Page 2 of Push

Marnie’s hand shot up in a frantic wave. “Gwen!” She hopped out and slammed the door so fast the ruffled bottom of her skirt got stuck. “The cavalry has arrived!” Flashing a sheepish smile, she yanked the fabric free.

Relief fluttered under my ribs. No one else would guess Marnie was so reliable. Usually, her untamed curls floated in theclouds, her mind lost in dreams of shaping pretty cups and bowls from lumps of clay, too preoccupied for everyday problems. But I knew I could count on her. In fourteen years, she’d never let me down. A true friend.

God knows you needed one when your family was…complicated.

Marnie darted around the broken shards of what used to be my headlight and the bit of fender the cops had kicked to the side.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Her dark eyes bulged. “Gwen, your car! The front end’s completely totaled! What happened?”

I jerked my chin at the guy slouched against the tow truck. “Old mate over there didn’t bother checking his blind spot before changing lanes.”

“Useless.” She hugged her arm around me. “You okay?”

I nodded.

Physically, I was fine. The paramedics had looked us over and given the all-clear. But mentally? Not even close. The accident ranked in the top ten worst moments of my life. Nothing could destroy me like the day my brother had turned his back on me and walked out the door at seventeen. But I’d rank the accident right up there with the time I’d gotten food poisoning on a three-day kayaking trip through Darwin without access to toilets. Yeah, that’s right.No toilets.

Marnie shot me a skeptical look but spared me from playing twenty questions. She was good like that.

She bent down and tickled Noah’s cheek. “What about you, little man?” she cooed. “You okay?”

Noah had none of his usual gummy smiles for Auntie Marnie. His thumb stayed stuffed in his mouth, and his big eyes blinked, heavy from being up way past his bedtime.

“Did you get hold of Toby?” I asked Marnie.

She shook her head. “I tried a hundred times on the drive across town. I called the clinic…the hospitals…hismother.” She let that comment sink in. We both knew circumstances were dire if Sarah Sullivan had to be involved. Toby’s mother wasn’t exactly on my Christmas card list. “You’ll be happy to know the beloved matriarch is still on her cruise in the South Pacific.”

“Here’s hoping they lose her overboard,” I muttered. “What about Ian?” I’d given up trying to reach Toby’s best friend when two messages had gone unanswered.

Marnie gnawed her bottom lip.

“What?” The panic I’d slammed the brakes on earlier sped out of control again. “Mar, is Toby—”

“He’s okay.” She gave me a second to breathe before trying to explain. “I got hold of Ian…and…” She paused, her eyes looking somewhere over my shoulder, probably searching for the right words so I didn’t freak out. “Toby’s at a party.”

“A party?” My brain scrambled. This made no sense. I’d crowned myself the Sullivan household’s inaugural Domestic Social Planner. Other than the first birthday bash for Alfie Rawles next month, there were no party invitations on our calendar. “What party?”

Marnie kicked at a bit of broken headlight with the toe of her sandal. “A housewarming party.”

Nothing registered. My mind still came up blank. “Okay?”

“At Kayleigh’s place.”

I took a step back.No way. My head swam, dizzy, my thoughts spiraling from the shock.

Kayleigh wasn’t the name I wanted to hear.

A vapid twenty-one-year-old shouldn’t tie me up in knots, but Kayleigh was an itch that never went away because you weren’t quite sure where to scratch. She was just there. Everywhere. All the time.

She was the one who answered Toby’s phone when he was busy handling an emergency cavity or fixing the cracked tooth of some kid who’d fallen off the monkey bars. He’d mentioned how she brought him a coffee each morning. She’d laughed a little too long at his terrible jokes at his clinic’s Christmas party.

I wasn’t jealous. I had no reason to be…right?

Toby had insisted more than once there was nothing strange about hiring a dental assistant with a social media page dedicated to make-up tutorials and styling workout clothes. Nothing was going on between them. Nothing at all. Except I was stranded on the bridge with our baby and a crashed car while Toby chilled out with Kayleigh at a party I hadn’t been invited to.

I forced a smile. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” Denial. Pure denial.

But I knew it meant everything by the way Marnie avoided my eyes. She kicked at another bit of headlight. “There are…photos.”

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