Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
LOON JURISDICTION
TULLY
I pick The Loon for dinner because it’s loud enough to drown out my thoughts yet not so loud that it’s unbearable. Also because Goldie never says no to their Tater Tot hotdish, and she’s leaving a big project on her new house to see me at the last minute, so I need her in a good mood.
She’s already in a booth when I walk in, blonde braid over one shoulder, and demolishing a basket of fried pickles.
“Wow,” she says, looking me up and down. “What happened to you?”
“Thanks. Love you too,” I mutter, sliding into the booth.
I haven’t slept. Every time I close my eyes, I see Lola’s face, then his.
“I already told Lorraine to bring on the hotdish and the cheese curds.”
“I need an IV with both.”
Lorraine walks up with water and winks at me. “Well, hello, good-looking,” she says. “What’s with the long face?”
“Hey, Lorraine. I just needed to see you.” I muster up a grin, and she squeezes my shoulder.
“Thanks, honey. If only I were thirty years younger.” She sighs before walking away.
Goldie leans back, studying me the way only my twin can—like a surgeon rummaging through my brain and heart files.
“Okay, you’re concerning me,” she says. “You haven’t been this quiet since college, when you came home after—”
“She’s here,” I interrupt, dragging a hand down my face. My stubble scrapes loud in my own ears.
Our hotdish arrives, steaming, molten in the middle and crispy on top. Normally this is a spiritual experience. Today it’s just…food. I burn the roof of my mouth and accept that this day is just not going to get better.
“Who’s here?” Goldie asks.
“Lola.”
“Your Lola?” Her eyes go wide.
My chest twists at that, like she could still be mine. But I nod anyway. “Yeah. My Lola.”
“In Windy Harbor?”
“I’ll do you one better. She’s staying at Windhaven…with Patrick fucking Martin.”
Her mouth drops and her fork clanks against the table. “From the Dallas fucking Suns?” Her voice gets higher with each word, and she clamps her hand over her mouth. What the fuck? she mouths.
“Apparently they’re dating, and he brought her here for a romantic getaway, knowing full well it was our resort.”
“And Lola? Did she know?”
“She claims she didn’t?”
“Do we believe that?”
I lift my shoulder. “I’m not sure what to believe at this point.”
Her brows lift and she leans back. “I never even met her, but I know that name comes with a lot of heartache for you.”
I stab at the hotdish. “It’s been years. I’ve dated. I’ve lived. I’ve done the whole ‘I’m fine, actually’ tour.”
Goldie gives me a sad look. “You were never fine about Lola. You totally shut down. When you were together, you talked about her all the time, and when she left, you barely ever did again. This is the most we’ve spoken about her in all these years.
And that’s not you.” She points back and forth between us. “We’re oversharers with each other.”
“I know. She was the first person to make me really laugh after Mom died. She…meant a lot to me.”
She nudges my foot under the table. “You loved her, didn’t you?”
Didn’t. Like it’s past tense. Like it’s neatly wrapped in a tidy bow and over.
I look down at the plate, crispy tots blurring in my vision, and nod.
“She’s the only person I thought maybe I could see a forever with,” I finally admit.
Goldie exhales, and her eyes fill with tears. She reaches for my hand.
“You’ve never told me that. I’d hoped you didn’t talk about her because of anger or embarrassment over the way she left, but deep down I always suspected that it was because you really loved her. I’m so sorry, Tulls. You’re still not over her, are you?”
I can’t hold her gaze. I look down at my plate and take a deep breath. “No, I don’t think I am. Seeing her laughing with him like it’s easy? Like she’s moved on and didn’t wreck me?”
Goldie softens even more. That’s the thing about her—my sister can set anyone straight, but she’s the safest place on earth.
She also does the unexpected, keeping all of us on our toes. I love this about her.
For example, now she reaches across the table and steals half my hotdish onto her plate.
“Hey—”
“You’re in emotional crisis,” she says. “You’re not capable of appreciating this properly. I’m stepping in.”
I shake my head, a weak smile pulling at my mouth.
We eat in silence for a minute, the bar noise swelling around us—clinking glasses, a bad country song on the jukebox, someone laughing too loud.
“What are you gonna do?” she asks finally.
I think about Lola’s smile. About Patrick Martin’s hand on her back. About the way my heart still moved toward her like it didn’t get the memo that it shouldn’t.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Pretend she’s just…some girl I used to know?”
Goldie raises her water glass. “To catastrophic love and cheese curds.”
I clink mine against it. “Too squeaky to survive.”
She grins.
A throat clears, and Goldie and I look up at the same time.
Erin and Ava.
