Chapter 23 #2
“I’d love to,” she says. “I’d love to see what little dinky dress Mia picked up from the local boutique. Probably something that the girls in Little House on the Prairie would wear.” She laughs loudly, but the sound is like a cackle to my ears.
“Okay, well, let’s go,” I say, walking back across the room to Mia and her friends.
Mia looks up, and I can see the way her expression hardens when she sees Talia.
“Hey, here’s your drink. Talia wanted to come and say hello.”
“I’m sure she did,” Mia says. “Hi, Talia.”
“Oh, well, look at that dress. It’s so cute, Mia. Let me guess—you got it at Walmart?” She cackles again.
I see Juniper’s expression change, and she looks like she wants to slap her. I watch Mia grab her friend’s arm and squeeze, and Juniper looks at her. Mia shakes her head, and Juniper releases a small sigh.
“No, I didn’t get it at Walmart, but thank you for admiring the dress.”
“Let me guess—Target?” Talia says.
Mia just shakes her head. “Nope.”
“Ooh, one more guess, one more guess. Did you get it at Marshalls?”
“No.”
“You got it at Ross or Kohl’s, or—”
“You know what, Talia? You’re trying to insult me, but I really like those stores and shopping there.”
“Oh, I can tell, darling,” Talia says, shaking her head. “I can very much tell that you shop at those stores, and that’s where ninety-nine-point-nine percent of your clothes are from. The other percentage is probably from thrift shops, right?”
“I don’t see anything wrong with thrift shops,” Mia says, and her tone escalates.
“I thought I heard your voice,” Rafe says.
Both Mia and I turn to the side. Rafe takes a step toward us and then notices Talia.
“Oh, hey, Talia.”
“Hello, Rafe. Fancy seeing you here.” There’s something in her expression that tells me that she and Rafe have had it out.
“Well, you know, the local vet does get invited to these things.” He walks over to Mia and gives her a big hug. “Looking beautiful, sis.”
“Thank you.” He looks over at Juniper and offers her a small nod.
She smiles at him in return.
Interesting, I think to myself.
There seems to be some sort of coldness between them, and I don’t understand what it is.
Finally, he turns to me and offers me his hand. “Good to see you, Luke.”
“You too, Rafe.”
I want to speak to him. I want to thank him for protecting Mia.
I know it’s weird to thank him, seeing as he’s her brother, but I love her with all my heart, and anyone who is there for her is a quality guy—be it family member or not.
I want to tell him I will always protect her.
I want to tell him I understand why he’s been cold and nervous and that I have nothing but the best intentions for her.
I want to become real friends with him. It’s important to me that he and I become like brothers because I hope we will be one day.
Though that’s not anything I dare to voice out loud.
“So, Luke, what does Mia have to say about your potential move to England?”
I freeze at Talia’s words as I see Mia’s expression change.
Fuck.
I haven’t had the opportunity to tell her anything about the developments at work. I haven’t had the opportunity to say the offer I was given by my boss to lead a new branch in England for the company.
“I—”
“Are you going to go as well, Mia? It seems to me like you never want to leave Coconut Beach.”
“Yeah, well, that’s something Luke and I have to discuss,” Mia says, looking at me with murder in her eyes.
I know I’m in trouble, which sucks because I was already in trouble with her, and even more trouble means that this relationship is going deeper and deeper into the hole.
“Can I speak to you, Luke?” Mia says suddenly, grabbing my arm. “There’s something I forgot to tell you.” She drags me away from the group hastily to the side of the room.
“You’re fucking moving to England?” she says through gritted teeth under her breath.
“No, I’m not—I mean, I might. And how does Talia know?”
“I just—what the fuck is going on, Luke? You’ve got so many secrets from me and I—”
“Mia, please. I obviously didn’t tell Talia anything. I didn’t tell you because the only times work has come up, you’ve been angry at me because I’ve been working.”
“So, how does she know?”
“It was probably talked about in The Wall Street Journal or something like that.”
“The Wall Street Journal?” Mia’s jaw drops.
“What? I told you the deal I was working on was really big. The hedge fund company I work for is the number one hedge fund company in New York City, and my boss offered me a position to go to England to start up a branch there. I haven’t accepted it, and I haven’t had time to tell you about it because we’ve kind of had other stuff going on.
I know you don’t really care about my job, and I assumed you wouldn’t care about this offer. ”
“You assumed I wouldn’t care that you were moving to fucking England, Luke?” Her voice rises.
I can see that people are looking at us, but I know she doesn’t care, and I can’t really say anything to her. I don’t want to make her even angrier.
“I didn’t tell you, Mia, because I just thought there were more important things for us to discuss before that even came up.”
“Wow, thanks for trusting me and sharing with me and thinking about me before you decided to move to England.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, you’re already far enough away in New York City, and I don’t see you. I’ll never see you in England, and there’s going to be a time difference, so we won’t even get to speak on the phone. But what does that matter, right?”
“Maybe you can come to England too,” I suggest.
“What do you mean, I can come to England? I don’t have money to live in England. What am I going to do—have Juniper move the bookmobile over to London? Where would we even put it? That’s not even something that can happen.”
“I could take care of you. I want to give you security so you can follow your dreams.”
“You can—I don’t need you to take care of me, Luke. I’m not just some sad sack that is sitting here, waiting for some man to take care of me.”
“I was just going based upon the emails, when you said we should get married if we were both single at forty.”
“That was a joke, Luke. You really thought I wanted to marry you because you were rich and you could take care of me?”
I press my lips together because the fact of the matter is, I did think that she wanted that—but from the look on her face, I don’t think she wants me to say that to her right now.
“I’m so insulted. I just feel like you just don’t care about me or respect me at all.”
“It’s not true. I’m sorry if I hurt you.
I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about London.
It’s not because I didn’t care what you would think.
I haven’t even decided if I’ll take the offer.
I just felt like there were bigger things going on between us that I wanted to talk about.
And you have to be honest, Mia—you’ve been really upset every time I’ve had to work.
I really didn’t think you would want to talk about my job. ”
“So, this is on me now? You’re blaming me because we had sex and I got upset that you weren’t in the bed, waiting for me when I woke up? And so you didn’t tell me you’re moving across the fucking country?”
She pauses. “Actually, it’s not even the country. It’s the world. You’re moving to the other side of the world.”
“I’m not necessarily taking the job. Look, I realize I should have told you, and I normally would have told you, but we haven’t been in the most normal of circumstances recently.”
“This was a mistake, wasn’t it?” she says. “We fucked up. We never should have pretended that we were dating. We should have both just attended as singles and just kept our friendship.”
“And what, never kissed, never touched, never made love? Do you regret it all?”
“No,” she says softly. “I don’t regret it.
And that’s the worst part. What I regret is what it’s reduced us to.
We’ve spent decades, Luke, sharing everything with each other, being there for each other, and yet now I feel there are secrets and lies between us, and I can’t even really tell you how I feel because—” She chokes slightly, and I can feel my heart constricting.
“What are you saying, Mia?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying, but I think that this is not the time or the place to have this conversation. I don’t want everyone to think that this was fake, right? We didn’t do all this and practically ruin our friendship for us to get found out at the last moment.”
“Do you think our friendship is ruined?”
I reach to grab her hand, and she pulls it away.
“I don’t know, Luke. I don’t know anything anymore.”