Chapter Eleven
Rowan might have slept, she wasn’t sure.
Not much. Not more than an hour or so. An hour and change. She mostly lay there in her bed, gaze on the windows, watching the night morph slowly, colorfully, into morning.
Her body felt different. Weak, like a wet dishrag, the way it always did after a night of good sex.
Her legs were a little sore. Her shorts were still damp.
Her throat was dry, and she could still smell and taste Evie on her lips, around her mouth, on her fingers.
She’d thought about getting up an hour or two ago and washing up, but she wanted to hold on to the memories for just a little longer.
She shifted her legs beneath the covers and blew out a long, slow breath. She was going to have to get up eventually. She was going to have to face Evie and what they’d done. She was going to have to face Claire and Claire’s knowledge of what they’d done.
Maybe I can just stay in this room until the end of time.
She scratched at her scalp as the thought bounced around in her skull.
Who would she miss? Her mom, of course. Stevie, no question.
And then Kevin’s furry gray face appeared in her mind, reminding her that her mother didn’t really love cats, and that sealed it.
Okay. Can’t stay here forever because I have a cat. Damn it.
The sun began to peek over the horizon, sending shards of deep orange across the glass of her windows, painting some of the wall’s edge.
She lay there for a while longer, not sleeping, but also not moving.
She wondered if Evie had stayed on the couch, if she’d had it out with Claire, if Claire was back across the hall, if whoever was up now could feel the residual tension that she imagined still floated around in the living room like the lingering smell of burnt popcorn.
Rolling onto her back, she reached her arms over her head and stretched her muscles, inhaling a deep breath.
Coffee.
She could smell it brewing, which told her that somebody else was likely up.
The sun had brightened the world, and she was going to have to face it all eventually…
although maybe she wasn’t. They couldn’t force her to talk, right?
What had happened between her and Evie was wonderful and terrible and sexy and awkward, but it was also nobody’s business.
“Fuck it.” She threw off the covers and headed for the bathroom. Maybe a quick shower would help her feel at least slightly more human.
Twenty minutes later, she was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, hair still wet and twisted into a braid down her back.
She quietly opened her door. The bedroom door across the hall was also open.
She tiptoed closer, peeked in from the doorway.
Nobody was there. She could see a mess of a bed, clothes strewn about, a large number of orange pill bottles on the dresser, and several random shoes.
Evie was a fairly neat person, so this disorganization had to be Claire’s.
Rowan shook her head with a sigh and headed downstairs…
…and felt like she’d walked into a lion’s den.
Evie was still on the couch, her rumpled blankets and dented pillow making it clear to anybody who looked that she’d slept there.
Claire was pacing, arms folded across her chest, brow furrowed.
Stevie and Sara were both in the dining room setting the table for breakfast, but Stevie’s eyes held worry, and when she glanced up at Rowan, there were too many questions there.
She couldn’t begin to take them all in, so she looked away quickly.
Justine was around the corner in the kitchen, and when Rowan leaned to get a look at her, her face was etched with the same amount of concern that Stevie’s held.
What the hell was going on?
She wanted to know, but she also didn’t. Avoiding looking at Evie at all—which Stevie noticed—she moved into the kitchen and got herself a mug out of the cupboard.
Just pouring myself some coffee. Nothing to see here.
She held the mug in both hands, letting the warmth seep through the ceramic and into her skin as she leaned back against the counter and watched as Justine picked up a handful of forks and handed them to her just as Lizzie came in from the deck.
“Take these out to the table?” she asked, and when their fingers touched, Justine met her eyes with so many questions on her face that Rowan had to physically keep herself from fleeing.
“Sure.” She took the forks out to the dining room and handed them to Stevie, who looked from Evie to Rowan and back, making it clear to Rowan that she knew something was amiss. Then she swallowed.
The air on the entire first floor was thick with tension, so thick you could feel it, like you were walking through fog, gathering its moisture on your skin. It was Sara who couldn’t take it any longer.
“All right. That’s it.” She stood with her hands on her hips, like the mom who’d reached the end of her rope with her misbehaving children. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing,” both Evie and Rowan said at the same time, and Claire scoffed loudly from across the room.
