She gives a helpless little laugh that isn’t a laugh. “I knew you were trying for a baby, but then you started grad school and I thought—I don’t know what I thought. And then Belle…” Her mouth trembles. “Everything changed when she and Alex died. All I could see was Sunny and my grief. And even when Skye moved back to Moraine, and then you and Chase moved home and we were all together again… I don’t know. Was I selfish?”
“No, honey,” I reassure her. “You’ve never been selfish a day in your life.”
“I feel selfish because I didn’t see it,” she says, wiping fresh tears from her eyes. “We were all there. Literally, right there, in the same town, living our lives together, every single day. And I didn’t see it.”
She’s getting worked up, and I don’t want that. But I also know Alis. I know that she’s not typically a verbal processor, so the fact that she’s saying any of this out loud, in front of us, is huge. I’m not about to interrupt her.
“Skye saw it. Said something. Hell, she helped you get out. ButI…” Alis’s sobs rip through her, self-control be damned, and I pull her into my arms, Skye following close behind.
The three of us stay there, tangled together, a crying mess of pain, sorrow, and friendship, for what seems like hours but is probably only a minute or two. The couch sighs under our combined weight. The lit candle tunnels lower. Betty Boop ticks on the wall, a subtle reminder that as much as we might want to go back and do things differently, time always, only, moves forward.
Once Alis calms, I loosen my hold on her and swipe my thumbs under her eyes, cupping her face while I place a soft kiss on her nose.
“You gonna be okay, honeybun?” I ask, squishing her cheeks together.
Alis furrows her brow, her glasses now foggy from my exhale and the humidity built up from her tears and from being sandwiched between Skye and me in that bear hug. She looks like an adorable, angry chipmunk, and I can’t help but chuckle.
“How do you always end up taking care of me instead of the other way around?” she grumbles.
“Because she’s the mom, duh,” Skye quips from her end of the couch, already tearing into the sleeve of Oreos we said we weren’t going to open.
I release Alis and nestle back into my corner of the couch, running my fingers through my loose hair to detach the strands that stuck to my face while crying it out in our huddle. The apartment smells like wine and warm sugar and that stupid bookstore candle Skye keeps lighting when she wants me to unclench.
“Not to be the insensitive one,” Skye says, “but have we heavied enough for one night?”
I laugh, “Yeah, babe. That’s enough heavy for now.”
“OHTHANKFUCK,” she huffs. “Because I need so much more of that Sexy Dexy dirty talk in my life it’s not even funny.”
The groan that comes from Alis is unmistakable. “Ben là, tabarnak!”
Skye nearly spits wine. “Give me more of whatever that was. Like, right now.”
“That was me telling you to please, for the love of God, stop,” Alis says, cheeks pink again. She reaches for a grape and misses, plucking a rogue olive instead and making a face. “Also—this olive is lying about being a grape.”
Skye’s grin goes sly. “Okay, fine. New game. I’ll give you outrageous English lines, you translate into French, and T will judge if it’s hot or not.”
“No,” Alis protests, already laughing. “I refuse.”
“Too late.” Skye clears her throat like she’s about to recite Shakespeare. “‘Your mouth is my favorite sin.’”
Alis drops her head back and groans. “Ta bouche est mon péché préféré.” She covers her face. “Happy?”
Skye points both index fingers at me like pistols. “You hear that? I’m bilingual by association.”
“Absolutely not how that works,” I say, but I’m grinning. “Ten out of ten hot, though.”
Skye scrolls through nothing on her phone because she just likes the drama of it. “‘I’m going to kiss you so slow you forget your address.’”
“Your address?” I ask. “That’s what you’re going with?”
Alis half-laughs, half-wheezes. “Je vais t’embrasser si lentement que tu oublieras ton adresse.”
“Rude,” I say, pressing my knees together again. “Arson-level rude. That absolutely shouldnotbe as hot as it just sounded.”
“Last one,” Skye announces, feigning sobriety. “‘I want you like coffee wants mornings.’”
Alis squints. “Je te veux comme le café veut ses matins.” She looks horrified by herself. “That didn’t even make sense.”
