Page 100 of I Can't Even

We hurried down the walk and climbed into Soph’s car. I glanced at my phone and realized I’d missed several texts as it had been on silent. Being busy doing a B and E, okay, just the E, will do that for a girl.

The texts were mostly from Soph.

Where are you? Did you find the urn?

Police cars are at the house.

Now a paddy wagon has pulled up.

Should I go over there?

The next one was from Em, using Jessie’s phone.

Might need bail money. Meet us at the station.

Then Soph again.

The party is over. Em and our friends are okay.

Mr. Loren managed to talk the police out of arresting

them...this time. Jules, we need to talk bout Em.

Where are you?

And then Em again.

Never mind. We’re good. Party on!

I read all of this to Liam. His expression showed his concern. He wisely did not voice his worry aloud. Instead, he said, “You might want to text them that you’ve got the urn and Paisley’s evil plans have been foiled.”

“Oh, right.” I set to it, trying to word the message in such a way that if our text messages were somehow subpoenaed by Paisley on a litigious rampage, then I wouldn’t be disclosing the fact that I had unlawfully entered a person’s house to retrieve an urn without said person’s permission, even though, yeah, they stole our mom!

So, naturally, my responding text read:

Liam and I are getting married!

At this, my phone pretty much exploded.

Soph replied:

Now? Like, right now? Because we have stuff happening here.

Oh, but congratulations!

And Em wrote:

I call maid of honor! Woot!

Then it turned into a texting thumb wrestling match as Soph argued with Em over who was going to be my maid/matron of honor. I smiled at my phone and then broke into the flurry of texts.

BTW, we have “the package” fresh from its “cleaning” and will be home soon. Stall!

Before my phone caught on fire with the response from that news, I shut it off.

Putting the urn beside me on the seat, I leaned over the console and into Liam. He lifted his arm and pulled me in close. It felt right just as it always had, like two puzzle pieces that locked together perfectly.

“I hate to be a bummer,” Liam said. “But by taking Babs the way we did, we can’t exactly prove that Courtney took her from you at Paisley’s request unless we admit our part of what happened.”

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