Page 56 of Back To You

We’re supposed to leave for Mia and Eddie’s for Sunday Dinner, and I know Annie wouldn’t miss it, so I’m biding my time, just outside her door.

We need to leave now to make it there by six.

And I’m getting impatient.

I need to see her.

Just when I’m about to knock on the door, it opens. Annie is wearing an oversized t-shirt and jean shorts, her brown hair slicked back in a bun at the back of her head. Her lashes are long, framing her big brown eyes, and I spot a few freckles on her nose from being out in the sun this summer.

I can also see the slight redness to them, and my chest cracks.

I clear my throat. “Um, ready to go?” I ask, hoping we can both just ignore that I was waiting outside her door like some kind of stalker.

She nods, and it’s out of character.

Why isn’t she telling me to fuck off, or rolling her eyes at my “stalker tendencies”?

She stalks past me, grabbing the containers of brownies she packed up. One minute, the brownies were laid out on a cooling rack on the counter. I go outside to take Rosie around the block, and when I come back, they’re in her containers.

“Are we bringing Rosie?” she asks quietly, and her voice sounds familiar yet foreign.

“You heard your mom, Ro-Ro. Let’s go see your sister,” I say, grabbing her leash from where it’s hanging by the door, and hoping to getanythingout of Annie—asking for a smile would be delusional, but an eye roll, a death glare, a quip about her not being Rosie’s mom.

I need something from her.

Hearing the noise of the leash, Rosie hops off the couch and comes to sit, her tail wagging as I bend down to clip it up to her collar, but still, Annie doesn’t say anything.

As I stand, I see Annie has already opened the front door of the apartment and started walking down the hall.

The car ride to Mia and Eddie’s is the same.

Annie doesn’t say a word.

I watch her out of the corner of my eye as I drive, and her usual edge, that confidence that I’ve watched blossom over the last seven years, is gone.

***

I knock on the door to Mia and Eddie’s, holding the containers of brownies Annie made. One has frosting, the other powdered sugar. Emmett, Annie, and Mia like brownies with frosting, and Drew, Eddie, and I like powdered sugar on ours. It took one Christmas four years ago, arguing over which way is better, for Annie to say she’ll just make both.

“Shit,” Annie mutters under her breath, but I don’t have time to ask her what’s wrong before Drew opens the door. Eddie and Emmett are on the couch, Eddie holding Lennon in his lap as she stares at the faces Mia is making at her from the floor.

“I’d say something about me having to play host while they occupy my baby, but I feel like we all share houses at this point,” Drew says with a smile, grabbing the containers of brownies from me.

The three of us follow her into the kitchen, Rosie proving Drew’s point that each of our homes is as much of ours as they are each other’s, waltzing right into Mia and Eddie’s place like she owns it, plopping down with Daisy on her dog bed.

Mia looks over at us from where she is on the floor in the living room, and her smile instantly drops when she looks past me and sees Annie a few steps behind me.

“Ann, what’s wrong?” Mia asks, and the entire room shifts. Drew sets down the brownie containers and turns to Annie, the guys looking up from Lennon and directly at us.

“I—” Annie starts before slapping a head against her forehead and letting out a shaky exhale. “I forgot the powdered sugar for the brownies.”

She says it like she’s a second away from crying, and I think we all know she’s not upset about forgetting something at the grocery store. Drew and Mia immediately fall into action.

Drew walks over to Annie, gently placing a hand on her arm like she is tending to a wounded animal. “It’s okay. We can run and grab some,” Drew says before turning to the living room. “Right, Mia?”

Mia is already up from the floor and walking into the kitchen. “Absolutely. We can go right now. The boys can handle baby duty and dinner until we get back.”

Mia is already grabbing her purse and keys, and Drew is pushing Annie out the front door. I try to catch Annie’s eye, but she won’t look at me. Drew looks over, meeting my eyes, giving me a little nod that says, “We got her.”

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