They might be together.It’s possible. But Molly would know. Auden. Oz.Anyone.But no one has a damn clue.
Molly eyes me from the inventory she’s counting, her curly hair so wild she reminds me of Joss when he’s bright-eyed and disheveled. “You need Tanner for something? Can I help?”
“Nah, Mols. I’m good.”
Lies. There’s an itch in my gut that has nothing to do with PTSD and everything to do with the fact that I haven’t seen Joss for six days, and I don’t know what the hell to do with myself.
Go to work like a normal person.
I can do that.
Imakemyself do that, and the day disappears. At the end of it, I pack my tools into the truck I’ve borrowed from Wildfoot HQ while I’m working on the jewelry store renovation I picked up a few days ago. My phone has been banished to the console, screen blank and annoying.Idiot. Why would he call? He never has before.
Right. Because hecan’t.And even if he could, why would he? We live together. It’s not as if we won’t cross paths eventually.
As the thought completes, my phone lights up.
So do I.
Literally.
I dump my tools and sprint around the truck, lunging across the passenger seat.
It’s my mom. “Goddamn.”
Fuck my life. I mean, I love my mom. But she’s not Joss and I’m pining for him so bad it hurts.
I take the call and settle in for the Winooski gossip I don’t give a shit about. Her bridge club. The potluck dinner I’m running out of excuses to dodge.
“Anyone would think you didn’t want to spend the evening with your aunties and your grandma,” my mom says dryly. Her name is Cheryl, and since my dad fucked her over, she takes no crap, even from me.
“I’m busy.” It’s a pointless hedge. We both know I’ll show up for her, and anyone who needs me.
Show up for yourself.
I am. Ido.
“You know you can bring a date,” Cheryl slides in. “It’s been a while since you brought a girl around. Your grandma was asking if you’d forgotten to invite her to your wedding.”
“My what?”
“I know, I know. She’s not getting any less crackers in her old age. But you should put her mind at rest when you see her. All she wants is to see you happy.”
“What if I’m happy on my own?”
“Then that would be fine, sweetheart, but you’re not, are you?”
It’s not the conversation I want to have in a borrowed truck that’s parked illegally on the sidewalk. And she’s wrong. I’m not ecstatic with life, but I’m not unhappy. I’m working on myself and it’s enough. Also…
“What if I didn’t bring a girl around? What if it was a dude?”
“Honey, I don’t care who you bring as long as you’re not moping around on your own.”
“I’m not moping, Mom. I have a roommate now.”
“Is that who you want to bring to potluck?”
I try to picture Joss at the family table in Winooski, playing cards with my grandma, and eating my mom’s terrible pie.
