I realized I hadn’t eaten anything today. I grabbed a granola bar out of the bag and shoved it in my mouth. “You’re the best.”
She smiled. “I know.”
She also brought her Bluetooth speaker and quickly connected it to a playlist on her phone. It wasn’t that she was late for no reason. It was that she was chronically late because she thought of everything. Everyone needed an Adleigh in their life.
We got to work. We started in our individual bedrooms, deciding we’d end with the kitchen—which would need the most cleaning—so we could tackle it together.
Two and a half hours later, we’d smashed the bag of snacks and deep cleaned both bathrooms, the bedrooms, and the living room. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves.
It helped that there was nothing in any of the spaces. Life would generally be a whole lot simpler if we decluttered everything we didn’t absolutely need.
We took a short beverage break before we dove into the hard-to-reach places. Adeigh was going to wrestle the fridge into submission and I was going to scrape out the oven. We still had cabinets to wipe down and floors to vacuum. But the end was in sight.
“I think I have a date tomorrow,” I said casually as I played with the lid of my sparkling water.
Adleigh raised an eyebrow. “Another Tinder hottie?”
“Hey, not all of us can be lucky enough to fall in love with an Ivy League basketball star.”
“First of all, Duke isn’t Ivy League. Merely prestigious.” She held up a second finger. “And he’s more like a basketball benchwarmer than a star. But you’re right, not everyone can have”—she gestured at the empty air around her—“this.”
“You live a charmed life, Adleigh Ann.”
She leaned over the kitchen island littered with our trash and met my gaze. “Seriously, who is it? Anyone I know?”
I realized I shouldn’t have said anything. She knew him too well. All the things I hated about him. And complained about him. And the history I had with him. “You do know him, actually.” I cleared my throat. “He works at the bar.”
“Scandalous, Ada. Shitting where you work? It’s a dangerous game.”
Didn’t I know it. “Well, it won’t be the first time.”
She didn’t find my dark humor funny. “And look how well that went the last time.”
I laughed nervously and decided I should sprint out of the building. And down the street. Possibly all the way to Raleigh. That would be a better idea than finishing this conversation—the conversation I’d started.
“So who is it?” she pressed, turning suspicious. “Case? He’s so hot, Ade. And the perfect solution to our height deficiencies. We could break the generational cycle of having short kids. Change the Kelly line for generations to come.”
“You’re crazy.” But she had a point. “Also I like being short. Everyone always underestimates short people. I like to prove them wrong.”
She snorted. “You would.” She was silent for a minute and then said, “You’re not really going out with Miles, are you? No offense, but I know people who know him, and he’s kind of promiscuous. Which is fine; I just worry about you.”
It was my turn to snort. “Oh my God, you sound like Mom.”
“What?” she gasped. “I do not.”
“He’s kind of promiscuous?” I raised an eyebrow and waited for her to see it.
She waved a hand in front of her face. “Bah. I’m running out of single guys from the bar.”
I pressed my lips together before admitting, “There’s one more you haven’t mentioned.”
Her brow furrowed as she tried to come up with a name that wasn’t Charlie. “Did Will and Lola break up?”
“Will and Lola are about two days away from having a baby.”
“Ada,” she growled. “Spill it already.”
I couldn’t seem to make myself say his name. I couldn’t admit it out loud after years of whining and complaining and being a bitter shrew about him. “You know who it is, you just don’t want to say it.”