Erin gives us a pointed look. “No one told us there was a party tonight.”
“Hi, guys,” Ava says.
I stand up and hug Ava. We only recently found out that Ava’s our sister.
My mom had Ava before she got with my dad, placed her in adoption, and then never got a chance to meet Ava before she died.
Her dad, Bruce, is someone who’s been an enemy of our family for longer than I’ve been alive, and he tried to do everything he could to keep her from being a part of our family.
Once Ava saw the truth about him, we were able to move forward.
It’s been a little surreal to meet a new sister as an adult, but I think we’re all adjusting as well as can be expected, given our rocky start. Better, even, but it’s taken some time.
“Hey,” I say. “Have a seat.”
I hug Erin next, and she pinches my cheek before sitting next to Goldie. Erin’s my sister’s best friend and may as well be family. Ava sits next to me.
“This is more like a last-minute dinner,” Goldie says. She turns and looks at Erin. “Nice victory rolls.”
Erin pats her hair and grins, her teeth white against her apple-red lips. “Don’t think you can soften me with compliments.” She lifts an eyebrow at me. “But you do owe me one now.”
“Nice outfit,” I say, pointing at her shirt, which says Main Character Energy.
Erin reaches for a curd without breaking eye contact with me. “So. Why does this feel like a soft intervention?”
I blink. “What?”
Ava puts her hand on my back. “You look so sad.”
I freeze. Goldie looks at me, and we have a whole conversation in one glance.
Erin narrows her eyes, and her fork pauses over Goldie’s hotdish. “Oh no. Tell me you didn’t do something to wreck your beautiful aim with a hockey stick.”
I exhale through my nose and chuckle. “No. I did not.”
“Whew. Okay. Then we can handle anything. Tell Mama Erin what’s wrong.”
I glance around the restaurant. “My ex is at Windhaven.”
Ava squeezes my shoulder, and Erin blinks and turns to Goldie.
“Lola?” she whisper-shouts.
Goldie shoots me a guilty look and nods.
“Damn,” Erin says.
I swallow. “With a boyfriend.”
“…boyfriend,” Erin repeats.
Goldie looks at me like she wants to teleport backward ten minutes.
Ava’s hand comes to her chest. “Oh no.”
Erin sits up straight. “No. Absolutely not. I reject the premise,” she says. “They don’t get to have joy at Windhaven. That place is ours.”
Ava leans in. “Are we talking ‘matching outfits’ boyfriend or ‘we met last week’ boyfriend?”
“How do we tell the difference?” I ask. “They looked pretty cozy, but I got the impression she was upset that he brought her to our family resort.”
Erin points at me. “There’s your in.”
“I’m…not sure I want an in.”
I feel all of their eyes on me.
Goldie nods. “That’s fair.” But she looks like she doesn’t believe me.
“Even if you don’t want her back, it still stings,” Ava adds.
Erin slaps her hand on the table. “Okay. So here’s what we’re not going to do.
We’re not going to spiral. We’re going to conveniently look like our hot selves at all times and be the epitome of cheerfulness, as if they do not affect you one iota.
” She holds up her hand. “And we’re definitely not going to let this affect the integrity of the cheese curds.
They’re fresh, and they should not be wasted. ”
She pops one in her mouth.
Goldie nods solemnly. “The curds did nothing wrong.”
Erin leans forward, eyes sharp now. “But we are going to reframe this situation.”
“That sounds illegal,” I say.
“It’s emotional sanity.”
Ava, gentler but just as firm: “Right. You didn’t lose. Someone else just signed up for…her issues.”
Goldie points at her. “Correct. And if she could ever leave you, she was never worthy of having you.”
I look at them, all three offended on my behalf. My chest does that tight, warm thing.
“I wasn’t even going to say anything,” I admit.
Erin scoffs. “And deny us the opportunity to be emotionally supportive? Not to mention aggressively physically supportive if need be? Rude.”
Goldie raises her drink. “To Tully. Rising above.”
Ava lifts hers. “To better things.”
Erin clinks last. “And to that boyfriend. May he one day realize what kind of personality marathon he signed up for.”
I huff a laugh but then sigh, thinking of Lola. She had the best personality. I was ready to sign up for life.
Erin’s head tilts, and her eyes narrow on me. “Oh my God. You do want her back.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
“You have the ‘I’m pretending I’m fine but would totally text her at one in the morning to get her back’ face.”
“I do not. It’s not like that. I don’t even know her anymore. It’s been years. I don’t know if I want her back.”
“I can’t hear you. I’m picturing you in a rom-com montage doing push-ups outside her door…in the rain.”
Goldie snorts and then makes a face at me. Sorry, she mouths.
