I even, well, maybe not loved . . . but I liked being back in my familiar stomping grounds.
Shooting Teagan my most genuine smile and meeting her eyes, I said, “I don’t hate it.”
She had just enough time to fist pump dramatically—and sarcastically—before I had to eat my words. Cat Macey rounded the corner in her Pick N’ Save polo and signature too-tight jeans. Her makeup was still over the top, her winged eyeliner almost reaching her hairline, and her lashes had somehow gotten even bigger than I remembered.
Honestly, I half expected her to flutter them and fly away.
Her jaw dropped when she figured out who I was, arms extended awkwardly, hands flapping excitedly.
“Oh, my gaw!” she squealed at the top of her lungs, bright blue gum hanging out of the corner of her mouth. “Oh, my gaw! Look who it is! Look who’s finally come home!” She pulled me into a hug before I could dodge her octopus-like arms. “My baby girl is back!” She squeezed me so tightly I briefly worried about losing consciousness. “My little Holly is finally home!”
Her cloying perfume threatened to finish the job her death hug had started.
“Hi, Cat,” I huffed, minimizing my breathing as much as possible.
She pulled back, pinching my cheeks with her excessively long, bedazzled, cheetah-print nails. “Does your mama know? She didn’t say a word! That bitch! I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.”
“She doesn’t know,” I said quietly, plainly. “I just got back last weekend.” Cat, my mother’s best friend in the whole world,despite their vastly different taste in men . . . which, now that I thought about it . . . made sense so they wouldn’t overlap as they both ran parallel circuits in the Mistletoe’s dating ring . . . narrowed her eyes at me like a loyal, not-actually-blood-related aunt. I changed course. “I didn’t want to ruin her trip. She’s in Portugal, Cat. She’s having the time of her life.” Or so her Instagram stories made it seem.
“Ibiza, darling. Nothing so pedestrian as Portugal.” She laughed as if the two places were on opposite sides of the world—they weren’t—and the sound was reminiscent of someone on a yacht, not standing between the frozen fish sticks and discounted turkeys at the local Pick N’ Save.
To be clear, I loved Icky Dave’s. And most of the people who had worked here over the years. Who I did not love was Cat. I tolerated her. I was somewhat endeared to her. She was probably always going to be in my life to some degree. I did not, however, love her.
“You get it,” I said, knowing flattery was always the best policy with Cat. Logic would get me nowhere. I saw Teagan inching away out of my periphery. “I’m in town for a while. I’m staying with Teagan.”
She glared at Teagan for a long moment, but when she turned back to me, she was all smiles. “Good, darling. Good. Your mama will be so happy to see you.”
Despite what had happened with Sam all those years ago, I had never cut my mom out of my life. Let’s face it, Sam wasn’t the first boy she’d tried to swoop out from under me, and he wouldn’t be the last.
But I’d learned from that experience, gotten some cheap therapy from Kansas State psych grads working on getting all their hours in, and learned to set some actual boundaries for the first time in my life.
Mom had been upset—naturally. And honestly, it took a couple of years before she heeded even the smallest personal boundary. It helped that I didn’t live at home and had found Hudson, who wasn’t the slightest bit interested in my cougar mother. I mean, he didn’t even like her. He was not even nice to her. But we had a healthy texting relationship these days, and last summer, when she’d been on a hiking trip with a guy named Dierks, she visited me in Denver. We’d had a lovely-ish time.
It helped that Hudson and I were deciding to end things, and so she hadn’t had to deal with his dirty looks and underhanded comments. But our breakup had nothing to do with her, so . . . this was what I called progress.
“Well,” I stepped back, untangling myself from Cat’s appendages, “I should find Teagan. We’re trying to figure out supper.”
“Oh! Do you need a key for the house? Celine left one with me if you’re wanting to stay somewhere nice.” She smiled at me, and I noticed a smudge of red lipstick on her front tooth.
“No, no! That’s okay,” I rushed to tell her. It was hard to explain the totality of the nightmare that would be moving into Celine’s bachelorette pad while she was overseas and didn’t have a chance to make it safe for company. God. The horrors. “I’m happy with Teagan.”
Cat’s face fell a little, the chance to fix her bestie’s familial relationship while she was on an international trip without her slipping through her fingers. “All right, if you’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
She brightened a little. “Well, don’t be a stranger, Holly Girl. Come back and see me.” She squeaked another sound of delight. “Oh, my gaw! I just can’t believe you’re home! I’m going to text Celine right now!”
“Please don’t—” but my voice was lost to the sounds of early 90s music playing over the speakers and a baby crying in thedistance. I could already see Cat frantically tapping away at her cell phone on her way back up to the front.
“That’s it, I’m leaving,” I told the frozen turkeys.
“Aw, you just got here.”
I turned around and found Sam Autry standing there—Holiday Brights quarter zip and all. I sucked in a sharp breath and tried to pretend he hadn’t just jump-scared the ever-living shit out of me. “Where did you come from?”
He held up his head of lettuce, bag of tomatoes, and pound of bacon apologetically. “I’m not stalking you. I just want to eat supper.”
I side-eyed his bacon. BLTs weren’t a bad idea, and it was something I could teach Teagan to make by herself. Even the kitchen-reluctant could handle bacon and toast. Maybe.
