Charlotte sat on Sloane’s bed,Snickerdoodle lying at her feet and her closed suitcase next to her. She’d come back to a dark house—even Nina had gone to the Two Turtledoves event with her friend Marisol—and slowly packed up her things. Only Snickerdoodle had been there to greet her, his unbridled adoration of Charlotte nearly making her cry. Sweet, naive Snick. Still,with every noise, every creak of the tree branches in the winter wind, she expected the group’s return.
Or at least Brighton’s.
No one came, though. Not for another two hours, which was a good thing. She had enough time to stop expecting anyone—she wouldnotbe that person who demanded to be left alone, then pouted when people did as she asked.
Plus, she was used to this—the silence. The solitude. Her own mother hadn’t even called or responded to her text on Christmas Day, had never called or texted on any Christmas Day, really, not even the year Brighton left Charlotte at the altar.
By the time Sloane opened the door to her bedroom, Charlotte had arranged an earlier flight to London, leaving near dawn from the Colorado Springs Airport. It was exactly what she needed—a couple of days to roam London by herself and get her head on straight for the tour.
Sloane stopped short when she saw Charlotte on the bed, her own dog still cuddled at Charlotte’s feet. She closed the door without a word, took off her coat, and opened the closet with her back to Charlotte. Charlotte didn’t say anything but worked on what she could say.
What sheshouldsay.
“Did Wes play you a song?” is what she settled on, and she could tell by the way Sloane’s shoulders tightened that it was the wrong thing.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sloane said.
Charlotte sighed, pressed her fingers into her eyes until she saw bursts of color. “Sloane, I—”
“So you’ve been lying this whole time?” Sloane said. She didn’t turn around.
Charlotte stayed silent.
“This whole fucking time,” Sloane said, “you knew Brighton. No, no, wait. Not onlyknewbut nearlymarried.” She whirled around then, her coral-colored scarf in her hands, her dark eyes shiny and flashing. “And Adele knew. Fuck,Wesknew.”
Charlotte just shook her head, her mouth open, words tangling on her tongue.
“For two years, I’ve been trying,” Sloane said. “I’ve been trying to know you. Trying to be there for you.”
“Sloane.”
“Because god knows you’re the saddest person I’ve ever met.”
Charlotte frowned, her heart cramping under her ribs.
“You think you’ve convinced everyone around you that you’re this self-sufficient stalwart of work and creativity, unemotional, don’t need friends, don’t need love, but that’s bullshit,” Sloane said. “And everyone knows it, Charlotte. Everyone but you.”
Charlotte looked down at her lap.
“And I tried,” Sloane said. “Because you’re brilliant at what you do. Because I actually fucking liked you. I cared about you. And I thought,Hey, if I can just crack that shell, just give her a little, she’ll give something back.But that’s bullshit too, isn’t it?”
“Sloane, I…” Charlotte took a deep breath, forced herself to look at her friend. “I’m sorry. I kept all this from you because I…I just—”
“You know what?” Sloane said, putting up a hand. “I can’t do this right now. I’ve got to go deal with Wes, and since we both know you don’t really give a shit about a reciprocal friendship, I’ll leave you to your thoughts. Come on, Snick.”
Sloane went to her dresser, grabbed a sweater and a pair of plaid pajama pants from a drawer, and was gone—Snickerdoodle trotting behind her—before Charlotte could even think of what to say next.
Chapter 27
Three people in a queen-sizebed wasn’t the most comfortable way to spend a night, but it didn’t really matter, as Brighton barely slept anyway.
Mostly, she tossed and turned on the edge of the mattress, both Adele and Sloane sleeping like the dead, Adele’s limbs spread like a starfish in the middle. The woman was definitely used to sleeping alone. Still, sleep played a never-ending game of hide-and-seek with Brighton while the last week and a half—well, really, the last fifteen years—played through her mind.
She kept getting stuck on the transitions—following Lola to Berklee, agreeing to move to New York, and even letting Lola leave Watered Down last night. In the moment, Brighton had been too shocked to follow her, Lola’s words processing and taking on meaning too slowly in her mind. And then, once everything had clicked, Adele had refused to let her leave the bar, instead guiding her back to their table and putting a glass of bourbon into her hands.
“Let her chill out,” Adele had said, threading her arm through Brighton’s. “You can’t keep running after her all the time, baby girl.”
“I’m the one who left her, Adele,” Brighton had said.
