“The boy you used to love,” Meredith answers softly.
A bee gets too close, and I shoo it away. “That was a long time ago.”
“Maybe,” she says, juggling a tomato between her hands. “But him being back is clearly affecting you.”
“It shouldn’t. I’m in love with Fallon.”
Meredith tosses me the tomato, and I add it to the ones in the basket. “Have you talked to him?”
When I tried to last weekend, Fallon basically dared me to walk away. That he would still love me no matter what I did, then he fucked me into oblivion in the shower. I got the same result when I tried to bring it up again the other night, except I was bent over his desk in his study, not in the shower.
Twirling my wedding rings around my finger, I sigh. “My attempts have been met with…” I wave a hand around, not knowing how to finish that sentence. “That man scrambles my brain cells.”
A full grin lights up her face. “Do tell.”
“I will not.” I can only imagine her reaction if I told her he had a piercing. She’d lose her damn mind.
Meredith pouts. “One day I’m going to get you to crack.”
“I’m a rock of secrecy, not a hard-boiled egg.”
“Now I’m hungry. Let’s put these tomatoes to good use. I’m craving a BLT.” She brushes dirt off her knees and gets to her feet, stretching her arms above her head to loosen the kinks from sitting on the ground for an hour. “Trust your heart, Elizabeth. It’s never guided you wrong before.”
What if I don’t know what it’s saying? Or worse.
What if I’m too scared to listen?
I peer up at her. The sun is directly overhead, and I have to shield my eyes. “Thanks for listening and for the sage words of advice.”
She laughs. “Sage? Me? You must be having a heatstroke.”
“I love you, Firecracker.”
Her laughter falls away, and she grabs my hands to help me up. Her arms come around me, mine around her, our hug that of two friends who became sisters along the way.
“I love you, too, Wildcat.”
Chapter Forty-Five
ELIZABETH
Love Letters
Taking my phone with me,I walk out of the closet and throw clothes onto the bed next to the suitcase. “When are you going to be done?”
Fallon’s focus switches from his laptop screen to the camera. “A few more hours.”
I had hoped we could spend the day together since I was flying to Seattle tomorrow morning, but Aurora needed him to handle a “contract emergency,” whatever that means.
Taking the blouses off their hangers, I fold them and stack them in a neat pile on one side of the suitcase. “I’m making spaghetti for dinner.”
“Sounds good,” he automatically replies, completely distracted with whatever he’s now looking at. “What the fuck is this?” he says to whoever just handed him something.
“That is their counteroffer,” Aurora says off-screen. “Hey, Elizabeth.”
“Hey, Aurora.”
“They can fuck right off with that offer. Tell Austin to hold firm or we walk.”
