Emily sits back in her seat, rolling her eyes at Annie. “Unbelievable.”
But . . . who can really blame me? James needs to be in the next Marvel movie. Or aSmallvillereboot, because he definitely has the body of a farmer who is also secretly Superman. Plus everyone knows I am the frisky one in the family. It’s not a surprise my libido is a ravenous thing. I can’t be expected to see such a great body and just ignore it!
“Preposterous,” I accidentally say out loud.
“Thank you, Madison!” Emily swings her indignant gaze to Noah. “See. She agrees with me.”
I actually have no idea what they are talking about.
We are having a sibling Hearts tournament at the Pie Shop and for the last ten minutes they have been bickering about something not nearly as important as my towel fiasco.
This card game night has been a tradition of ours for forever (we have a lot of traditions, actually) and we used to get together, just the four of us, to play almost every Saturday night. Now, as adults with significant others and careers, we get together when we can. Which is why it’s happening now, on a Wednesday night.
“Yep. I agree with Emily.” I try to as much as possible because being on the opposite end of her viewpoint is like standing down a tornado. I’d rather not.
“Wuss,” says Noah before laying down his five of clubs and then looking up at me. “How’s it going over on the farm?”
“Fine.” My answer pops out quick. “Good.”
“Is James driving you nuts?” Annie asks.
“No, actually. Probably because I never see him.” I pause before laying down my king. “Do you guys think he seems busier than normal?”Aka avoiding me.
“He’s worked hard as long as I’ve known him,” says Noah, coming in hot with the most unhelpful answer in the world.
“Well, yeah. But I mean . . . he seems like he’s really working hard now. Is that new?”
“No.” Emily plays her card, and it comes in lowest so Annie has to take the pile with her ace. I sigh with relief—not because of the hand of cards but because Emily just confirmed James isn’t avoiding me. “He’s been working a lot more over the last two years. I think he’s had several people quit. But also he was sort of pulling double-duty there for a while as he was renovating your cottage.”
My gaze shoots up to Emily, but I realize too late that it was the wrong decision. She’s looking down, but her eyes are on me—waiting to see my reaction, apparently. “You mean whenthe construction crewwas renovating the cottage, right? Because James specifically saidthey—implying a crew—when he was discussing the renovation.”
“Nope.” Noah is staring down at his cards, unbothered. “It was definitely only James. I swear he worked night and day to get it done. Not sure why.” He shakes his head. “Then again, I never know anything he’s doing anymore. I didn’t even know he was building a restaurant until I heard you’d signed on to be the chef.”
My breath is caught in my lungs. “I didn’t either until he offered me the position. But apparently he’d already had it in the works.”
“Which is so strange,” says Annie while moving one card from the front of her hand to the back. “Because I had been at the farm several days a week for the flower crops and he never mentioned a single thing. There weren’t even any work trucks there until after the week you signed on. It’s almost like . . .” Annie jumps like a squirrel ran across her feet and then looks up, gaze meeting directly with Emily’s. Something transpires.
What the hell?Emily and Annie don’t share a private telepathic language. Only me and Emily have that! I feel like ever since I’vecome back to Rome, everyone has been acting strange. Making weird faces. Blatantly keeping secrets. Like they’re all tiptoeing around me.
I’m scared what they’re all thinking but not saying is that they convinced James to build this restaurant for me because everyone knew I was going to fail out there in the real world. Convinced him to build me a trampoline, so when I fall I won’t break.
It wouldn’t be the first time they anticipated my screwup and prepared for it. There was the speech I was supposed to give at Noah and Amelia’s wedding—Emily knew I’d forget, so she wrote one for me, just in case. (And yes, I had to use it.) Before that, she submitted my college essays for me, fully aware I’d forget to do it myself.
And then there was the brief stint when I was obsessed with poetry. I entered one of my poems in the state fair and won. But later I found out I’d only won because Noah bribed the judges with free pies.Free pies!
There are countless more stories like those too.
So what if this whole thing—the cottage, the restaurant—isn’t an opportunity but a mercy? A concession? If that’s true, then I’m not chasing a dream. I’m being babysat so I don’t screw up again. What really guts me, though, is that it reinforces the one truth I don’t want to believe about myself.
Thing is, I am damn good at cooking, and I love creating a new recipe. But I didn’t love New York, and I didn’t thrive in the cutthroat culinary world out there. Does that have to equal failure?
Because I want answers, I call Annie out directly. “It’s almost likewhat? Finish your sentence.”
“Oh. Nothing.” Her cards must be very interesting for how glued her eyes are to them.
I tip forward, hooking my finger over the cards and tuggingthem lower so she has to look at me. “No, you were definitely going to say something.”
Annie gives an angelic smile and a casual shrug. “I forget. Honestly, the thought just flew out of my head.”
