Page 43 of Falling into Place
“Agreed,” Carly said, but went right back to Kendall’s question. “I’m just busy right now, okay? This whole thing with Brooks is taking a lot of my attention on top of my other Mode clients and, you know, myrealjob. So I hardly have any free time right now anyway.”
Sasha made a show of assessing the bar they sat in and the drinks on their table. “You made time to meet up with us for Friday happy hour ...”
“Would you prefer I ditch you two to pick up some rando at the bar?”
Her friend shrugged. “That might be better than holding out in hopes Benjamin wants to pick things back up when he gets back.”
Her friends didn’t dislike Benjamin, per se ... They just found him a little dull. Sasha’s exact words the night she met him had been, “He’s like the guy on thatNew Girlepisode that spends the entire half hour talking about model trains and his favorite types of cheese.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Carly defended. She and Benjamin hadn’t even talked about what might happen when he got back. Though, except for that minor horny moment the first time she wentto Brooks’s house, she’d been fine on her own during the five months he’d been gone. Seven more didn’t seem impossible or, in her opinion, unreasonable to consider for the right guy, but that wasn’t something her friends would agree with. “And I’d prove it with Plaid Oxford Guy by the dartboard, because I’d give him a 10/10 on that crisp sleeve roll, but I’m meeting my mom for dinner in an hour.”
“You could have a quickie in the bathroom,” Kendall said, eyes still on her screen.
“Hmm,” Sasha said thoughtfully, and turned around to assess their options. “Maybe I’ll consider that with Blue Hat over there.”
“You’d probably mess up your hair,” Carly pointed out. “And wrinkle that Veronica Beard skirt.”
Eyes wide, Sasha put a hand to her blond curls. “You’re right. Not worth it.”
“It might be,” Kendall said, then tossed her phone down triumphantly. “Done! Brooks Martin, here I come.”
Sasha pursed her lips.
“What? You don’t want me to go out with him?” Kendall asked.
“No, it’s not that. I think you’re great, obviously, or I wouldn’t be friends with you. I just realized how much attention he’s getting all of a sudden. It probably feels like a lot.”
“I think it might be good for him,” Carly said. He had seemed a little overwhelmed when he let her look through all the matches he had, but a lot flattered, too. “Remind him what a catch he is.”
Sasha cocked a brow, and Carly held up her hands. “I’m not sayingIwant to catch him. You should know after that whole Princeton issue and my dream position riding on this whole thing, I’m the last person who would go after a client. But I have spent a lot of time with him lately, and I’m invested in his success and hope he finds someone that makes him happy.”
“I, on the other hand, have no such professional hang-ups,” Kendall said. “So go ahead and wrap your brain around it, Sasha, dear. Becausesoon I plan on being the one sharing a latte with him. Oh my God, what if I marry him and we’re sisters-in-law?”
Sasha laughed. Carly smiled, too, but a strange sensation bloomed in her gut at the thought. Kendall and Brooks? Married? Something about it didn’t sit that well with her, but why? Kendall was smart, driven, and loyal. She had a successful career as a real estate agent and could always be counted in for a night of fun on the town. She’d be a great catch and deserved to find happiness as much as anyone.
For Brooks, though? Carly just couldn’t see it working out long term.
“I could get on board with adding you to the family,” Sasha said. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It took some convincing to get him to even consider dating, so I think marriage is probably pretty far from his mind.”
“We’ll see about that,” Kendall said with a grin, and Carly secretly wished for some of that confidence.
They moved on to topics other than Brooks for the next half hour, then Carly bid her friends goodbye. But as soon as she was in the car driving across town to her mom’s, the man of the hour crept right back into her thoughts. She couldn’t help thinking about his date and wondering if he would ever compare his dates with the evening he’d spent with her.
A little while later, she pulled into the driveway of her childhood home, which had once been her grandparents’ and was the same house where her mom grew up. If it hadn’t already been paid off when Carly and her mom moved in after her grandparents died, there was no telling when it would have been taken away from them.
Maybe that time in eighth grade when her mom lost her job and gambled away her severance package in the span of two weeks. Or anytime Carly’s sophomore year ... That had been rough.
But because they’d had this house, only water and electricity bills occasionally went unpaid. When things started getting shut off, her mom typically realized she’d gone too far and stayed clean for several paychecks to get everything back and restore basic needs like clothes, food, and books for school. There was just no telling how long she’d go before she got sucked back in again.
A foreclosure wouldn’t have been so easy to come back from.
Carly let herself in through the front door and walked slowly through the familiar furnishings. It all looked the same as it had when she was a kid, but tidier. Smelled better, too, like lemon and detergent. Her mom hadn’t given much thought to cleanliness in the years she’d struggled with addiction, and Carly had always been terrified of what friends might see when they stopped by her house. It was probably the reason she’d never invited people over, and why she was so obsessed with keeping her own space clean now.
She’d spent most of her time in her room, alternating between escaping into a book or movie and studying like her life depended on it. In a way, it had. She hadn’t been nearly as focused on guys and parties like her peers—she’d just wanted to get out and finally be in control of her life. Her own future.
Mom was doing so much better now, though, spending her free time working in her garden, cooking, or going on walks rather than hitting the nearest casino. Carly’s gaze passed over the five- and ten-year pins her mom had earned for abstinence, shining and proud in their usual place on the bookcase, and she smiled. Yes, the decisions her mom once made had hurt her, crossed the line into neglectful at times, and had a lasting impact on her to this day. But shortly after Carly had left for college her mom had entered rehab, progressed through a twelve-step program similar to that for AA, and turned her life around. It wasn’t immediate, but as her mom had made improvements on her own, the same could be said for hers and Carly’s relationship.
She was the only family Carly had, and while she couldn’t forget her mom’s past mistakes, she had accepted her apology and agreed to move on.
