“I feel like we need to have a ceremony or something,” Hadley said. “Tonight, around the campfire. We all say goodbye to the apartment that was our home for so long.”
“You sentimental fool, you,” Salem teased, but then her smile dimmed. “Did you ever think when you two were asking for roommates, that we’d become lifelong friends?”
Wyn looked out the side window when she replied, “No. I had no idea.”
I reached over and took her hand in mine. “You know that’s not changing, right? We’re still going to be lifelong friends.”
“Yeah, I know,” Wyn said, but her tone lacked belief.
I frowned.
“Wyn,” Salem began.
“Look, I’m really happy for you. All of you. But . . . let’s be realistic.” Wyn peered at me when she spoke. “Two of you are married and having babies. Poet’s on the same track.”
Hadley wiped her hands on a napkin. “Just because we’re married and having babies doesn’t mean?—”
“It does mean,” Wyn interrupted. “You’re in a different phase of life. You’re in a different state. There’s friendship glue and then there’s life partner glue. And there’s baby glue. How do I compete with that?”
The three of us fell silent. We didn’t know what to say because Wyn was right, to some degree.
Finally, I spoke. “You forgot the most important glue. Family. We’re family, Wyn. The four of us. No husbands or babies are going to change that.”
“Yeah,” Salem said, her head nodding vigorously. “Life changes, we’ll change. But this. The four of us. No. I’m not letting you off the hook so easily. Sorry. You can have yourfeelings. Have all the feelings. But you’re stuck with us, ‘til death do us part.”
Wyn looked at Hadley who nodded.
Then she stared at me. “You mean that?”
“Of course we mean that, you idiot,” I teased. “Now if we could only get you to move to Huckleberry Hill . . .”
“And again, what would Idohere?” she asked. “I’m a nanny.”
“Hello, babies on the way?” Salem stated, pointing to herself and Hadley.
“That’s notallyou are,” I said. “Haven’t you learned by now that we’re more than our jobs?”
“Easy for you to say,” she muttered. “You’ve got a cowboy-biker sugar daddy.”
I snorted.
“What’s really keeping you in New York?” Salem asked. “The dating pool is shit. You’re having zero luck. And you don’treallylove your job.”
“I like the money,” she stated. “The money is nice.”
“Money is nice,” I agreed. “But you’re so damn worried about the four of us not being the four of us. So why don’t you just give in and move here and figure out the rest.”
“And what if I do that?” she asked. “What if I move here and there’s still no one to date? Dating is a numbers game. And your pinhead of a town has everything anyone could ever want but numbers.”
“Quality over quantity,” Hadley said. “How’s the quantity situation been working out for you by the way?”
Wyn fell silent.
“Just think about it,” I pressed.
“Oh, I have been. Believe me. I’ve been thinking about it since Salem decided to move back here,” Wyn said. “I just haven’t figured out how to make it work.”
“Sometimes you gotta leap and then figure it out after the fact,” I said. “Ask me how I know.”
