She looked like she needed that sleep.
And now, maybe she’ll look me in the eye so we can get past that thing that I refuse to think about.
Not thinking about it right now, in fact. Right now, I’m thinking about Hannah, who’s seated at a table by the window inside the café. She’s already sipping her morning tea with two scrambled eggs and a slice of toast in front of her, as well as two over-easy eggs, a stack of pancakes, and a side of bacon waiting at the spot across from her on the red checkered tablecloth.
I’d rather be eating at Café Nirvana in Tickled Pink, but since Hannah moved from Tickled Pink to Deer Drop, I compromise andmeet her when she’s free. I’m over here often enough working jobs, so it’s not like it’s out of my way.
She smiles as I join her, as if I’m the best part of her day, and just like always, I get a punch to the gut that I let her get away.
Hard to call it that this morning, though.
Today, I’m having a full-on flashback toyou lost her because you never deserved her.
Always great when teenage me puts his ugly opinions in my head, which he’s been doing more and more since the Lightlys moved in.
Something about watching that old high school building come back to life is affecting me more than I want to admit.
But Hannah’s always been the bright spot, even back then.
Today, her dark hair falls in spirals around her cheeks, and her light-brown skin glows more than usual. She always did seem to bloom in summer, when it’s warmer. In winter, she goes into full hibernation mode, and then it’scan you go grab me more socksorhere, warm my hands up.
“Where were you last night?” she asks. “I tried to call to ask if you wanted to get together with Andrew and me to watch the ball game on Sunday, but my call went straight to voice mail.”
“Can’t tell you all of my secrets, or I’d lose my air of mystery.” I grab my fork and dig into the eggs while she laughs at my joke.
Hannah and I have been best friends since third grade, when she saved me from the playground bully and I saved her from missing an assignment in art class by giving her mine to thank her.
She’s seen me at my worst, and vice versa, though my worst is considerably worse than anything she’s done. The fact that we’re still friends says a lot more about her than it does about me.
She’s the one person in the world who I don’t keep a lot of secrets from.
Just that I have Tickled Pink Secret Poker Society nights one Thursday night a month and that I’ve been madly in love with hersince about two seconds after she started dating Andrew, when I did the stupid man thing that every idiot in every romantic comedy ever does and didn’t appreciate what I had until it was gone.
You know. The little stuff.
“Thanks for breakfast,” I say. “I’ll get it next time.”
“Please. You get it every time. I got here extra early just to take my turn, and then you were three minutes late. And I repeat—where were you last night?”
“Hanging out with friends. You?”
“The usual.” She laughs again. She has one of those magical fairy laughs that make you feel warm inside, and every time I think about Andrew being the guy who gets to listen to that every day—assuming he’s not being his typical asshole self, and I don’t call people assholes lightly, even if I seem to be the only person to call him an asshole—I want to punch him.
“So you ate dinner by yourself while Andrew worked late, binged your favoriteGame of Thronesepisodes, then went to bed with the lights on?”
“Hush.” She rolls her eyes over her tea, but she’s still smiling, and it makes me mad all over again that I was right.
I might not deserve her, but neither does he.
“Nailed it.” I make a tally mark in the air. “That’s seventy-four for me and two for you. What’s wrong with your eggs? You haven’t touched them.”
“They sounded better when I ordered them.”
I frown. “You sick?”
There are two correct answers from Hannah.
The first isno, I ate something that didn’t agree with me last night, and I’m still paying for it, and the second isno, but I have a big case at work today, and I have courtroom belly.
