8. Sloane
Sloane
“Boss. Visitor!” Lila calls through my open office door. I know who it is, because I sent Jenna a barrage of texts this morning after Eden told me the big news. The text read as more of a threat than an invitation to lunch, but that’s what you get for keeping important bestie information a secret!
“Before you jump down my throat,” Jenna yells before she’s even stepped foot in my office, “it’s all Kiera’s fault so blame her.”
I can’t help but chuckle as I set my pen down and lean back in my chair.
She saunters in, hands jammed in the pocket of a battered Holcroft hoodie (likely stolen from Kiera), and flops into the visitor chair with all the grace of a dying squid. There are bags under her eyes, but her grin is pure mischief.
“You’re not getting out of this with plausible deniability,” I say, pointing my coffee mug at her. “You’ve been engaged for what, twenty-four hours? And you didn’t tell me. The betrayal, Jenna.”
Jenna makes a big show of sighing, then tilts her head back and stares at the ceiling like she’s about to start reciting poetry. “I wanted to, but Kiera said we should do a Family Announcement. Capital F, capital A. You think I wanted to keep this a secret from my favorite sister-in-law?”
I blink, then laugh. “You’re such a shit.”
She shrugs, then snags my stress ball from the desk and squeezes it till her knuckles pop. “I came here to get yelled at, not emotionally blackmailed. So c’mon, let’s get it over with. Or, like, are you happy for me?”
I get up, circle the desk, and yank her into a hug. She’s taller than me, all elbows and nervous energy, but for a beat she lets herself relax. Then, true to form, she slips a hand into my pocket and tries to steal my gum.
I catch her in the act. “You’re a menace, Sawyer.”
She grins. “And you love it. So…you think I’m making the right call? With Kiera?”
That’s the real reason she’s here, of course. She can play the snarky little-sis role all day, but underneath she still wants reassurance. She’s always been like that.
“Kiera worships you,” I say, reclaiming my gum and leaning against the window. “Hell, I think she’d wear a full-body suit of your face if it was legal.”
Jenna barks a laugh. “That’s so gross. Accurate, but gross.”
“Are you happy, J?”
She gives me a dopey sigh and smile. “Yeah. I really am. I would’ve gone the rest of our lives not bothered about being married, as long as I got to be with her, but this is so much better. She was so freakin’ cute, Sloane. All blushing and stuttery. God, I adore her.”
“Have you told Bella and Becca yet?”
Jenna winces. “No, but Eden put it in the text chain and I got abused hard by Bella. She’s going to shave off my eyebrows or something for not waiting until they were available.”
“Just sleep with your doors locked and deadbolted for a few weeks, it’ll be fine.” I laugh.
“Hilarious.”
I can see there is something more going on in Jenna’s mind. Her hand has gone straight to rubbing her neck.
“Out with, Jenna.”
She groans—loudly—causing me to raise my eyebrow.
“I didn’t tell everyone all the news.”
Pulling her over to my comfy couch, I sit back and wait. She shuffles a few times and puffs out a breath. “Fuck, okay, here it is. As well as Kiera asking me to marry her…we’re also moving…away…like over an ocean kind of distance.”
My face must register the shock currently coursing through my body. Jenna and Kiera are leaving? What?
Jenna rushes to speak. “I know it’s a shock, and everyone’s going to be surprised, but it’s a really great opportunity.
Kiera got scouted by one of the top sports universities in the UK and they offered her a job.
Housing included. I’m going to keep the bar obviously, but have Nick run it while I’m away.
If the job works out then maybe I’ll look at selling, or opening a second location in England. ”
Holy cow, this is huge. All I can keep thinking about is Eden. Everything is changing around her, and she’s not always the best at coping with sudden shifts in her world. Don’t get me wrong, she always rallies, but she’s a person who likes predictability.
In the space of a few days, she’s had her best friend show up announcing a divorce, her baby sister is engaged, I’ve asked her for a baby, and now this!
“Can you say something, Sloane?”
Shaking myself out of what is clearly panic, I grab Jenna’s hand. “Sorry, honey, I’m just a little taken aback. What am I going to do without you?” I smile.
She grins. “You’ll survive. I’m actually really excited about it. Kiera is nervous as hell, mainly about us telling my parents.”
