“Excuse me,” she murmured before hurrying after her sisters.
She couldn't find them in the house or outside. Lucy’s old Honda, the one they’d all arrived in, was no longer parked along the road either.
“Shit,” she whispered, pressing her hands to her eyes, when a warm hand came to rest on the back of her neck.
“Take my car,” Connor murmured. The next moment, keys jingled as he pulled them from his pocket. “Find them, talk to them. Finally let go of the burden. It felt damn good, when I did it. Very…revitalizing.”
She dropped her hands and looked up at him uncertainly, subconsciously searching for the emotions in his face that would prove to her that the little wordonlycouldn’t encompass what connected them. She blinked because that was the least of her problems right now. She shouldn’t even be thinking about it because Connor had said something, and… She cleared her throat. “You really talked to Alec?”
“Yes. Sometimes you just have to bring things up to take their sting away.”
She reached for his keys and nodded. “Thanks.”
“No problem. And hey, Rachel.”
She turned around again. “What?”
The next moment, he put his arms around her. He pressed her head to his shoulder, kissed the top of her head, and enveloped her in his scent, the one that always told her everything would be okay. The little wordonlymeant nothing. “You’re not a bad person. You just had to make some shitty decisions. And it’s okay that you needed time to get over it. Got it?”
She sniffed, but nodded. She knew he was right. But she still needed to hear it.
She tried Lucy’s apartment first, but when no one answered the door, she drove to the loft where Matt and Maddie lived. It was on one of the upper floors of a huge high-rise, and when she rang the bell, a camera on the front door automatically focused on her.
That meant her sisters knew she would be coming — yet opened the door anyway. Rachel took that as a good sign simply because she couldn’t afford any more bad ones today.
She was a nervous wreck as she rode the elevator to the correct floor. Maddie stood in the doorway.
“Hey,” Madison said quietly, lifting one corner of her mouth, but not quite managing the smile. “I told Lucy we couldn’t run from you, but she wanted to try anyway.”
Rachel laughed dryly. “That would have only worked if I still lived in Chicago. But I was serious about wanting to stay.”
She nodded. “I reminded her about that too.”
“I didn’t believe you!” Lucy called from inside. “So, I’m warning you, Rachel, I haven’t really calmed down yet.”
Another voice, this one male, chimed in, “It’s not going to happen within the next week, so whatever, come in, Rachel!”
“Whose side are you on, Dax?” Lucy called out, annoyed, and when Maddie stepped aside and let Rachel in, she saw Lucy crammed between Matt and her boyfriend Dax on a huge gray couch. The two hockey players exchanged a glance.
“I’m on the side where my furniture is left intact,” Matt finally decided.
“If you keep it up, itwon’tbe the same side anymore,” Lucy replied aggressively.
Rachel had to suppress a smile, despite everything. She loved Lucy for not taking any crap. She couldn’t be mad at her merely for speaking her mind. On the contrary, she admired her for it, because it was so much easier for her than it was for herself.
“Could you please leave for a bit?” Maddie asked, closing the door behind Rachel and looking expectantly at Dax and Matt.
“Where to?” Matt asked, bewildered. “I live here.”
“The bedroom?”
“Where you keep your handcuffs?” Dax asked, aghast.
Maddie’s cheeks flushed, and Lucy clicked her tongue impatiently. “Don’t make a fuss. Get into the bedroom. We’ll let you know when you can come out again.”
“Great,” Dax grumbled as he rose, and Matt did the same. Before they disappeared into the bedroom, Dax fixed her with one last look. “Don’t make her cry again, Rachel. I hate it when Lucy cries.”
She swallowed, but nodded. “I’ll try my best, but I can’t promise.”