“Bullshit,” she said, shooting daggers at Evie. For her part, Evie glanced down at her hands.
“It’s nobody’s business,” Rowan said, her voice soft, her eyes on Evie. She cleared her throat as Evie looked up at her, gratitude on her face.
“Except it is.” It was Claire’s turn to park her hands on her hips. “These are your friends.”
Evie’s head whipped around, and Rowan couldn’t see her face as she stared down Claire, who—to her credit—didn’t wither. They just held gazes as if they were having a staring contest.
Sara broke in. “Rowan and Evie had sex. Am I right?”
Rowan’s tiny gasp of surprise left her lips before she could catch it, and she snapped her mouth closed.
Sara rolled her eyes. “Please. I came up to grab a Gatorade, and you guys weren’t exactly quiet.”
“We heard it, too,” Becca said, as she and Jazzy came up from the basement, hand in hand. She waggled her eyebrows lasciviously before reading the room and realizing something was happening. To her credit, she shut right the hell up, which was a very un-Becca-like thing to do.
Stevie’s eyes met Rowan’s, and her expression was hard to read. It wasn’t anger, exactly. Disappointment? Definitely. Worry? A bit, yes. Rowan swallowed.
Sara went on. “And you guys”—she made a gesture between Claire and Evie—“are not together, so I’m told. So, what the hell is going on?”
Evie looked panicked. Then Rowan noticed how the color had drained from her face, how her dark eyes had gone wide with…
was it fear? She clenched and unclenched her right hand, and her throat moved as she swallowed.
Rowan wanted to walk over and sit next to her, hold her hand, offer support for…
whatever it was that was stressing her out so much.
But something held her back. Was it Claire and her proximity?
Rowan’s feet wouldn’t move, as if the soles had been glued to the dining room floor.
“Jesus Christ,” Claire muttered. She looked at Evie and tipped her head, her expression almost sad.
“I can’t do this anymore. I love you, but I can’t.
And neither should you. These are your friends, Evie.
” She held Evie’s gaze and said quietly, but with an almost frightening certainty, “Tell them or I will.”
Evie’s throat moved as she swallowed again. Her gaze held Claire’s for what seemed like hours, but was actually seconds. Then she looked down at her hands and swallowed again.
“Tell them,” Claire repeated, but this time, her voice was softer.
Kinder. Her expression, which had been hard as stone just a moment ago, eased up, and she moved across the room to sit next to Evie on the couch.
She put her hand out, presumably for Evie to take, and Rowan could barely hear her as she whispered, “I’m right here. ”
The only sounds in the house came from outside. A distant boat motor, the muffled shout of somebody down the shore, the call of a seagull as it flew overhead.
And then Evie gave in. Rowan could see the exact moment it happened.
Her shoulders dropped, her head bowed. She let out a long breath, and she took Claire’s offered hand, held it tightly.
After clearing her throat, and she began to speak, so quietly everybody leaned forward the slightest bit so they could hear.
“About three years ago, I wasn’t feeling well.
I couldn’t pinpoint the exact problem, but something was…
off. I was tired all the time, like bone tired.
” She glanced up at Rowan, who suddenly had a quick flash of a phone call from Evie telling her she had a doctor’s appointment and then she’d meet her for lunch.
It came and went so quickly, though, Rowan couldn’t grab on to any of it.
“My doctor was concerned and ran several tests.” Another flash of the next phone call—Evie letting her know something had come up at work and she had to go back to the office and would miss lunch.
She blinked rapidly, the onslaught of memory throwing her slightly off balance.
Evie cleared her throat again and looked up, meeting the gazes of her friends, one by one.
“I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.”
Gasps went around the room, along with a couple of cries of surprise. Justine’s hand went to her mouth. Becca muttered, “Fuck.” Stevie’s eyes shimmered with unshed wetness.
And Rowan? Her heart felt like it was going to hammer itself right out of her rib cage. What had she just said? Three years ago, they’d still been together, still been a couple. Evie had been diagnosed with MS and—
“You didn’t tell me?” Her voice was barely a whisper, but Evie heard it somehow from across the room. “How…?” Rowan shook her head. “How could you not tell me?”