Page 83 of Somebody's Watching Me
And progress was progress.
Samuel lay curled next to his mother, the two of them sleeping the afternoon away. He was a brave little man, never showing Miranda how truly scared he’d been through this ordeal. Josie was proud of the kid and made sure to stay readily available to be his sounding board whenever things became too much.
“Did you call Simone?” she whispered to Ben. “Miranda will want the girls to know the good news.”
Leaning on the opposite side of the doorframe with his arms crossed, Ben shook his head. When Miranda announced she planned to marry him, there was a brief moment where Josie understood. The man was so handsome it hurt her brain half the time.
Not that she was attracted to him. It wasn’t like that. But she could understand his appeal, and it helped soften the loss of Miranda.
“I’ll go do it now.”
He left her, heading down the hall into his office to make the call. The two of them had come to truly know each other over these last few months. It had been difficult at first, but they managed for Miranda’s sake.
With him occupied, she stealthily entered the bedroom and closed the door. While Ben claimed to be accepting of what she and Miranda meant to one another, it remained nearly impossible to be completely open around him. Trust was a tricky thing.
Then there was Samuel.
That brilliant boy wasn’t easily fooled but was still too young to concern himself with the love lives of adults. Acceptance might never come from others, but she hoped that it might come from him.
One day.
Standing at the foot of the bed, she held the tears at bay. Even weak and frail as Miranda was now, she remained beautiful.
Since freshman year in college, there hadn’t been a day where they didn’t talk. The connection snapped into place within the first moments of meeting. Josie had walked into her dorm room and found Miranda hanging back in a corner while her mother fussed over the barren space.
“We’re going to hire decorators.” Mrs. Abrams had thrown her hands in the air. “Pick some colors, girls. We’re going shopping.”
Miranda and Josie had shared a giggle—the first of many—before being rushed out to spend an ungodly amount of money on room décor.
Their friendship grew from there, and the entire experience had been so very foreign to Josie. She’d never had a friend or even someone who just wanted to hang out. As overworked lawyers, her parents never had a great deal of time to spend with their only child. There had never been any dates or long-term boyfriends. She did try. Several times. But nothing.
Two years into rooming with Miranda, neither of them had gone on a date, or even associated with anyone else. Mostly because there wasn’t a need. They had each other.
But then everything changed on one of their movie margarita nights.
It was their thing. Friday nights were for movie marathons and margaritas. No exceptions. Even when apart, they continued the tradition, sitting on the phone until well past midnight watching something together.
On the Friday night that changed their lives forever, the torrential downpour outside had called for something spooky, and they scared themselves half to death with a slasher flick. Add in their poorly mixed drinks, neither of them could sleep, and in the wee hours before dawn, Miranda slipped into Josie’s bed.
Josie couldn’t remember who made the first move, but there was kissing, and then there was more. So much more. Neither of them knew what they were doing. It was funny now, but back then, totally terrifying.
In the morning, they both agreed that what they felt was too dangerous to be taken seriously. It couldn’t last. It couldn’t be real.
But it couldn’t end either.
Miranda agreeing to marry Ben had been one of the hardest times in her life, and Josie wasn’t sure if she would ever get over it.
“Nothing is going to change,” Miranda had attempted to assure her on one of their girl weekends away. They had begun to regularly rent a place on the North Carolina coast. A quiet beach house that they swore to buy one day. “I’ll marry him, but I’ll love you.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
“We’ll always have each other, but you need to find someone, or people will start to talk.”
So, that’s what she did. Thomas Campbell hadn’t been the handsomest of men, but he’d been two of the best things any woman in need of a husband could want. Rich and old.
Tommy had been kind, too, and she honestly had no reason to complain. He gave her a good life, never caring if she spent more time with her best friend than him. When he died two years into theirmarriage, with no heirs and no known relatives, Josie had inherited his entire fortune.
Enough to support herself and buy that North Carolina beach house.