I grimace. “Yeah, that’s fair. Liz is going to be intense.”
Jenna rolls her eyes. “She’s over visiting Gran more often than I’ve had hot dinners lately. She’ll see us loads.”
“Will you be far from your gran?”
A brilliant smile forms. “That’s the best bit. We’ll be like an hour down the road.”
“I can’t even shout at you for keeping the engagement from me now,” I laugh. “Way to bury this gigantic whopper!”
She blows a raspberry. “I didn’t want to tell anyone until we were sure, and then Kiera proposed, and I couldn’t exactly keep the ring a secret, so telling everyone was a no-brainer. I just don’t know how I’m going to drop this nugget of life-changing information without blowing up our lives.”
Crap, I need to tell her. “Okay, my turn to unload,” I begin, taking some calming breaths. “I asked Eden to consider having a baby.”
Jenna stares at me, blinks slowly and groans. “Shit, she’s going to have a complete meltdown when I tell her I’m moving.”
At least Jenna understands.
“But hang on,” she continues, “before we go all negativo. Wow, Sloane, you want a baby! With Eden!”
Laughing, I playfully punch her on the shoulder. “Who the hell else would I want one with?”
She shrugs, grinning. “Just wanted to make sure you thought it through. What if it inherits her…anything? God, can you imagine a second punk sloth inhabiting the earth?”
“She’s not a sloth anymore. She outgrew that in high school!”
Jenna scoffs. “You seduced it out of her more like. We all know the reason she began running was to get in your pants because she looooved you,” Jenna mocks.
“Well, it worked, so it’s a moot point.” I chuckle.
“How did the conversation go?”
“Well, she didn’t leave me or jump out the window. She’s thinking about it seriously, and that’s all I can ask.”
Biting her lip, Jenna studies my face. “And if she says she doesn’t want children?”
I swallow hard. “Then that’s the end of it. Nothing means more to me than her, Jenna. I’m not going to lose her over anything.”
She nods as she listens. “If it’s worth anything to you, I think she’ll say yes. Once she stops equating having a baby with her very limited experience around kids, she’ll see it’s something she wants.”
“You really think?”
“Totally. She’s great with Meena and Arin, and I don’t mean as the whacky aunt. You can see her maternal side when she’s with them. God, she’d be a complete melt with a kid of yours.”
I don’t want to get my hopes up just yet, so I just smile and squeeze her hand. “I’ll let you know as soon as she tells me.”
“Okay. So now we know all the facts. How the hell do I tell my parents and our friends that Kiera and I are skipping town?”
I shake my head, trying to imagine the look on Liz’s face. “You can’t drop it all at once. You need to start gentle, like, ‘We have some big news, but we’re both really happy about it and want you to be happy for us.’ You know how your mom freaks out with change.”
“Understatement. For a rock chick, she’s pretty uptight nowadays.” Jenna rubs her eye, looking weirdly vulnerable. “I don’t want them to think I’m abandoning them. I just want to…I dunno, do something that’s ours, for once.”
I get it—maybe more than she thinks. “That’s not abandonment, J.
That’s you living your life. Besides, you’ll be back for every birthday and Christmas, and Eden will probably guilt-trip you into biweekly Zoom calls.
Hell, if you survive the first year without flying back for a single art show or family drama, I’ll personally eat my running shoes. ”
She actually snorts. “You’re on. But you’re buying me dinner before you eat those shoes, because it’s going to be disgusting.”
We lapse into a thoughtful quietness. I can hear Lila yelling at someone to “ice it for ten and call me in the morning” through the half-closed door.
It’s weird, but now that the news is out, I feel…
lighter. I can tell Jenna does too. There’s a relief in her shoulders that wasn’t there five minutes ago.
“Do you ever freak out about the future?” she asks, not looking at me. “Like, you think you have a plan, but then shit just happens and suddenly you’re on a different continent, and you don’t know what the hell you’re doing?”
I nod. “Every day. But honestly, the parts that don’t go according to plan are the best bits. That’s where all the good stuff happens. And if it sucks, you call me, and I’ll tell you how I accidentally glued my hand to the treadmill at the gym last week.”
She laughs so hard she nearly topples off the couch. “You didn’t.”
