“You’re about to be something else.” Eva muttered the words into her glass.
“Touched a nerve, have I? Look, I’m just saying,” Kate added, in response to Eva’s pointed glare. “You must’ve had something good going with her if you kept talking to her. Why does that have to change now you know who she really is?”
“Because it does. Because it’s different now. Because I never would have opened up like I did if I knew I was talking to her.”
“But you already have opened up to her,” Kate said, draining the last of her wine. “So what’s the harm in carrying on?”
“I didn’t come to you for logic,” Eva said, blaming the gin for the whine in her voice. “I came to you to complain.”
Kate laughed. “All right. Complain away.”
“I don’t want to talk about her anymore. It’s bad enough she’s waiting for me back at the hotel.”
“Waiting for you?”
“We’re sharing a room.”
“Are you serious?”
“Why would I joke about something like that?” Eva wished she was. Hell, she’d rather share a room with Daphne—who was genetically incapable of shutting up—than Lily.
“Wow. Well, you’re welcome to the guest room here tonight if you want.”
“Really?”
Kate shrugged. “Why not? It’s not like Dan is using it anymore.”
Eva would have to set an early alarm so she could sneak back in unseen, but it would be doable. Preferable, even, to lose a few hours of sleep if it meant she wouldn’t have a fraught night tossing and turning with Lily mere inches away.
“Thank you.”
“No need to thank me. The company will be nice.”
Eva saw a flicker of sadness in Kate’s eyes. “Are you struggling?”
“It’s not so bad. The quiet is the hardest part. Having someone else around. I talk to Penny more often than I care to admit.”
“Well, she is a good listener.” Eva glanced at the cat in her lap, stretched out on her back with all four legs in the air.
“Refill?” Kate nodded toward Eva’s glass as she climbed to her feet.
“I shouldn’t.” Eva could already feel a pleasant buzz sinking into her skin.
“But you’ll drink it if I make one,” Kate said, plucking the glass from Eva’s hand as she passed.
“You’re a bad influence!” Eva called over her shoulder.
“Please. You love it.”
Eva shook her head, giving Penny another scratch on the chin as she waited for Kate to return.
It was nice to feel like she was home.
* * *
Lily couldn’t sleep.
And she could make excuses—that the bed was too soft, that the curtains in the hotel room didn’t do a good enough job of blocking out the light, that it was too loud being next to a main road when she was used to the quiet of the suburbs—but she’d be lying.
