“It’s not,” I said. From the look on her face, I knew she didn’t believe me, so I pulled my hands around with a flourish. “Ta-da!”
Her eyes flashed wide. “Shut up, no you didn’t.”
I nodded and popped the lid of the cake box, showing her that I had, in fact, gone to her favorite bakery all the way across town just to order her favorite (and also out of season) upside-down almond fig honeycomb cake that I’d had to pay double for.
“Bring me my biggest fork,” she said, waving to the kitchen.
I laughed and set the cake on her lap before following her order, grabbing a fork for myself, too.
“Uh-uh,” she said, pulling the box close and hunching over it like a dragon guarding her treasure.
“Hey, I was the one who bought it,” I whined. “I don’t get a bite?”
“Not until you tell me whyyou bought me an apology cake.”
“It isn’tan apology cake.”
She stabbed her fork into the dessert and took the largest bite imaginable, all while maintaining direct eye contact. “I’ll eat this whole goddamn thing in front of you,” she said, her mouth so full that crumbs fell out.
“Why can’t it be an I-hope-you-feel-better-cake?”
She swallowed. “Because you have been blowing up my phone every hour on the hour since I got out of the goddamn hospital, and you know damn well that my recovery is going better than expected. The truth, bitch.” She pointed her fork at me. “Out with it.”
I threw myself into the armchair next to her. “I saw Maddie again.”
Runa nearly choked. “What the fuck? Where?” Her eyes narrowed. “If you killed her without me, I am going to be so mad.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t kill her, but it was close. She was at my parents’ company party.”
“I told you she’d be back. I told you whatever Theo said to her wouldn’t be enough.” I’d been keeping Runa up-to-date on everything that had happened. Mostly.
“I should have listened to you.”
Runa winced. “How bad was it?”
I told her the whole story, starting with Theo coercing me into the party, and then that ugly interaction. I skipped over the near-crash afterward, not wanting to trigger her, but told her about my fight with Theo and ruining my favorite dress in the rain.
She hefted the cake box toward me. “Fine. I guess you could use a bite.”
I forked one out and popped it into my mouth, and maybe this was my favorite cake, too, because, goddamn, the flavor combination was so subtle butsogood.
“I’m sorry,” Runa said. “That it played out that way.”
“Why, because she’s still alive?”
“Yeah, but also because it sounds crazy-making.” She shook her head. “For her to just stand there, demanding an apology after everything she’s done? My god.”
“I don’t know how I kept my shit together. I’ve never felt like that in my life. Like I could actually murder someone with my bare hands. Well, aside from Theo.”
“Too bad she isn’t single, or you could set the two of them up. It sounds like they deserve each other.”
I took another large forkful of cake, careful not to meet her eyes.
She sighed. “You fucked him, didn’t you?”
I shoved the cake in my mouth and then pointed to it like,Oops, sorry, bad timing. Can’t answer you.
She leaned forward and backhanded my shoulder. I really should have known better than to sit so close to her.
