Chapter Four
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Long live Almond.
Poem
“He broke the guy’s nose?” my best friend, Almond, asks through my earbud. “My brother, who hasn’t so much as hurt a fly in the past three years, jumped across the bar and snapped Greg Boggs’ nose—for no reason?”
I shrug, smoothing lavender buttercream across a tall, round cake at my adorable, original 1970s kitchen counter in my adorable, original 1970s home. “I’m sure he had a reason. A stupid one. Because he’s a stupid, idiotic, moronic, dummy.”
“What in the world has gotten into him?” she mutters.
“Stupidity, idiocy, moronity, and dumminess,” I reply, ever helpful.
She snorts. “Surely he had a good reason. Fox isn’t the sort to do something just to do something.”
My brows furrow as I pull up the reference photo Wolfe—Fox’s twin and the birthday girl’s dad—sent me for the cake.
Dusty blue flowers cascade down the side of the pretty purple layers on my laptop screen, broken up liberally by pale green leaves.
I squint at the picture. “Do you think Amia wants these roses?” I ask.
“She seems like more of a peony gal to me.”
“I think Amia is a put-whatever-frosting-flowers-you-make-her-into-her-mouth-as-soon-as-possible type of gal,” Almond answers wryly.
I hum. Perhaps she’s right. And perhaps I am going to make an executive creative decision and pipe out peonies.
Decision made, I grab one of several piping bags I prepped with frosting yesterday and laid out on the counter when I got home.
Then, I get to work creating the small flowers.
I may be eating leftover pizza for dinner tonight because I can’t cook to save my life, but I can bake, and I can decorate my baked creations like no other.
My parents weren’t the sort to make a big deal of our birthdays growing up, so as soon as I was big enough to open the oven on my own and sly enough to filch ingredients for the confections, I was making cakes for Muse, Sonnet, and me every year.
A spot of beauty in an otherwise dim home.
Something to mark that we’d survived another year and gotten another year closer to getting out.
They weren’t just cakes. They were symbols of a future we all wanted to see come to light.
I got really good at making that future look bright.
Amia is going to have the prettiest, most delicious cake this town has ever seen.
“I see you avoiding thinking well of Fox, by the way,” Almond comments.
“It’s like you don’t even want to be my sister.
You ‘don’t find Wolfe attractive’, but Fox you do find attractive—when, mind you, they look exactly the same because they’re freaking twins, you doofus—but you ‘can’t stand Fox’s personality.
’” She sighs, long-suffering. “You hate me? That’s what this is?
You want me to be sad and lonely with no sisterhood to speak of? ”
I roll my eyes. “I’m pretty sure you hate me with the way you’re insinuating we are not already a sisterhood.
What, our love isn’t strong enough to surpass something so meager as blood and legalities?
You need me to marry one of your stinky brothers before you’ll accept me as your sister?
” I shake my head. “Pah. I banish such thoughts. You’re my sister as truly as Muse and Sonnet are, and I’ll not have you thinking otherwise. ”
“Of course we’re sisters,” she placates, groaning as she takes the knife out of my back—only to reinsert it. “I would just like to be sisters, too. You know?”
“I absolutely do not know.” I sniff, carefully sliding a buttercream peony onto the side of the cake.
“So not only are you hurting my feelings, but I am also confused beyond belief. I’m in shambles.
Unwell. Withering away in a puddle of unloved, unsisterhooded sadness.
” I gasp, all drama. “Say your lukewarm goodbyes while you still can!”
I listen carefully for the sound of her eyes rolling.
“I see you’ve chosen nonsense and ridiculousness for tonight’s avoid-talking-about-my-brother strategy,” she comments.
“Correct.” I confirm. “And I’ll thank you for letting me get away with it without more Fox talk. I see the man all day nearly every day. We couldn’t get more time together. The last thing I want is to let him invade the few precious moments I have away from him.”
She makes a quiet, regretful noise, and I wince.
“No, no, none of that,” I order. “He’s your brother, and you love him, and he did something weird today, and I was there, and I’m your bestest bestie, and you called me to talk about current events and get a firsthand account.
I don’t begrudge you any of that. I’m only asking that we cease speaking on the topic going forward, not that you bury yourself in guilt about the fact that you brought it up in the first place. ”
Two beats of silence answer me, and I wait until, finally, her throat clears.
“Fine,” she allows. “I won’t be guilt-ridden. Doesn’t even sound like something I would do in the first place, to be honest. Weird you brought it up.”
Mmhm. I just bet.
“We could talk about much more interesting things instead,” I offer, giving her an out. Sort of. “Like, say, the fact that I saw Emerson Wright at the grocery store yesterday, and he asked about you.”
Almond squeaks, and I cackle.
“He wanted to know if you cut men’s hair outside of your family.” I grin as I place another peony. “He seemed really interested in getting your hands in his hair. I told him you do men’s cuts and would probably give him a discount, him being a friend of the family and all.”
“Poem,” she groans.
“Yes?” I ask, halo nice and shiny above my head.
“First of all, I don’t give men’s cuts to anyone outside of my family.”
“You don’t?” I gasp. “Color me surprised!”
“And secondly,” she continues, “even if I did give men’s cuts, I most definitely wouldn’t be giving a discount because he’s a ‘friend of the family.’ In a town this size, everyone is a friend of the family. I’d go out of business.”
