My gut clenches, but Laney’s stifling a smile as she waves me to join her. She’s propping her leg cast up on the couch with two of her kittens on her lap, and she’s stroking both of them.
“Is Em okay?” I whisper while I sink onto the couch, almost sitting on a third kitten that was hiding under a throw pillow. “IsTheookay? Wait. Back up. How are you? How’s your leg? Do you need anything?”
“I’m good, thank you, and Emma’s working on his taxes,” Laney whispers back.
She’s almost gleeful.
I give her thewhy the hell is that funny?eyebrows while I shrug out of my coat and rescue kitten number three, who’s quaking a little. Probably because of the yelling.
Which is not like Emmaat all.
“He said you already know, so I’m not gossiping to you when I tell you he threw all of his money into that screw-the-hedge-fund-managers thing off Reddit last year and made a hella ton more with it. But he didn’t tell Emma, and she’s freaking out about him underpaying estimated taxes.”
“This isn’t about Chandler and jail?” I whisper.
She shakes her head. “It is not.”
“Is she still mad at me? At any of us?”
The thing I love about Laney is that she can fix anything. If there’s a problem in a four-mile radius, Laney will sniff it out and solve it before most people are aware it even exists. Second-most, I love that she doesn’t blow smoke up my ass, even if she sometimes will paint the truth in the prettiest light she can.
But when she purses her lips and has to think about it, I hate that I love those two things about her.
“I don’t think she’s mad at any of us, necessarily,” she finally says, “but I do think she has a lot of feelings to work through still. And who can blame her? She spent seven years waiting for him to marry her, and then the whole thing not only fell apart at the last minute, but theentire worldsaw it. Nice job the other night on calling Addison out for being such an asshole and posting the video, by the way.”
“She’s on my permanent shit list.”
“Did your boss appreciate it more or less than he enjoyed getting cheesed with you?”
“Ugh. What did you hear?”
“Sabrina. Youclaimedhim at House of Curry. People are speculating you’ve donewaymore than dusting yourselves in powdered cheese.”
“Devi saw, didn’t she?”
“Devi saw, and she swears I’m the only person she told.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Can we get back to Emma? Did she enjoy her trip at least?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t said much about it. Even to Theo.”
“Are you two okay?”
Laney was the one who ultimately spilled the tea to Emma about who was driving the go-kart that damaged the statue of Ol’ Snaggletooth, the miner, and that Theo ultimately went to jail for about ten years ago. It was a short stay, but it was hard on the whole family to watch him go through it.
And when Laney purses her lips again, I start to breathe.
“I don’t know if she’s okay with anyone right now. Including herself. It’s like seeing rain come from the sunshine.”
“You have to tell me these things,” Emma shrieks in the other room.
Theo says something quietly enough in response that I can’t understand him.
“Of course I can fix it, you big doof, but you’re going to have to give the IRS way more money than you would’veif you’d told me. Do you like throwing money away? Wait. Stop. Donotanswer that.”
I gulp.
Laney winces.
