“Lark used her key. And avoidance is not a pretty color on you.” He glares at me. “How did you end up in bed with Wren?”
“Henry.” I just give him the one word.
His brow arches. “Henry got you laid?”
I throw my now-empty bottle at him and it bounces off his chest. “Nothing happened. I was drinking with Henry and I couldn’t drive home. That’s all.”
He grins. “Henry meddled. The man is a genius. Beneath that shiny bald head lies the brain of a true intellectual.”
“Again, nothing happened.”
“Yet.” He smiles. But then he suddenly sobers. “You want something to happen, right?”
I want a lot of things to happen. “Maybe.”
Wren
“So, how did you end up in bed with Mick?” Lark asks as she watches me dry my hair.
I suddenly realize she’s glaring at me. “What?” I ask. “What’s that look for?”
“He likes you. Like, really, really likes you. You’re aware of that, right?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I like him too.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “He was crushed when you stopped taking his calls.”
I set my mascara to the side. “We went out on five dates before…you know.”
“Before you lost the baby.”
“Yeah, before that,” I whisper.
“Say it, Wren,” she says, her voice whipcord strong.
“I don’t need to say it. I lived it, all right? I don’t need reminders.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not sure you lived it. Not really. I think you shoved it to the side and tried to pretend like it didn’t happen, and it’s killing you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I didn’t even want it. Not really.”
“You wanted it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then why do you have a fully prepared nursery? Why did you have three years’ worth of clothes in the baby’s closet? Why did you put that song lyric on the wall?”
“Because that’s what you do when you make a mistake. You deal with it.”
She sucks in a quick, startled breath. “None of that was a mistake.”
“I’d have made a terrible mother.” I blink my eyes, because they’re suddenly stinging.
“You’ll be a wonderful mother, Wren.” Lark’s voice softens. “Never doubt that.”
“What makes you think so?” I look everywhere but at her.
“Because you had two perfect examples of motherhood. You had your birth mom, and then you had Marta. You’ve seen the best, and you’ve learned from the best. There’s no way you couldn’t be the best.”
“Whatever,” I say flippantly, trying to pretend like it didn’t matter.
“Stop doing that.”
“Stop doing what?”
“Stop trying to sweep your feelings under the rug. Stop trying to deflect. Stop pretending like it didn’t matter, damn it. Just stop it.”
“Why did you come here?” I ask. I stare at her in the mirror.
“What?” she asks, dumbfounded by my question.
“Why are you here now? Today? Why did you and Ryan come over?”
She fidgets. “Okay, so…”
I arch my brow at her.
“So, Mick and Ryan have one of those family share phone plans, and he saw that Mick’s phone was at this address all night, and we wanted to see what was going on.”
“Nothing is going on. We’re friends. That’s all.”
“Okay.”
“And tracking his phone isn’t very nice. Does he know you do that?”
She waves a breezy hand in the air. “Oh, they both know. They do it to one another. Last week, they went to find their mom and dad when they saw they were at the store together. They just busted right in and joined them. And last week, Mick showed up at my doctor’s office, when he saw that Ryan and I were there.”
“Wait.” I hold up a hand. “Why were you at the doctor’s office?’
She starts to fidget again.
“You’re not sick, are you?” I might be annoyed by her, but she’s my sister and I don’t want anything to happen to her.
“You know we’ve been trying,” she says quietly.
My gut roils. I swallow it back. “You’re pregnant.”
She nods.
“And you found out last week?”
She nods again.
“And you are just now telling me?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” she whispers.
“Why would your being pregnant hurt me?” I say, my voice loud.
“Because of what happened.” She sweeps her hand toward my empty belly.
“You think that just because I’m not pregnant, I’d be unhappy that you are?” I hate hate hate hate that I gave her that impression.
“No, I just…I was trying to be considerate. That’s all.” She shrugs.
“Well, stop it. Stop tiptoeing around me. I’m not broken.”
“Then you should stop acting like you are.”
I heave out a sigh. “I’m sorry I gave you that impression.”
“Wren,” she whispers. She shakes her head.
“You should probably go.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Congratulations, by the way.”
She smiles and lays a hand on her flat belly. “Thanks.”
She walks out of the room, and I hear her leave with Ryan.
Mick stands in my doorway. “Everything okay?” he asks, his eyes soft and kind.
“Fine.”
“She told you.”
I nod. “She told me.”
“And how do you feel about it?”
I take a deep breath. “Incredibly sad that I made her feel like she shouldn’t tell me. And really happy for both of them.” I smile at him.
“I’m going to be an uncle.” He rubs his hands together like he’s excited. “I get to teach him to throw peas at Ryan. And when he’s a little older, I can teach him all the dirty words in sign language. Ryan will shit a brick. It’ll be great.”
“You’re going to be one of those uncles.” I laugh. “The naughty kind.”
“The fun kind.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Although I wouldn’t mind being naughty if you’re involved, too.”
My belly flutters. “Stop that. BFFs don’t do that.”
