Page 110 of Best Served Cold

“I don’t care anymore,” I say flatly. I realize I’m trembling slightly. “I should…I need to text Rob back. I haven’t texted him all day.”

“How dare you have a life,” Hannah says with a small, encouraging smile. “What are we up to? Purple?”

“We?” Briar laughs. “It’s not a team sport.”

“You guys know way too much about my sex life.” I turn away from Hannah’s stare. “I think he wants to talk. He invited me over to dinner tomorrow night. He said he’s going to cook.”

“That sounds nice,” Hannah says slowly, eyeing me in the dim light from the car’s ceiling. “Why do you sound so terrified?”

I could tell them everything. I could tell them right here in my great-aunt’s driveway, as if it’s nothing. As if all of the pain and guilt I’ve carried around is the kind of baggage that can be stuffed in a box and left on someone else’s doorstep. But the thought makes me want to hyperventilate.

“Take a slow breath in and out,” Briar says softly. “It’ll help.”

I do, and then I say, “Rob and I have been having fun. A lot of fun. But I don’t see how we can have a future. When I think about it, it feels like my chest is caving in.”

“So don’t think about it,” Hannah insists. “Just enjoy the fun you’re having and the present will become what you now see as the future. You don’t have to fix everything right away.”

She’s right, probably. That’s basically what I’ve been doing, and I’ve been enjoying myself. In a strange way, the last month of my life has been the happiest in…probably over a decade.

That doesn’t say anything good about the way I’ve been living.

“I’m afraid,” I admit. “About everything. That we’re going to get arrested for TPing Jonah’s house, that Rob’s going to drop me, that you’re going to drop me?—”

Hannah reaches forward and squeezes my arm lightly again. “Jonah wouldnevertell a policeman he thinks his mean ex-girlfriends ganged up on him to make his house messy. They’d make fun of him, and he hates it when anyone makes fun of him. So that’s not gonna happen.”

“But what if he retaliates in some other way?”

She shrugs. “Then we retaliate back. My neighbors actually like me. And we’ve already established you can never get rid of us, so you can toss that fear right away.”

“And Rob?” I ask, my voice quavering.

“I think it’s time for you to talk to him about that, don’t you?” Briar asks sweetly.

“I thought you’d given up on men,” I say in disbelief. “You said you wouldn’t even adopt a male cat.”

“That’s me,” she says. “It doesn’t mean I’ve given up on men for you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

SOPHIE

Conversation with Rob

Sorry!

You know what? We’re texting, so I can say it as many times as I like. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

This was a weird day. A hard day.

And there’s been an interesting development. Can I call you?

Come over. I need to see you.

Isn’t it a little late?

Stay over.

I’m with my friends. It’ll be a while. Are you sure you’ll be up?

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