“That’s nice.” He tilted his head like he was looking at someone unfamiliar. “He seems like a decent guy.”
“He is. The polar opposite of his brother. I guess he spent some time with a set of his grandparents who were better role models than Mr. and Mrs. Wagner.” I caught myself nodding too fervently. I wanted my family to like Van. They’d met him a few times now and hadn’t given me any indication otherwise. So why was it so critical? Van was another uncle. That was all.
“Makes sense.” Alder’s attention stayed on me, his gaze shuttered.
I blew out a breath. “What?”
He didn’t flinch. “Nothing. I haven’t seen you this…yourself…for a while.”
“What’s a while?” I pressed my lips together.
He took some time, like he was mulling over his words. “You were always adult Clover, and now you’re just Clover.”
“That’s a good thing?” It didn’t sound like it.
“Yes.”
Oh. He said it so quickly and simply, I had to sit with it. Had I acted that much differently with my ex? At least he didn’t say I was pretentious Clover. I had tried to soften Elijah’s personality without realizing it until I didn’t have to do it around Van.
“Are you afraid to be on your own?” Alder asked so gently it almost made tears spring into my eyes.
“No.” I blinked rapidly. I was a big girl. I had been on my own for a long, long time before Elijah. “It’s not that.”
“You’ll miss him.”
Denying it was on the tip of my tongue, but it stayed there. “Yes. He’s becoming a good friend.”
“And that’s all?”
“Yeah, what do you think? We’re going to fall madly in love and stay married?”
“It could happen.”
“Alder,” I barked out, and Lee jumped, his little arms flailing. “Sorry, but you can’t be serious.”
“I mean…it’s happened before.”
I clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t refute it. Lily was a shining example. She hadn’t met Eliot long before she’d married him. Then there was Daisy. Poppy and Violet hadn’t married their guys, but the sentiment was similar. “It won’t with me. I was with his brother. I’m not pregnant with Van’s kid. But we’re friends, and I need a friend right now more than I need to fall in love again.”
Van
* * *
Clover was out with her brother discussing apartments, and I was researching rockhounding in North Dakota. It seemed my priorities were fucked around her. I had interested potential investors. They wanted me to fly out and meet them after the first of the year. If I nailed the account, I would be solid as a business and finding a place to live wouldn’t be as critical. If I didn’t, my ass would still be hustling out on the street, and I’d be living there too.
Yet instead of working on some big presentation that would clinch funding, I was scouting the best place to find agates on the portion of the Little Missouri River that runs through Medora. In addition to that, I had information on campsites and hotel rooms.
I was fucked.
The front door opened, and her steady footsteps padded down the hall toward me. A sound I was going to miss when I lived by myself again.
She appeared at the door, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, and brandished a coffee mug. “I got you a coffee. I figured if it’s too late to drink it, you can heat it up in the morning.”
“Thanks, I’ll put it in the fridge so I don’t keep you up tossing and turning.”
She smiled and juggled the coffee while digging her phone out. “I took a quick pic of a flyer I saw hanging at Rattler’s. You probably already know about it.” She turned her screen to an image announcing days and times for a Pokémon tournament in Bismarck. “It’s a local con in two weeks. Thought we could go.”
I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading if I tried. The laughter started next. I swiveled my monitor around to show her the threads I’d been reading about rockhounding. “Then we can do this next weekend.”