He smirks at me. “Do you want to go somewhere with me today?”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.” He grins. “I’ll take whatever I can get.”
He’s so damn cute. I wish I was ready for him.
“Breakfast?” he asks.
I nod. “Sure.”
Mick
Last night after Wren’s ex-boyfriend left and then she threw me out of her apartment—technically when I was being nosy and jealous—Henry told me the story of how he won Nan over.
“She wouldn’t have anything to do with me,” Henry confessed. “It was like I had cooties or something and she didn’t want to catch it.”
“How did you meet her?”
“I saw her across a crowded room, and I was done for. Gone. Finished. She was the one. She had this air about her. It wasn’t the curl of her hair or the polish on her shoes. It was just her. She was it for me. I knew it the moment I saw her. The bad thing was that she didn’t agree.”
“What makes you say that?”
He snorted. “She snubbed me. In front of everyone. I asked her to dance and she said her feet were tired. I asked her to have dinner with me and she said she wasn’t hungry.”
“What did you do?”
“I did what any thinking man would do. I found out where she’d be and then I put myself in her path all the damn time. If she was going to a party, I was there. If she was going to the library, I was there. If she was going to a movie, I made sure I saw the same one, because just in case I ever got to take her out, I wanted to have something to talk to her about, you know?”
I didn’t know, but I could imagine it.
“How long was it before she caved?”
“She never did cave. Stubborn as the day is long.” He laughed. “But then one day, I saw her sitting in a little café. She had a book in her lap. She was wearing a pink dress with a white belt and white shoes with shiny buckles on her feet. God, she was pretty.” He got a faraway look in his eye. “I stood there looking through the window at her, and she didn’t look up. She was engrossed in her book, so I just stared at her. She was something, and I knew she was my future. I just had to convince her of that.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I set out to court her. Back then, we didn’t fall in bed together on a first date. We worked at it. We took things slow and steady, and got to know one another. I walked right into that diner, tugged my hat from my head…” He rubbed his balding pate. “I had more hair back then.” He laughed. “I shoved my hat in my back pocket and walked into that diner like I owned it. I stood there looking down at her, and when she didn’t look up from her book, I got an idea. I walked out, went two doors down, and I bought the same damn book from the tiny bookshop on the corner. Then I went back. She jumped when I pulled the chair out across from her. She asked me what I was doing.
“I held up my book as I sat down across from her. I told her I couldn’t talk to her right then, because I had a book I wanted to finish. She didn’t say a word. She just stared at me. I sat there across from her, and I took out that stupid book and started to read. She did the same. We didn’t talk. She didn’t shoot any daggers at me with her eyes. After about an hour, I started to inch my foot close to hers. Then I let my shoe touch the side of hers. She startled and tried to pull her foot back, but I rested my other foot on the other side, and held her foot tightly between mine.”
He laughed. “Looking back, I’m glad she didn’t kick me in the balls. I deserved it. After a few minutes, she settled down, and I sat there for two hours, drinking coffee and reading, with her foot nestled between mine. And she let me. We read quietly, and finally she looked up at me. And if I wasn’t already in love with her before that, I would have been right then. She said, ‘Is the offer for dinner still open?’
“My heart nearly leaped right out of my chest. I stumbled across my words, just trying to find out the way to say yes. I didn’t care if I seemed overeager. I didn’t care if she knew how desperately I wanted to spend time with her. Because that’s what love is all about. It’s about being vulnerable with someone else. And I was as vulnerable as I’d ever been.
“That night, she let me hold her hand as I walked her home. And I kissed her on the cheek outside her door. ‘I’m going to marry you one day,’ I told her. I’m telling you, when she smiled, she lit up my whole world.”
“How long before you married her, Henry?”
Henry’s face fell. “Oh, it was about two years. She had an ex-boyfriend who showed up a few weeks later, and she ended what she had going with me. Dropped me like a hot potato.”
“But it all worked out?” I asked.
“It did. But love is a job, just like anything else. You have to work at it if you want to be successful.”
Henry cleared his throat. “When my Nan died, I thought I’d die with her. Some days, it’s still hard to live without her.” He turned his gaze on me. “When you find a love like that, you have to be willing to work for it. You have to fight.” He shrugged. “Of course, none of it’s worth a damn if you don’t really want it. You have to want it bad, or it won’t be worth having in the end. I wanted her more than I wanted to breathe air. Still do. Always will.”
He shook his head like he was shaking memories out of his way. “Moral of the story is that if you want it bad enough, you’ll figure out how to make it happen. Nothing worth having in life comes easy.
“Wren is worth the effort, if she’s what you want. You just have to remember that she lost something precious, and at the same time she is grieving a relationship that never should have been.”
“So, what do I do, Henry? Tell me how to win her over. Do I need to give her time to get over it?”
“Start by being someone she can fall in love with, son.”
We sit down at the booth, order food, and all I can think about is how quickly I can catch her foot between mine. She smiles at me over her pancakes and tilts her head. “What are you thinking about?”
