Chapter 11
ARE WE DOING THIS?
“All right.” Andy throws her hands up. “We’re two glasses of wine in and no one has mentioned a thing about Holt Wilder being back in town.”
I blink. Shy gives Andy big eyes, tilting her head just slightly to the side as if to say, ‘for real?’
Andy, being Andy, just shrugs. “I drove all the way from the city for the scoop. I’ve downed two glasses of wine, and I’ve got a night on a lumpy couch to look forward to and no scoop to make it worth it.” Andy pins her eyes on me. “Give it to me, babe.”
I groan. “There’s nothing to give. He’s—he’s kind of a dick.”
“Do you blame him?” Quinn eyes me over the rim of her glass. Her other hand rests on Willow’s thigh.
The two are like yin and yang. Light and dark.
Yet they fit seamlessly together. You’d never know it by Willow’s sugary sweet appearance, but the woman is a shark.
Her mind is dagger sharp and that’s why she’s the top real-estate lawyer in town.
The city wept when she left. Seriously. But she wanted a slower pace to life.
A view to unwind with after the grind of her day.
We hold her services on retainer, of course.
Willow slides those cartoon blue eyes to me. They’re the reason people underestimate her.
I know better.
“You did leave the man and marry his brother,” Willow’s words cut into me.
I do my best not to flinch. “I know. It just sucks. There’s nothing I can do or say to make it better.”
“Do you care to make it better?” Willow asks pointedly. She doesn’t filter for anyone. She says what she means and means what she says.
See what I mean? Shark.
Always going for blood.
“I’ve always cared.”
“Oh, honey.” Shy covers my hand with hers. I don’t have to look at her to know she’s slicing a glare into Willow. “You can’t change the past. There’s really no point in trying.”
“You could explain it to him, though,” Quinn interjects. “Tell him why you chose Tate.”
“I didn’t choose Tate!” I exclaim. “Why does everyone say it like that?”
“Because that’s how it is, sweetie.” Willow leans forward. “Isn’t it?”
“I chose Rubble Ridge. I—” I drop my face into my hands.
“I chose Holt. I chose his dreams for him. I took myself from the picture so that he would have everything he ever wanted.” When I lift my head again, I find four sets of eyes on me.
“Tate chose me and—and I didn’t mean to, but I fell in love with him. ”
There’s a big, heavy pause that feels like it’ll crush me before Andy cuts in again. “Enough with the sad shit. I’m not here for that. Someone tell me the man is as hot in person as he is on TV?”
The pause that follows is shocked, then Quinn purrs, “He’s hotter.”
Willow doesn’t look jealous in the least. One, she’s too confident. Two, Quinn does not swing in Holt’s direction. Ever. But she can and does appreciate beauty where she sees it.
Shy nods a little guiltily. “I saw him walking into Wilder Builds the other day.” She fans her face. “He’s way hotter.” She winces. “Sorry, honey.”
“It’s fine.” I harrumph. “It’s true.”
Andy laughs as Andy is prone to do. “Babe, you get to look at the man all day for the next five months. What do you have to be all twisted up about?”
“Only the fact he hates my guts.”
“I think he still wants you,” Quinn says matter of fact. “And that’s what he truly hates.”
“I can assure you that is not the case.”
Quinn shrugs, like she knows something I don’t know. “I guess we’ll just wait and see.”
“Enough about the past. Owen’s spending the night at Colton’s, and Mabel is having a sleepover with Memaw.” I finish the last of my wine and wave down the waitress. “I’m kid free for a whole night and I’m making the most of it.”
Willow sips at her wine. “If you were making the most of it, you’d be reeling in a nice big dick right about now. As you’re doing no such thing…”
I snap my eyes to Andy. “You don’t need to sleep on their lumpy couch. I have a bed plenty big enough for two.”
Of course, Andy knows this. She stayed in it with me while I sobbed my heart out the week after Tate’s death. I’m not sure I didn’t scar her. She hasn’t slept over since.
“Our couch isn’t lumpy.” Willow sniffs. “It’s couture.”
“It’s fuckin’ brutal.” Andy shoots back the rest of her wine, missing—or just flat-out ignoring Willow’s narrowed glare. “But I agree with Willow, babe. You’re seriously in need of some dick. It doesn’t have to be forever dick. Just dick.”
Sometimes I think losing Micha destroyed Andy.
She fell fast and hard for him, but she was his first as he was hers.
After high school, she became quickly obsessed that he needed to experience more life.
More women. That she was somehow holding him back from those experiences.
That obsession quickly festered into an ugly insecurity.
A jealousy that poisoned the good they had so badly, it couldn’t be fixed.
She accused him constantly of looking at other girls. Of wanting other women. It didn’t matter how he tried to show her that he loved her, those insecurities ate away at her.
She broke things off with him seven months after graduation. I think she’s regretted it since because she hasn’t had a single serious relationship with a man, and she sobbed her heart out when Micha met and proposed to his now wife, Mandy.
It was shortly after their wedding that Andy packed up and moved into the city. I think the hardest part for Andy is that she adores Mandy, too. But seeing the man she loved, and maybe still loves, in love with a good woman stung.
“I don’t need a fling.” I wave off the absurd idea. “I’m just not that person.”
Andy leans into the table, popping her chin in her palm. “What kind of person is that?”
I lift a shoulder. “I’m not judging casual sex. I just—” I look down and catch sight of the gold plate that dangles from between two thin chains clasped around my ankle. “I’m not sure I can separate sex from feelings.”
Tate gave the anklet to me shortly after graduation. It’s engraved with the words, He loves you. I’ve never been sure if he meant that Holt loves me, as he told me so many times. Or if it was always his way of telling me he loved me.
I never could bring myself to ask.
“You should try it. Sex without strings is cathartic.”
The waitress comes by, and I order a fishbowl slushie. It’s ridiculous, but I’m feeling like I need something to drown in right about now. Why not a bowl of tropical colored, booze infused, slushie?
I’m halfway through my fishbowl when Shy sits back in the booth. “God, this is good.”
I bob my head. “I forgot how good these are.”
“Like being twenty again.” Shy moans, and her eyes roll.
“I don’t know how I got to be thirty with two kids under seven.
I’m exhausted all the time.” She leans forward to suck slushie from her straw.
“We need to book the grandparents and jet off to somewhere warm.” She points a scarlet red nail down toward her drink.
“Where they make these, and we can drink them all day long by a pool. Where no kids are pulling on me or talking to me.”
“I’m in,” Quinn agrees. “Tell me when to book.”
“I don’t mean I don’t love my kids. I do.” Shy pulls on her straw again. “I would just love the chance to miss them, you know?”
“I get it,” I say around my own straw. “Totally.”
“I’m free anytime but late August.” Andy plucks a crusty nacho from the center of the table. “The gallery can survive without me any time but then.”
Andy is a successful painter who, after years of rejection, started making videos online to showcase her art. Now she has her own gallery. Her love life might be an absolute tornado, but her career is soaring beautifully.
“Are we really doing this?” I shiver because I’m drinking a frozen sugar bomb like I’m twenty and not thirty-one.
I’m also in an uber cute dress because we decided eons ago that we’d dress up when we went out, no matter how ridiculous dressing up super fancy in Rubble Ridge felt.
And it did feel ridiculous, because there was not a single restaurant here in which wearing jeans and a sweater wasn’t entirely acceptable wear for an evening out.
“Why not?” Shy slurs, but only a little. I smile, because it’s cute.
“Yeah? Why not?” Willow asks.
“All right. Let’s plan it.” I feel giddy.
I think the room might sway a little, and that makes me giggle. I like slushies.