Chapter 10
“Look at her.It feels like just yesterday we were talking about whether she should get started on pads or tampons,” my best friend said with a sigh from her spot beside me.
I couldn’t helpbutsnort as I looked down the table in the same direction, eyeing Lily at the head of it, surrounded by a handful of her friends and our two sisters. Apparently, at twenty-six, I was too old to sit on that end at the restaurant I had reserved months ago. On my half, there was me, my friend Lenny, her grandfather, her grandfather’s best friend, Mr. Cooper, and Lydia—the extended family we had made since I’d left San Antonio.
I’d been feeling pretty melancholic all day, and it had gotten worse when my sister had walked across the stage at the giant arena where her high school graduation was held. I loved all of my sisters, but Lily… Lily was the baby. She was the best of all of us.
I was happy for her, but it still made me sad that my little sister was growing up.
Fortunately, Lenny had snuck a blow horn into the arena despite going through security somehow—I wasn’t sure how, but I was going to ask later—and the minute that thing had gonetoot tootand given everyone within a hundred feet an earache, I hadn’t been able to help but feel joyful, just freaking happy and proud.
My little sister had graduated high school, and like our other sisters, in the top 10 percent of her class, with a three-fourths scholarship to a public university in Lubbock.
That thought especially made my chest fill with pride when I watched her lean back in her chair and laugh her butt off at something someone close to her had said.
“Don’t remind me. I’ve managed not to cry, and I want to keep it that way,” I said to my closest friend.
Elena DeMaio, or Len or Lenny as everyone called her, snickered and swung her gaze over to my direction. In a button-down cotton dress she had borrowed from me because she still couldn’t lift one of her arms over her head after a surgery she’d had two months ago, she almost looked sweet with her sling on. Almost.
But we all knew she wasn’t, and we loved her for it anyway.
She was one of my favorite people in the entire world, and I had no idea why this three-time Judo national champion and one-time world champion had picked me out of a self-defense class she’d been teaching and decided to make me her friend eight years ago. Lenny had literally walked over to me while I’d been toweling sweat off and asked, “You wanna get something to eat?” Maybe she had seen the loneliness in my eyes, because I’d been pretty freaking lonely back then, or maybe she had just been bored, but going with her had been one of the best decisions I had ever made.
Because of her, I’d added more people to my extended family—her grandpa and his best friend. Getting to look at the hot guys at her gym was a nice bonus too.
“You never texted me back the other night,” Lenny decided to change the subject instead of reminding me that I had a reason to be a little sad. “How did it go? Did you see you-know-who?”
I eyed my siblings down the table then made sure Mr. Cooper was in the middle of a conversation and not listening. He wasn’t.
Plucking at a royal blue thread from my dress, I wrinkled my nose and whispered, “Yeah, I meant to call you, but I spent the rest of the day with Lily and worked all day yesterday.”
She leaned forward. “And?”
I moved my gaze back to my siblings down the table. “Let’s just say I went all Judo on my cousin and his elbow is going to be hurting for a while.”
She punched me. She literally punched me right in the shoulder, and I didn’t bother trying to pretend like it didn’t hurt because it did. “You didn’t!”
Rubbing at my upper arm, I nodded. “Yeah. Rip threatened to kick his ass, and that was the end of it.” I winced. “Damn it, Lenny, you need to keep your Amazon strength to yourself. That hurts.”
Lenny rolled her eyes and brushed my pain off. “Is that all that happened?”
I shrugged and glanced toward Mr. Cooper again. I had left that part of the story out when I’d told him. “Yeah, basically. My dad looks like shit, and the girls’ mom looks even worse. Pretty sure she’s on meth now. It’s over with at least. I won’t have to see them ever again.” I smiled and tried to give her an enthusiastic “Yay.”
She didn’t “yay” me back or mutter a word, and that said everything.
Beside me, Mr. Cooper was in the middle of a conversation with Lenny’s grandpa’s best friend. On Lenny’s other side, Lydia was talking to Grandpa Gus. We were all familiar with each other. Most of us had even had a few Thanksgiving dinners together when everyone was in town.
They were everything I had ever wanted.
Beside me, Lenny sighed, and I had to eye her.
“What’s that sigh for?”
“No reason,” she lied.
I made a face at her.
It was impossible to miss the way she shrugged her one good shoulder, the one that wasn’t in a sling. “You got me thinking about how when I was little, I used to cry over how much I wished my mom would have stuck around, and how I probably got lucky that she didn’t.” She didn’t need to say what her words really meant. I understood.