I was thinking about how damn beautiful you are. “Oh, nothing,” I say.
“You’re sure?” She stares hard at me, her eyes intent.
I nod and lift a piece of bacon to my lips. Wren surprises me when she grabs for my wrist and jerks it to her mouth. She stares into my eyes and bites a hunk of my bacon off. Then she grins, covers her mouth with her hand, and talks around it.
“I’ve been wanting to do that ever since the food got here. Sorry.”
“If I’d known you like bacon so much, I’d have offered to share.”
Her cheeks turn pink.
“What?” I ask. “Did I miss something?”
She swallows. “It’s nothing. Just a story that Henry told me when we had lunch the other day. He told me about the time he took his wife out to breakfast, and she stole a piece of his bacon. It was really sweet.”
“Funny,” I say. “Because Henry told me a story last night too.”
I adjust my feet so that my shoes outline one of hers, holding it tightly but gently. She startles, but she doesn’t move. “What are you doing?”
“Henry told me a story about the day that his wife finally took notice of him. They were sitting at a diner a lot like this one, and he caught her foot between his, and he held it there.”
“I’ve heard that story.” She shakes her head. “But I’m pretty sure that BFFs don’t put the moves on one another with their feet.”
I arch my brows at her. “So, they just do it by stealing bacon?”
Her cheeks turn pink again and she looks down at her plate. “I don’t…I don’t know,” she replies softly.
“I don’t know either.”
She nods, and finishes her food.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I tap out a quick reply to the text. “It’s my mom,” I explain. “Crap.
“Everything okay?” She lays her fork down.
“I’m not sure.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mom and Dad are out of town, and I have a cousin who’s going through a tough time. Mom wants me to go check on her.” I take out enough money to pay the bill for the food and lay it on the table. “I have to go. Mom’s freaking out because my aunt called her. She’s in another state, so she can’t go check on Patsy herself.”
“Oh.” She tosses her napkin onto her plate. “Of course.” Her foot is still softly trapped between mine. “Would it be…terrible…” She stops and takes a breath.
“Would what be terrible?” I ask.
“Never mind.”
“No, tell me.”
She looks into my eyes. “Would it be terrible if I told you I really like having my BFF holding my foot between his?”
My heart jumps in my chest. “It wouldn’t be terrible at all,” I say quietly. “It would be fucking amazing.”
She laughs and gets up from her seat. “I guess I’ll see you later, then?”
“Do you want to go with me?” I ask. My gut twists while I wait for her response.
“I can go with you?” she asks, her eyes sparkling.
“I don’t want to give up my time with you,” I say, being as honest as I can. “Come with me.”
“Yes. I’d like that.”
Wren
That was absolutely the wrong thing to do, but I did it anyway. Now I’m doubting my decision. I never should have told him how much I liked cuddling with his feet.
“So where are we going?” I ask as I buckle my seatbelt.
He heaves a sigh. “We’re going to the other side of town.”
I turn to face him. “What’s on the other side of town?”
br /> “My cousin who is going through a rough time. She has four kids, her husband is in jail, she’s a recovering addict, but she hasn’t used since she got pregnant with baby number four. Anyway, Mom’s worried about the kids. She tried to call Patsy twice this week, but she didn’t answer.”
“You think she might be using again?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“Tell me about the kids.”
“There are four kids. Anna is eight. Devon is six. She also has a two-year-old girl named Roxy, and then the new baby, Chase.” He parks on the street. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Do you want me to go up with you?”
“You might want to stay here. I have no idea what the apartment looks like today.”
“If you think I’m afraid of a little dirt, you don’t know me very well yet.” I open my door and step out.
“Dirt’s not what I’m worried about. I’m more worried about the roaches, the filth, the drug-dealing neighbors, and the general state of the household.” He walks around the car to stand by me. “You sure you want to go up?”
“I’m sure.”
He nods and squares his shoulders. “I have no idea what we’ll find.” He takes my hand in his and we walk toward the front door. My heart is in my throat and I don’t even know why.
The peeling paint isn’t the worst of it. The worst of it is the smell that hits us when the children’s mother opens the door of the apartment. The scent of trash and dirty diapers assaults my nose, and I have to force myself to keep my hands down by my sides, rather than cover my mouth and nose with them.
“Oh, it’s you,” a blond woman says, as she swings the door wide.
Mick’s eyes meet mine and I see a flicker of worry. “Hi, Patsy. How are you?”
She scratches up and down both her arms at once, her arms crossed. “Oh, trying to get by. You know how it is.” She looks at me. “Who’s this?”
I extend my hand to shake, and Patsy takes it hesitantly. “I’m Wren. I talked Mick into letting me come with him for a visit. I hope that’s okay?”
Patsy waves her hands in the air, dismissing my question as ridiculous, and then she starts to scratch again. She leaves deep red welts on her skin. She’s coming down off something. And she’s coming down hard.