Mera would have thrown a fit and disappeared into the bedroom for an hour to prepare to be seen.
Sophie was so grateful they had come to see her. So appreciative that I had organized it.
I didn’t do anything, just sent out a text to Gunnar and Lyra and Fen to see if they wanted to hang out, but if you asked Sophie, it was like I had organized the Met Gala just for her.
It was kind of adorable.
She is adorable, and like no other woman I’ve known.
I don’t go and see her the next day.
I head into Battle Harbour instead, telling myself that Fenella wants to hang out. She did say something when she was leaving last night, but it wasn’t exactly an invitation.
But I tell myself it was so my feet wouldn’t head straight to Sophie’s this morning.
It would have been fun to be with her, to recap the evening and gossip about the others. But that might have led to another hug, and I’m not ready for that.
I wasn’t ready for the first one.
Fenella would tell me I need to process, but I don’t. I won’t.
I’m not going to get into what that hug was like for me.
Instead, I wander around downtown Battle Harbour until I realize I’m looking for things for Sophie.
Which of the latest bestseller books would she like? What’s her favourite candy? Would she like the purple sweater in the window of the clothing store?
This is becoming a problem.
Shopping is my guilty pleasure, but it’s something I do for me, not other people. Once in a while I’ll see something I know Fenella will like, and when I was on The Suitorette, I did the shopping date with Abigail, but I shop for myself.
Probably because I don’t have anyone else in my life to buy things for.
I cut out the window shopping and head to Coffee for the Sole instead.
I like Silas. I still don’t understand how it works with him and Fenella—how he puts up with her, rather than the other way around—but he seems to get my sister.
Plus, he makes amazing coffee.
It’s like the scent of coffee and sugar and the freshly baked pastries he sells leads me to the coffeeshop, like a black flag signalling a driver that they did something wrong.
But I didn’t do anything wrong today because staying away from Sophie is the right thing to do.
So says her father. And most of her friends.
I angrily push open the door of the coffeeshop.
The smell hits me like a wave, as the sounds of the shop wash over me—grinding of beans, frothing of milk, talking. Laughter. The Christmas decorations are still up, mixed along with the fish motif that somehow works for the place, and there’s a short lineup of demanding coffee drinkers.
There’s always a lineup in here, and for once, I’m glad I’m not popular in this town because no one talks to me. That’s how I want it.
I can’t see Silasand I’m glad about that too. Instead, his nephew Wyatt mans the cash register, smiling at everyone and everything.
I used to think calling a kid precocious just means they were a brat, but Wyatt is the definition of precocious, and he’s pretty cool. Fenella is always going on about Wyatt this, and Wyatt that—he plays baseball, guitar, acts in the school theatre productions, and is some science whizkid who’s into stars almost as much as Silas. He’s also seventeen, so he might be out of the brat phase.
Fenella told me that Wyatt’s mom is Silas’s older sister, and she took off when Wyatt was only months old. She was just a kid herself, but it left Silas feeling a heavy responsibility for his nephew.
It sounds like he’s more a father figure than an uncle, which means—nope. That does not mean that my sister is anything like a mother to a teenager. She should be happy being the cool aunt.
