Her phone vibrated where it was still sitting on the coffee table next to her forgotten chili, and she walked over to it, swiping the message from Jodi open.
Okay, we’re home. Now SPILL! I want all the details!
I know he’s been at your place for two weeks, Roxy told me!
Letting her head fall back against her shoulders, she sighed up at the ceiling before looking back at the phone, typing a quick message. She hated how much the words hurt as she sent the text.
There’s nothing to tell. He left. The end.
The three dots popped up then disappeared several times before Jodi’s next message came through. Shaun couldn’t help the sad smile that tugged at one corner of her lips.
I’ll bring tequila and ice cream.
Be there in twenty minutes.
Shaun set the phone down on the coffee table, scraping her mostly uneaten chili into the garbage under the sink. Then she forced herself down the hall to the bedroom again, pulling on apair of fleece pajama pants and an oversized hoodie over Kasey’s shirt that she still wore.
Jodi came in fifteen minutes later, grocery bag in one hand and a pizza box in the other, overnight bag slung over her shoulder.
“No, I don’t want a hug, and I don’t know that I particularly want to talk about it yet,” Shaun said as Jodi stepped into the kitchen, depositing the bags and the pizza onto the counter. “I do, however, want to know how your honeymoon went.”
Jodi waved one hand and made a pfft sound, taking the contents out of the grocery bag one at a time. “Yeah, well I’ve been waiting over two weeks to hear about this, and you promised.”
“Jodi,” Shaun whined, crossing her arms over her stomach and squeezing her eyes shut. “He literally just left like, an hour ago.”
“So you guys had a fight?” her sister asked, turning toward her with the bottle of tequila in one hand and the ice cream in the other. She held them both up and raised her eyebrows.
Shaun sighed heavily and pointed toward the tequila. It had been a day. She deserved some tequila.
“We’re always fighting,” Shaun muttered and turned to grab two shot glasses from the cupboard, along with two margarita glasses as Jodi placed the tequila and a bottle of margarita mix on the counter. Shaun cracked the seal on the tequila and poured out two shots of the golden liquor, while Jodi found a cutting board and a knife, slicing up the lime she’d pulled out of the bag as well. Shaun slid the saltshaker closer to them both as Jodi put the ice cream container in the freezer for later. “This was never going to work, Jodi. This wasn’t meant to last. We’re too different.”
“Or too much the same,” Jodi countered, raising her dark brows.
They both picked up their shot glasses and limes. They clinked their shots together and licked the salt off the back of their hands, then tossed the tequila back. Jodi cringed and put the lime in her mouth, sucking as she danced a little. Shaun poured another shot into her glass, taking that one in rapid succession to the first before putting the lime between her lips.
“Can I tell you what I think?” Jodi asked.
“I’d rather you not, but I feel like that’s not going to stop you,” Shaun muttered dryly, rolling her eyes.
“You’re right, it’s not,” her sister said simply, and Shaun sighed, once again crossing her arms over her stomach. “I think you’re so scared of letting anyone in again after Tommy that you’ll find any way to self-sabotage. That you’re so worried about not feeling like you’re your own person, or like yourself, with someone else. But Shaun, honey, when you find the right person… you don’t have to worry about any of that. It just happens. I know we’ve never really talked about what happened with Tommy—”
“And I don’t really want to now,” Shaun grumbled, making Jodi glare at her.
“—but we’re going to. Starting with why you were trying to hide from him the night he proposed.”
Shaun cringed, burying her face in her hands.Oh god. I did hide. Behind a tree.
“You told me that night that you liked Tommy. Not that you loved him,” Jodi said softly. “I think you knew long before you ended things that it wasn’t right. I just always felt that you needed someone that could handle you.”
Shaun lowered her hands from her face to glare at her sister. “You make me sound like I’m a petulant brat.”
“I mean, yeah, sometimes,” Jodi teased with a laugh. “But that’s not what I mean and you know it, so don’t go getting all bent out of shape until you hear me out.” Shaun blew out anannoyed breath but nodded, and Jodi continued. “You are fire, Shaun. So wild and untamed and so authentically who you are… I hated seeing that part of you being smothered while you were with Tommy. Like he was trying his best to be able to handle you, but his way was to try to control you, to water down what makes you truly you.”
Shaun swallowed hard, reaching for the bottle of tequila and pouring another shot. The first two had already started to make her feel fuzzy. Kasey’s words came back to her as she tilted the shot glass back.I want you. All of you. Unabashedly, no filter, no watered-down bullshit.
“With Kasey… I don’t know, Shaun. It just seemed like you were still able to beyou, unapologetically and without any pretenses or trying to fit into a mold that you just weren’t made for,” Jodi whispered fervently. “Yes, you guys fight, a lot. But that’s who you are; you’re not built to be small or quiet or fragile. He lets you be as fiery and as wild as you want or need to be, and he revels in it. The way he looks at you… It’s the way Dad looks at Mom. Like you’re the most incredible thing he’s ever seen. Don’t you feel that?” she asked, pressing her hand over her heart. Shaun tossed the tequila back, exhaling as it burned going down. “You do, don’t you? That’s why this hurts so bad.”
“I don’t want to feel like I have to change, or in ten years realize that I have changed, just to be with someone,” she said quietly. Admitting it out loud was painful.
