents’ house, the concept of her sleeping on a sofa seemed sort of absurd, even if she didn’t voice it out loud.
Especially because it had been made clear when the sofa was so graciously bestowed upon her that the rest of her family didn’t see it that way.
Sure, her parents had offered her their house to use, but with their insistence that they couldn’t miss a moment of Christmas with the twins now that they lived in Colorado, it felt weird for her to stay a twenty-minute drive away.
And she just knew that she’d always have to ask—or, more accurately, beg—someone to give her rides back and forth.
That hadn’t worked out well for her in childhood, hence why Sydney always hung out at the inn instead of the two of them playing at Sydney’s house.
So Hallie had started setting her alarm for six thirty a.m., just to ensure they didn’t have any repeats of, specifically, her first morning here.
Hallie would never forget the feeling of a Cheerio shoved so far up her nose that she’d seriously wondered whether medical intervention would be needed to remove it.
She’d sat on the sofa pondering all of her life choices, her family milling around her but not overly concerned with her bodily obstruction.
They were absorbed in the twins while they scribbled on her completed New York Times crossword, and she’d been pretty consumed herself, wondering how long, if the worst-case scenario came to pass, it would take for a Cheerio to disintegrate.
Luckily, with an especially aggressive push of air through her free nostril, she’d been able to dislodge it.
Still, her nephews were cute. She’d give them that. They had the softest hair. They smelled amazing—usually. And it was really fun to watch them explore and take in the world around them, sometimes for the first time.
A few days ago, Henry had fallen asleep on her chest. His tiny body had been pressed against her, and he made the sweetest little snoring sounds. She wished that moment—the feeling of comfort and trust and safety, for both of them—could have been extended for the rest of her trip.