Mom and Misty are best friends. Mom must have known and… Why didn’t she tell me? When did I stop hearing tidbits of Piper’s life? And how have I not noticed when that shift occurred?
Leif’s annoying chuckle reverberates in my head. In this case, I missed more than mere details. I missed the whole damn picture.
I look at my first friend and really see her. Note how she keeps avoiding my eyes, even though she turns that sunny smile on everyone else. Recall the way she looked for junior prom and how I cleared my throat three times before I could admit that she looked nice dressed up like a girl.
All those old, complicated feelings come rushing back. For an instant, the present clashes with the past. She’s here, hanging out and chatting with my sister, in Mom’s kitchen; it’s the way it always was and hasn’t been in a long time. Too long.
I shake my head, feeling unsettled. Unnerved. Completely out of sorts.
I don’t like it.
“I’m sorry.” My sister reaches across the island and pats her hand.
“All good,” Piper laughs it off.
Stacy moves to top up Joe’s wine glass and, at Kimmy calling for them, they join our parents in the living room.
“Sounds like an asshole,” I mutter, tossing my two cents into the conversation.
Piper’s eyebrows lift. “Who? Jeff?”
I snort. “Is that the ex?”
Piper lets out an exhale. “Yeah. It was over a year ago.”
“You still torn up about it?” My voice comes out harsher than I intend.
Piper sighs, a wave of hurt rolling over her expression. She swipes a hand over her forehead. “No. I’m not,” she says truthfully, even though her face tells a different story.
Is she pining for this guy? Or has another guy broken her heart? Or is it not about a man at all?
Either way, I hate that she looks crushed.
“Fuck, Pipe, you could do so much better than some random in Denver.”
She snorts. “You don’t even know him.”
“Don’t need to,” I refute. “Knowing he hurt you is enough to dislike him.”
She straightens at the venom in my tone. “It’s been a long time since anyone ran off my crushes.”
I roll my lips together, recalling the guys I shut down in high school before they had a chance to ask her out. None of them were good enough. I didn’t trust any enough with Piper. The thought pulls me up short. Why is that? Even when my best friend on the hockey team mentioned asking Piper out, I gave him a list of conditions so long he dropped the idea. “Maybe you still need me to.”
She snorts. Swirls her wine glass. Takes a long sip. “I guess I’m meant to be perpetually single.”
“Why do you say that?”
She polishes off her glass in one gulp. “There are no men waiting in the wings. There’s just me and a lot of work I can barely keep up with.”
At the dejectedness in her tone, I lean closer. “Why don’t you take a break?”
“You mean quit?” She arches an eyebrow.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Despite how much time has passed, I know you, Piper. You’re a classic overachiever and can’t handle the thought of quitting anything. But taking a break, a time-out, or pivoting into something new, something different, isn’t the same as giving up.”
She bites her bottom lip thoughtfully. Her brown eyes are deep and thoughtful, like hot chocolate on a cold, winter day.
Awareness snaps through me as I lean closer, as if pulled by a magnet. I want to tug on her lip, release it from her teeth. Swipe the pad of my thumb along her plush mouth. Put my hands on her and feel the silkiness of her skin.