I rub a hand down my face.
“So you’re saying I have this wrong?” Erin smirks. She grabs a napkin and a pen out of her bag and waves them around. “Okay, this can be an ‘if you want her back’ failproof plan.”
I sit up straighter.
She writes in big letters: OPERATION LOLA
I bury my face in my hands. “I hate this already.”
Ava leans in. “I kind of love it.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Goldie tells me.
“But what does he stand to lose?” Erin asks.
She starts writing bullet points with terrifying focus.
“Step one,” she says, narrating: “We do not beg.”
“I wasn’t going to—” I jump in.
“Good.” She nods. “Because that’s illegal under my jurisdiction.”
· NO DESPERATE ENERGY
“Step two: We assess if this is nostalgia or actual compatibility.”
I mumble, “It’s both.”
She squints at me. “We’ll see.”
· IS SHE THE ONE OR JUST THE FAMILIAR
She goes over the R again with her pen to make it darker.
Ava nods thoughtfully. “That’s important.”
Erin continues. “Step three: physical rebrand.”
I look up. “What does that mean?”
“Haircut. New clothes. Vibes upgrade.”
“My vibes are amazing.”
She snorts. “Yes, and they could use more amazingness.”
“I’m not rebranding.”
“He does have a whole thing…Tullylandia,” Goldie says, waving her hand in my direction.
“I know, I know,” Erin says. “I’ve been at the games and experienced the whole ‘Who’s your daddy? Tul-ly! Be my daddy, Tul-ly’ outcry as well, but closure looks better in a well-fitted jacket.”
Her shoulder shrug is the equivalent of a mic drop.
· PERFECT AMOUNT OF GLOW-UP
Ava whispers to me, “She’s not wrong.”
I groan louder.
Erin unfolds the napkin so it’s bigger and taps the pen against it. “Step four: controlled reentry.”
“I’m scared of whatever the hell that is,” I say.
“Do I even want to know?” Goldie says, cringing.
“You should be scared, Tulls, because this is the hard part,” Erin says, completely serious. “We do not ‘hey girl’ text. We wait for a natural opening.”
“What if there isn’t one?”
She smiles. “I create openings.”
“No.”
She’s undeterred.
· NO RANDOM TEXTING. STRATEGIC CONTACT ONLY
“Step five,” she says, pointing the pen at me: “You get a life.”
“I have a life.”
“You have a life during hockey season. This summer I’m pretty sure your routine is a pizza box.”
Ava tries not to laugh.
“I still have a life,” I mutter.
· BE INTERESTING. NOT AVAILABLE
I stare at the list.
This is unhinged…but fucking structured.
Erin points the pen at me dramatically. “Final step.”
I sigh. “This is the longest motherfucking list known to man.”
She writes slower just to bug me.
· IF SHE DISAPPOINTS, WE WALK AWAY HOTTER
Silence.
I look at the list. Then at her. “It’s almost as if you’ve done this before.”
Erin scoffs. “Please. I can do this in my sleep.”
“Yet you used to turn ten shades of red when someone you crushed on walked in the room,” Goldie says.
Erin reaches across the table for Ava’s hand. “Not anymore.” She grins. “And Percy was just the unknown. They didn’t count.”
“Oh, I can still make you blush,” Ava says, laughing.
As if to prove her point, Erin’s cheeks flush, and we all lose it, including Erin, as she holds her hands to her cheeks.
Once the laughter’s died down, Ava smiles at me. “You don’t have to do any of this if you’re not feeling it. But it’s kind of nice not being alone in it, right?”
I smile around the table. “Yeah. It is.”
Erin hands me the napkin like it’s a legally binding document. “You don’t get to spiral solo. That’s not how we roll around here.”
I look down at OPERATION LOLA and nod.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
Erin grins. “Good. First move…we burn that shirt.”
“I love this shirt.” I glance down lovingly at the deer walking through a stream. I’m not sure how long I’ve had this shirt, but probably longer than Erin would appreciate.
“We love people, not things,” Erin says.
“Yeah, tell that to your black combat boots.” I lift my eyebrows, daring her to argue.
She looks stricken. “Low blow.” She sighs. “Okay, you can keep the shirt.”
“You’re so easy.” I grin.
“That one’s softening me,” Erin says, winking at Ava.
Now Ava flushes, and we all laugh.
“Thanks, guys. You’ve made a crazy day easier,” I tell them.
The sting is still here, but I’ll get through it.
I have no idea if there’s a chance in hell I’ll even talk to Lola again while she’s here, but if I do, now I’ll feel a little more prepared.
I really hope we talk. I’d like some answers.