“This isn’t some tactic to make yourself thinner than all the women around you, is it?” Rachel accused.
“Hey, we’re women,” Camila said. “We like our curves, right?”
Betzy did her best to laugh along, but inwardly, she was ready to move past the next part of her story. And while she dreaded replaying the event that soured her against fate, Betzy could really use some fresh insight from her new sister-in-law. As supportive as Rachel might be, her radical tendencies often tainted her view. Rachel didn’t deny it, either.
“So you’ve stayed close all this time, right?” Camila said. “Like, from a distance, I mean.”
Betzy nodded. “Right. We text off and on a few times a week.”
Rachel leaned over Betzy’s lap and shot a look at Camila. “Don’t you think it speaksvolumesthat they don’t talk to each other about their love life? Like, ever?”
Betzy had just moved her gaze off Camila to Rachel, but she ping-ponged back to see Camila give her friend a nod. “Yes, I do. To me, that says the feelings are mutual. Youdohave feelings for him still, right?”
The fire seemed to move from the hearth to Betzy’s chest. It was a good thing she was used to Rachel and her direct ways, since Camila, as sweet and innocent as she might be, wasn’t familiar with the whole beating-around-the-bush approach, which Betzy had grown rather fond of on the topic of Sawyer Kingsley.
“I guess,” she admitted. “But here’s the problem. And maybe I’m just going to brush over the last ten years a little because nothing really eventful happened during that time until…” Betzy stopped there. These words needed attention. They needed careful orchestrating. They needed—
“Until she caught him making out with some chick in New York,” Rachel blurted.
Camila gasped. “Youdid?”
No, those weren’t flames in Betzy’s chest after all. It felt more like fire pokers. Dozens of smoldering hot stabs right to the heart. Her standard line of defense shot to her lips.
“It’s not like we were dating.” A humorless laugh came next as she tossed a hand in the air. “Heck, we wereneverdating. Not even when he kissed me.” Oh, how she liked saying the wordshe kissed mealoud. Hehadkissed her. Kissed her like he meant it and then some. And Rachel wasn’t kidding; it had absolutely destroyed Betzy for other men. The few guys who’d worked their way up to a goodnight kiss had only disappointed. And Marcus—ick—he’d been the worst one of all.
“So tell me how all this went down.” Camila shifted in the bag until she stared directly at the high-vaulted ceiling. “I’m going to watch it all play out in my mind.”
Betzy couldn’t help but smile. “Well, he usually comes home every Christmas, right? And some years I see him, some years I don’t. Depends on when we head out to the cabin and how long he ends up staying.”
Camila nodded. Rachel reached for another piece of taffy.
“Five years ago he flew back here for my dad and grandpa’s funerals,” she said. “And of course, he came here for Winston’s too,” Betzy added, remembering the family’s most recent funeral—the dark day they’d buried Betzy’s younger brother after the tragic overdose.
“Anyway, I guess I should say that I always kind of assumed that Sawyer and I would be together eventually.” It felt odd to admit such a thing. With Rachel, someone who’d been there all along, she hadn’t needed to say it aloud.
“So he said he’d come back to LA after he was done in New York?” Camila asked.
Betzy nodded. “Kind of. Not for me. But he did say he was going to New York to shadow his uncle, learn the ways of a successful real estate mogul, then come back to California after a few years. He never said how long it would be, but I just figured it would be like five or something.
“Anyway, after the plane crash, life just…started moving in some sort of haze. I started to see things differently. Stuff I thought mattered…” A chill rocked through her as she allowed herself to slip back into that time for a breath.
“They didn’t really matter anymore. I’d been redecorating my penthouse, right? I mean, I was obsessed. Every detail had to be perfect right down to the imported Indian fabric for my throw pillows.” She shook her head, recalling the appearance of her front room in the pale morning light just moments after she’d gotten word.
“Mom’s the one who called. Told me that something had gone wrong with the plane.” Both Camila and Rachel knew most of the details. Grandpa Benton had recently gotten his pilot license. He and Betzy’s dad had planned a father-son fishing trip to Wyoming. But there’d been a malfunction in the plane. And in a matter of minutes, two of the most important men in her life were gone.
“It threw us all into a tailspin. There was just so much hurt. But there was that moment, you know? When I was sitting in my practically perfect penthouse, waiting for my mom to come with the car, where I started to resent it.” The hot pokers were back in her chest, burning a familiar scar into her wounded heart.
Rachel offered comfort by cozying into her, resting her head against her shoulder as she continued.
“I remember staring at that stupid,stupidpillow I’d made such a big deal about. It made me wonder what I’d been doing with my life. I wanted to undo the last two hundred hours I’d spent obsessing over that room and spend them with my dad instead. My grandpa too. Just…our whole family while it was still whole, you know?”
Camila sniffed and wiped her face. “Yes.” And she really did know. Camila had suffered a whole lot of loss of her own.
“Anyway,” Betzy said, dabbing the corners of her eyes, “I guess it caused thisseize the daytype of awakening in me. And seeing Sawyer at the funeral, allowing him to comfort me through the pain, it felt so natural. And it made me miss him in a way I couldn’t explain. I was done waiting for him to finish what he’d started in New York. I wanted him to come home.”
Camila shifted so she was sitting upright again. She turned to Betzy with wide eyes. “So, did you tell him that?”
“That’s where it gets complicated. I decided I’d tell him. In fact, I told myself that I’d tell him when he came back for the holidays. But that was the year he decided to fly his mom to New York and spend Christmas there. Maybe because he’d just been here for the funerals. Maybe his mom really wanted to spend the holidays in New York before he left. I don’t know.
