Page 32 of When You Wish Upon a Wideout

“Don’t be stupid, Emily. Cash the check.”

“Sienna—”

“I’m covering for you until you’re ready to come back. Your job is waiting for you.”

Sighing, Emily put her mug down. “Thank you.”

“Thanks for bringing her. Holding babies just makes everything better. It’s my mom’s birthday,” she added softly, and Emily reached out, placing a kind hand on Sienna’s leg. “I’m okay. It’s an off day. And everything else has just been crazy.”

“Anything crazy good?” Emily lifted her brows in question.

“What do you mean?”

Emily bypassed the burned muffins and grabbed a handful of nuts. “I heard Beau Walker stopped by Maloney’s.”

“Of course you did.”

“I heard he looks the same as he did in high school but better.”

“Oh yeah?” Sienna asked. “Who told you that?”

“Dylan texted Jamie,” Emily said, and they both erupted in laughter.

Rubbing the baby’s back, Sienna shook her head when they both quieted. “That ship has sailed, my friend.”

“Not too far, I think. I passed by his parents’ house. There’s a big shiny black truck in the driveway,” Emily said.

“He’s selling the house.”

“Oh, right. I’m sure that’s it,” Emily trailed off, looking around the kitchen.

“Emily—”

“Maybe the stars aligned, remember?”

* * *

There were a million things Sienna could have done around the house after Emily left. She could have folded the laundry that had been sitting on the dryer for two days. She could have searched through Grace’s closet for her missing green blouse, or resumed the battle with her insurance company. She could have lain in bed thinking about her mom. But Sienna didn’t know how any of those things would set her on a new path. So instead, Sienna did something for herself—she went on a run.

New year, new me, she thought, passing the calendar.Even if it’s the middle of January.

But it only took Sienna three minutes to remember that while the idea of running—the wind burning her cheeks, her body warming in the chilly air as it met that “runner’s high” everyone raved about—sounded nice in theory but in actuality, she hated it.

Hardly half a mile in, Sienna turned around awkwardly, hoping no one had seen her only make it a few blocks before heading home.Baby steps,she told herself.Walk first, run later. More vegetables, less chips. And ice cream.

Nearing her house, Sienna had grown her mental list of things to do for herself.Haircut. Go to the movies alone in the middle of the day. Take one full week off work and leave Frank in charge. Go on a date. An actual date. With a guynotfrom Brookwood. Someone who wears a suit and opens doors and orders the right wine and not whatever is on tap. Go on multiple dates with the same guy before sleeping with him.

She was about to make it to the side door when she paused in her driveway. A box wrapped in butcher paper sat on the front step, and Sienna approached cautiously. Looking around, she found no one nearby and picked it up, her fingers gliding across the butcher paper wrapping to the cardstock with her name printed on it.

She looked around again before peeling back the tape, which bit at the skin beneath her fingernails, revealing what appeared to be a thick leather book.

“For when you can’t see the stars on a cloudy night,” she read aloud from the card. “But rain or shine, I’ll be waiting.”

She opened the book with a furrowed brow, her eyes drifting to the first page—a group of stars with one circled followed by coordinates. Biting her lip in confusion, she flipped to the next page. More stars, more coordinates, and so forth.

Slamming the book shut, Sienna tucked it under her arm and took off, down the street and across the town that had once been streaked with past laughter of childhood friends, the sneaky footprints of young lovers, and now with Sienna’s present, palpable fury.

* * *

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