Anjali lifted Mabel’s feet up and plopped down on the other end of the sofa. She set Mabel’s feet down on her lap. “I say we dye her hair.”
Mabel raised her head enough to see the glint in Anjali’s eyes. “If you could guarantee it would look as good as yours, then I might let you.” Mabel pointed to Anjali’s dark forest-green locks, the latest color she’d tried.
Hannah sat cross-legged on the floor in front of them, scrolling through her phone. “Delivery for Chinese food would be an hour out, but it might be worth the wait if that means we don’t have to go anywhere.”
“You guys, I’m fine.” But Mabel wasn’t fine. She’d made it through her clinical running on caffeine and denial. But that willpower was fading fast, and despair was winding its way through her.
She hadn’t reached out to the women of KNO, but somehow they knew what had happened and had descended on her dad’s duplex within minutes of her getting home.
Ruby groaned from the walkway to the kitchen. “Can we all hold off on the plans for a hot second? Mabel, you’re going to go over there. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better.”
Mabel couldn’t think of anything to say. At every turn, it was Carolina’s face in her mind, so the thought of going to Zane’s like she was a kid begging for an ice cream cone was simply impossible.
Tory knocked before opening the door to the duplex. “Sorry, I had some clients who ran late.” She dropped her keys on the coffee table and tilted her head to look at Mabel. Her sympathetic look belied the sharpness of her tone. “Mabel, I know you’re sad. But trust me when I say, this is your old wound about what Zane did in the past coming up. This isn’t happening now. He’s not rejecting you now. He’s in love with you.”
Mabel sat up, a woosh of dizziness causing her to grab her forehead. “What are you talking about? Wounds of the past?”
“Honey.” Tory shooed her with her hands, and Mabel sat up straighter and swiveled her legs around. Her feet landed on the floor, but she didn’t want to look Tory in the eye because someone, at some point, had shared a lot more information than was acceptable.
“We know something happened between you two a long time ago. We don’t know exactly what, but it hurt, and we’re very sorry,” Tory said.
Mabel looked around the room. Her friend’s faces were kind, and most of them were nodding.
Tory took a breath and continued. “I just got off the phone with Liam, and he told me about the current stuff. He had a convo with Zane this afternoon, and he filled in the blanks for Liam. He told him the new developments in your relationship with Zaaaane.” She elbowed Mabel and cooed. “I can’t tell you how happy thismakes me.”
“But you saw the photo too. And he barely reached out to me since he met her.” Mabel turned her attention to Ruby. “What’s this about Weston’s cousin?”
Ruby straightened from the overstuffed chair in the corner of the room. “Obviously, since it was all a surprise, I didn’t know this either until Weston explained it all to me. But, Mabel, Weston’s cousin lives in Bartlett, and her best friend is Carolina Jorgenson. Weston’s cousin asked Carolina to bring up a cooler of mini desserts to pass out to everyone after he proposed. But then the fire happened, and there wasn’t a chance.”
“Ah, dang,” Anjali said, “I could really use a mini dessert right now.”
Hannah held up her phone. “I was trying to decide on where to order our food for tonight, so it’s not too late for me to add some dessert…”
“No!” Tory protested. “We’re not ordering food or dessert for Mabel because she’s going to go over to Zane’s and work this out.”
Mabelwantedto go to Zane’s. She ached to see him and have him explain to her in great detail about how he loved her and not Carolina.
“I need to think,” Mabel said, reaching for the remote on the coffee table.
Her friends groaned but started talking amongst themselves about other things. Mabel mostly tuned them out, pulling up Netflix, absently scrolling through the options. How come Netflix thought it would be a good idea to recommend she watchSaw VI?
A music special came up as an option. “Now we’re talking,” Hannah said. “Let’s play us some Garth.”
That’s when things clicked in Mabel’s brain. The Garth Brooks concert. So many years ago, and even then, Zane was watching out for her. He’d bought her a t-shirt that she’d wanted, but he’d waited forher to be ready to receive it. Even then, he was loving her in the only way he could at that time: cautiously but completely.
There was no way him spending an hour or so at function with a beautiful woman a few nights ago could have changed that, no matter what her frayed heart had been telling her.
And to be fair,shehadn’t reached out to him after spending the day with Dallin either. Dallin was sonotthe man for her, but did Zane even know that?
As best she could with it being so crowded with her friends, she shot off the sofa. “I have to go.”
Cady took in a sharp breath. “To see Zane?”
Tears pricked her eyes, and she nodded. The room burst into applause, and within seconds they were in Mabel’s car, with Ruby and Tory driving another car behind them.
Because they had to make sure Mabel got there okay, though they weren’t about to cramp Mabel’s style by all sticking around once they arrived at Zane’s. They needed a car for the return trip home. They had a feeling she’d be there a while.
“Why didn’t I think to change?” Mabel asked her friends when they pulled into Zane’s long driveway. She looked down at her scrubs—they were purple, of all colors.
