Friday afternoon, aftertaking a half day at work, Kelsi laid her towel out next to Abby’s on the end of her dock and handed her an unopened seltzer.
Abby moaned at the sight and clutched Kelsi’s hand, looking at her dramatically. “Thank you, my friend.” She took the can and cradled it to her chest.
Kelsi chuckled at the display and sat down, stretching her legs out in front of her and stealing Abby’s tanning oil.
Abby quirked a brow at her. “Err, Kels, I don’t know if you forgot, but you’re a redhead. You do not tan.”
“Thank you for that reminder. I’d forgotten,” she joked, knocking her shoulder against her friend’s already oil- and sweat-slick one. She rubbed the sun-warmed oil into her legs. “I hardly ever see the sun anymore, only the fluorescent lights in the courthouse. I have to take my sun when I can get it.”
Abby snorted a laugh and put on her sunglasses. “Okay, but don’t come crying to me when you burn.”
Kelsi sighed, knowing Abby was right. “I’m afraid that’s not a promise I can make.” Kelsi reclined on her towel after shefinished rubbing the—she double-checked the bottle—SPF 4 oil in completely.Shit, yeah, she was going to be fried sooner rather than later.
“We haven’t talked about Dylan since that first night. How are you two getting along at work? He’s living somewhere in town, right?”
Kelsi scoffed, turning her head to look at Abby. “If that’s how you ask your marks questions, it’s a wonder you do as well as you do as a PI.”
Abby reached over and slapped her stomach. “Oh, come off it. You know I have no game when it comes to friends.”
Kelsi did know, and it was one thing she respected about Abby. She wouldn’t play games with her friends. She was honest to a fault and had solid boundaries where they were concerned.
“Yeah, he’s living somewhere in town. We’re working well together.”
Abby waited for Kelsi to elaborate, but when she didn’t, she exclaimed, “That’s it? That’s all I get? That you work well together? Nuh-uh. You owe me more than that. I want the juicy details. Now.”
She cracked the tab on her seltzer can for emphasis, and Kelsi figured a drink was a great idea for this conversation. She opened her own and downed half of it in one long sip.
“Well, he’s been nice.”
“Nice,” Abby deadpanned. “Seriously, you’re killing it today with the description. If you’re this concise in court, your hearings must only take ten seconds each.”
“What do you want me to say, Abs? That I think he’s even more attractive now than he was years ago? That I’m letting mydelusions take over again and convincing myself that he might actually be interested in me too? That I can’t tell if my feelings for him ever went away or if I’m falling in love with him all over again?” She was practically screaming the words. “That I’m terrified he’ll leave again and I’ll be left with nothing this time, not even the pieces I was in the last time he did?”
Abby looked at her, her raised eyebrows over her sunglasses the only indication she was surprised. “Well, yes, that was definitely good information. More than I expected, but good. About time you admitted you weren’t over him, since I’ve known that for the past four years.” She pursed her lips, tilted her head side to side, and finally asked, “And Tom?”
“What about him?”
“What do you mean, what about him? He only broke up with you a couple of months ago. I want to make sure you’re doing okay.”
Kelsi’s heart squeezed, grateful to have such a good friend. She paused before answering, “Honestly, Abby, I’m doing fine. I know Tom was right when he said we weren’t it for each other. It stung in the moment because, on top of being embarrassed, I felt like I had wasted so much time with him. I’m not old, but I’d hoped by this point I would be married or on the way to being married, and now I feel like I’m back at the starting point, spinning my wheels.”
“Sounds to me as though you’re not quite at the starting point at all, Kelsi. I think you just have to let your head catch up with your heart.”
Kelsi was quiet for a moment before she whispered, “Does it make me sound terrible if I say that I think I was only with Tom because he was there, and he was safe and easy? Like, I think in some ways I felt like he was a guy I could trust not to leave me.He was reliable, he never colored outside the lines. And he didn’t ask me to drop my defenses around him. I could have him but still keep him at a distance and never worry about him leaving like my dad did, or Dylan.” She sighed. “Didn’t really read that one right, though, did I?”
Abby’s hand gripped hers tightly. “It doesn’t make you terrible. You’ve been hurt, so badly, and he was there for you when you needed him. You have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, and you want to find the person to take care of it. So, what, you chose wrong? People make mistakes every day with their hearts, I see it every time I take a new client. That doesn’t make you a terrible person, it makes you human.” They let the heavy words sit between them for a second before Abby said, “Besides, I already knew that was why you were with him for so long. I was just waiting for you to catch up.”
Kelsi squeezed her friend’s hand tight before dropping it. “Anyway”—she needed to change the subject or she would begin spiraling—“how about you? Any hot dates you haven’t mentioned?”
Abby scowled and took a drink before answering. “No, men are awful. You know what I see every day through my job? Men who lie, men who cheat, men who steal. I think I’m fine on my own, thank you. You’ve found the last good one left.”
Kelsi shook her head and smiled wickedly at her friend. “One day, you’ll find a man who proves you wrong. And I will love telling you ‘I told you so.’”
Abby scoffed and fixed her sunglasses over her eyes, reclining fully on her towel. “When pigs fly.”
CHAPTER 27
Dylan