Mm. Yes. But. See. “I only said that would be the reason to him. You and I both know the reason you’d give him a discount is because you loooooooo–”
“All right!” she interrupts, squeak squeak squeaky. “No discounts! No men’s cuts! I cannot.”
“You totally can,” I disagree. “You’re the most talented hairdresser this state has ever seen.
You can do anything.” And I mean it. Almond rocks at her job as October’s most popular hair girl.
She’s kind, skilled, and just straight up naturally talented.
Her eye for color is unmatched, and her ability to see exactly what sort of cut would best suit a person means that more often than not she gets to spend her days doing whatever she wants to people’s hair because they pass over full trust to her.
As they should, too, because she’s never done a single client wrong—not even in her beginner days. She is, in a word, amazing.
“Okay,” my amazing friend replies. “I can do it. On a fundamental skill level. However, emotionally? I can’t even be alone in the same room as that man. He’s so… he’s so…”
“Absolutely perfect for you?” I offer.
“Yes,” she agrees. “Absolutely, incandescently, unattainably perfect. He’s kind.
He’s sweet. He’s strong. He takes care of his family, and his friends, and his neighbors, and his random stranger he just met five minutes ago.
He holds doors for people. He tips thirty percent every time, regardless of if the service was good or not.
He donates to charity, but he doesn’t just give them his money and say good enough.
No, the saint goes out and volunteers his time and his talents as well.
He’s good with old people. He’s good with kids. He’s good with everyone.”
“Plus,” I add, nodding, “He’s totally dreamy.”
Her breath shudders, and I bite down on a smile. My bestie’s in looove.
“So. Totally. Dreamy. He’s huge, and he’s strong, and he throws around construction materials like it’s nothing.
And his hair—my goodness, his hair. It’s gorgeous.
I have no clue who he goes to for his cuts, but the way they get it to frame his face is award-worthy work.
And his eyes! His beautiful brown eyes.” She exhales, the sound coasting through my earbud on a wave of love-sick pining.
“He’s the perfect man,” she concludes. “Which is why I absolutely cannot cut his hair. To even have that hair in my hands is beyond what I could take. My nervous system objects.”
“Tell your nervous system that I object to the way that it tortures you so,” I reply. “You deserve your hot hunk of dreamy man, and your nerves are getting in the way.”
“Someone is going to have to tell him I cannot, under any circumstances, cut his hair,” she says. “And that someone is you. Text him and tell him you take it back.”
I scoff, swapping my frosting bag for one filled with green.
“Not likely. I’m pro you guys falling in love and having a hoard of little cousins for Amia.
” I double check that the piping tip is one for making leaves, then get to work dotting small bits of ivy around the peonies.
“Do you think your kids will like tulips?” I ask. “I like making frosting tulips.”
“Poem,” she says.
“Almond,” I say back.
“Poem.”
“Almond.”
She grunts a begrudging laugh. “Is this what having a sister is like, really?” she asks.
I smile fondly, glancing at a photo of Muse, Sonnet, and me that I keep propped on top of my microwave.
It was taken not long after Sonnet and I moved here, and I remember feeling so relieved that things with Muse were as normal as they ever were.
All the way down to poking at each other’s embarrassments, much like I’m doing to Almond now.
I place my eyes back on my task, switching green frosting for white as I tackle writing “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMIA!” on the flat top of Almond’s niece’s cake.
“Yes,” I answer her. “This is exactly what having a sister is like.”
She doesn’t reply for long enough that I think she might not say anything at all. Then, right as I’m placing the dot on the exclamation mark, she speaks, unexpectedly tearing straight through my heartstrings. “It’s nice,” she whispers. “Having a sister. Having you.”
I put the frosting down, take a step back, and stare through blurry eyes at the perfect purple cake I’ve created.
“It is nice,” I agree, sniffling. “I’ve always wanted a sister like you.”
Her laugh comes out a little on the watery side. “Ridiculous?” she asks. “And a little bit annoying?”
“No,” I retort. “Unique, kind, and freely giving of your love without expectation or obligation.”
“Oh,” she says.
“Oh,” I agree.
“That’s a little sad. For Sonnet and Muse.”
“Maybe, but they’re no less unique or kind than you are. With the way we grew up, though, that third one gets a little murky.”
“I hate that,” she says. “I hate that you guys had to grow up like that, and I hate all of the aftermath it caused in your life.” She hesitates, and I brace myself.
“I hate it so much. I do. But… I’m sorry if it’s insensitive to say, but…
I’m not sorry that it brought you here to me.
My life would be less without you, and I’m so selfishly glad that you’re in it. ”
I take a moment to allow myself to fully enjoy the soft, cushiony comfort of loving and being loved by a woman who does nothing but bless the people around her with her mere existence.
I stand in my small, safe home in my small, safe town, and I revel in all the goodness it’s seen fit to bestow upon me.
Then, I say, low and choked, “I’m so glad I’m in it, too. ”
The conversation moves on, at first a teary mess of words we can barely get out.
Then teasing and laughter flow, before we mellow into a comfortable, contented time of just being together.
And I find that I am also, selfishly, impossibly glad for all of the terror that my sisters and I experienced in our childhood, because it brought us here to October.
Because it brought Sonnet and me to Blackwood Brew—to Gilbert and Belinda.
Because it brought me to their home, and to their daughter, the very best friend a girl could ever want.