I was still reading the backs and adding to my pile when Nova finished up and came to find me.
“Dang, girl,” she said, dropping to sit beside me. “Not planning on going back to work for a while, huh?”
“These’ll last me about a week,” I confessed, pointing to the stack that was a couple feet tall. “I’m a fast reader.”
“No shit. That would take me months.”
“Did you find anything good?”
“I got a couple. I love thriller books, but I can only read them when I know Rum’s going to be in town for a while because if I’m at the house alone, I’ll freak out at every little noise.”
“Doesn’t your grandma still live with you?”
“Yeah, but that just makes it worse.” Nova laughed. “Because then I have to protect her from the scary house settling, too.”
“You’re very brave,” I joked.
“Did it ever freak you out when you were living alone?” she asked as I carefully picked up my books and rose to my feet. “You didn’t even have anyone you could call if something happened. At least here I know I could call any of the Hawthornes if shit got rowdy.”
“No, it didn’t really bother me,” I replied as we walked toward the register. “I usually lived in corporate apartments, so there were always people coming and going. Everything was well lit. In Chicago I actually had a doorman who was pretty cool. His name was Max, and he would’ve fucked up anyone who messed with me.”
“I’ve never lived alone,” she said, widening her eyes. “I’ve always had Gran or Bird or Rumi with me.”
“How is Bird?” I asked. I hadn’t seen Nova’s little brother in ages.
“He’s good. I keep telling him to move home, but he’s working in Seattle, and he loves it.”
The line moved, and our conversation stalled as we paid for our books, then picked up again as we carried them outside.
“I bet he’d get job offers anywhere. I thought I was smart, but he’s a freaking genius.”
“Unfortunately, he likes where he’s at,” she joked. “But I hope at some point he’ll want to be closer, even if he doesn’t come back to Eugene. Hell, I’d be happy if he settled in Portland. At least it wouldn’t take all day to drive there.”
“Let me throw these in the car,” I said, pausing at the edge of the sidewalk. “I don’t want to bring them in the restaurant.”
“No worries.”
I jogged across the street and pushed the key fob to unlock the doors. The noise it usually made when I unlocked them sounded weird, but I didn’t think much of it because the door was unlocked when I got to it. I put the books on the passenger seat and then stood next to the car to make sure it locked. There wasn’t anything worth stealing inside, but I didn’t want anyone to swipe my new books before I could read them.
Nova and I sat down in a little Italian place with tea lights on the tables, and I took off my coat and settled in for some girl time. I never really noticed how solitary my life had become until I was home and hanging out with people again. It was awesome to sit down with a friend and talk about everything and anything for a while. The food was good, but the company was even better. Nova and I had always gotten along well even though she was a few years younger than me.
When we were growing up, I didn’t really spend a lot of time with the cousin group, preferring to hang out at home—but it would’ve been impossible not to know Nova. She and my cousin Rumi had been friends since they were kids—long before they’d ever gotten together.
We knew all the same old stories and had a lot of the same experiences since her grandpa had been a member of the club.
“We just…it just hasn’t happened,” she said softly. “Everyone else is having babies, but we’re not.”
“Have you been to the doctor?” I asked, my heart breaking for her.
“They don’t know why it won’t happen for us. They said to keep trying and said we could discuss more invasive testing and solutions, but I’m just not there yet.”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“We’ll probably do it,” she said, swallowing hard. “I know Rumi has been socking away money, even though he hasn’t said anything about it. Once he knew how expensive it’ll be to do IVF or any of that, he just kind of quietly started doing side jobs for Tommy.”
“Thatta boy, Rum.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to unload.”