“Well, technically I glued my finger, but it felt like the whole hand. Lila took pictures.” I cross my arms and grin at her, feeling oddly proud. “Point is, you’re going to be fine. Kiera adores you, and you’re smart, and you have, like, an above-average number of people who want you to succeed.”
She shakes her hair out of her eyes and gives me a look that’s almost grateful. “Thanks, Sloane.”
I tap her knee with my pen. “Anytime. But if you ghost us, I’ll fly to England and drag you back by the ear. I’m not above international incidents.”
She tosses the stress ball in the air and catches it, some of the old Sawyer confidence restored. “I’ll hold you to that.”
We hang out for a little longer, forgoing lunch, trading stories about high school sports teams. Apparently, there’s a whole underground world of lesbian soccer league rivalry that I missed out on.
Eventually, Jenna remembers she has to pick up supplies for the bar.
She stands, stretches, and grins at me on the way out. “You’re a good egg, Bishop.”
“You too, Sawyer. Don’t be a stranger.”
She does a mock salute and vanishes, leaving me alone with the pleasant aftertaste of a not-so-bad surprise.
I settle back at my desk and try to focus on the mountain of paperwork threatening to avalanche onto the floor, but my mind keeps drifting to Eden.
How is she going to handle this? Her art, her family, her entire sense of home is deeply, sometimes stubbornly, rooted.
I want to be there for her, but I also don’t want to crowd her.
I want to fix it, but it’s not mine to fix.
Then again, maybe that’s the best part about being with Eden. If she needs me, she’ll tell me. If she needs space, she’ll tell me that too. It’s a comfort to know we’re both grown-ups now, no matter how weird it still feels to say that out loud.
Working from home seems like a good choice this afternoon. I can do paperwork from anywhere, and I need to be close to Eden.
I pack my bag and lock up, then text Eden.
You
Leaving now. Want me to pick up anything for dinner?
Eden
We have food. Come home and let me stare at you. It’s a surprise.
You
I’m 50% scared, 50% excited.
Eden
Good.
I’m grinning like an idiot when I get to the car. I put on the playlist Eden made for me last Christmas, full of power ballads and the kind of scream-along alt rock that makes you feel like you’re sixteen and indestructible.
The drive home is quick. When I walk in, the house is quiet.
All the lights are off, which is fair considering it’s early afternoon, which makes the string of faint fairy lights leading from the entryway up the stairs stand out as odd.
At the top, a hand-lettered sign taped to the wall says, “Enter at your own risk.”
I follow the lights to our bedroom. Eden’s standing at the window, backlit by the afternoon sun and barefoot, a bottle of red in one hand, two glasses in the other.
“Shit,” I say, “is this an intervention? Because I’m not giving up caffeine, no matter how many times Dr. Chen brings it up.”
Eden laughs. “It’s not an intervention, Bishop. It’s a…celebration?”
She sits on the bed and pats the spot next to her. I join her, trying to read her face. She pours us both a glass and then clinks hers to mine.
“What are we celebrating?” I ask, genuinely unsure.
She shrugs, then puts her glass down and looks at me straight-on. “I talked to Gran today,” she says. “And then I talked to Becca, and then I talked to myself in the mirror for a solid forty-five minutes, which was weird, but whatever. And…I think I want to try. For a baby. With you.”
I am frozen. My brain won’t even process the words for a second. Eden is staring at me, waiting.
“Wait. Are you…you mean it?”
She nods, biting her lip. “If it’s with you, I want to. I don’t know if I’ll be good at it, but I want to try. I want to at least see what kind of disaster we could create together.”
I laugh, and then I’m crying, and then she’s crying, and we’re both just a tangle of arms and ugly-happy sobs.
“Jesus, E. I didn’t—I wasn’t—”
Eden kisses me, hard, and then pulls back. “You’re not allowed to chicken out, Bishop. Not now that I’ve got to the ‘mirror pep talk’ stage.”
I hug her fiercely, my entire body trembling. “God, I love you,” I mutter into her hair.
“I know,” she whispers. “Now let’s go make a baby.”
She means it as a joke, but I see the fire in her eyes, and I know we’re in for the wildest, weirdest, most perfect ride of our lives. I pour the rest of the wine and toast the future, our future. Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out together.