“I’m your best friend,” she says. It sounds like a last-ditch effort to get through to me.
It doesn’t work.
I shake my head. “Grace, I love you, but right now you’re being a real asshole.”
She looks at me like I’ve slapped her. “What?”
I sit back in my chair and cross my arms. “When you were falling in love with Decker, I was nothing but supportive. Did I ever say, ‘Hey, isn’t he kind of a fuckboy with a garbage reputation who plays a professional sport in another city? Starting something with him seems a little dicey.’ I did not!” I shrug. “All I’m asking for is the same support I gave you—the same support I’ve always given you.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and I can see her controlling little heart doing battle inside her. I know she means well. I know it. But that doesn’t mean that I have to accept it. Maybe we’ve both been bad friends lately. Her with the judgment, and me for not speaking up. For not telling her how I really feel. For not setting a boundary.
“And what happens if things go badly?” she asks in a whisper.
I let out a laugh tinged with bitterness. “The same thing that happened when they went badly for you! I was there for you, I comforted you, I fed you wine and cake and commiserated, and then when Decker got his shit together, I helped him fix things with you!” At the reminder of all she went through on the way to her own happily ever after, Grace’s eyes go watery, and mine do a little too. But I charge on. “If Dan breaks my heart, I expect you to be my friend and let me cry about it and not say ‘I told you so.’ If Dan breaks my heart, that’s going to suck, but you know what will suck more? Walking away from someone who makes me so happy just because there’s a possibility it won’t work out. I want to put my money on things working out for me. I want to bet on myself. And in this moment, that means betting on Dan.”
She nods, but I think it’s more for herself than for me. Like she’s trying to get herself to catch up to what she knows is right.
“Okay,” she says. “If this is what you want, then I’m here for you. For better or for worse.”
“As you should be,” I say. I can’t keep the heat out of my voice, because she still sounds like she doubts me. Like her support is a concession, not an act of friendship.
“But I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Wyatt—no details. I’m glad you’re getting dicked down well and good, but I don’t want to know anything about it. He’s my brother, and ew, no thank you.”
I laugh. “Deal,” I say. I reach for the muffin bag again, but Grace intercepts my wrist, flipping my arm over.
“What is that?” She’s staring wide-eyed at the lemon tattoo on the inside of my arm. It looks much better after Dan redressed itthis morning, peeling off the adhesive protectant, cleaning it, and covering it with a fresh clear film.
“It’s a tattoo,” I tell her.
“Where did you get it?”
I pause. I don’t know if Grace knows about Dan’s side hustle, and I’m not about to spill his secrets.
“Bloomington,” I say, which has the virtue of being the truth.
Grace studies it, her eyes tracing the lines. “It looks really good,” she says. “Did it hurt?”
“I mean, yeah,” I say, laughing. “But it wasn’t unbearable. Mostly just uncomfortable.”
She looks up with a knowing smile. “Does this mean you’re going to hang your lemon wallpaper?”
I shrug, leaning back in my chair. “I don’t know,” I confess.
“But you love that wallpaper! You just got a permanent tribute to the wallpaper on your arm. What’s stopping you?”
I glance around the kitchen and think of all the work it would take to redo the floors and repaint the dark wood cabinets, and then I’d have to replace the old white appliances, stained and aging. “This house, I think. I’m not sure if I want to stay here.”
Grace’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Seriously? Where would you go?”
“I think maybe Bloomington,” I say. The first time I articulated this plan aloud—to Dan, naked in the quarry—there was a question mark there. But now it doesn’t seem like a question, and that feels good. “I can rent a place while I wait for the house to sell, see if I like it. If I do, then I can save the profits from the house until the right thing comes along for me to buy.”
“And you’d leave your job here?”
“Yeah. And if I were in Bloomington, I could apply to get my master’s. That would mean a raise.” I glance down at the tattoo. “I don’t think Cardinal Springs is the right place for me. I think that if I’m going to grow up for real, I need to go.”
Grace gives a slight smile, but when she sucks in a breath, she sniffles a little. “I think that sounds like a great plan, Carson.”
“You don’t think it’s insane to give up a free house?”
