“I know, and no, I didn’t,” I whisper, then sigh heavily. “Don’t you think—"
“Hey, we know you’re both out there!”
I look over at Sienna and groan. “I think they found us.”
“Bring more wine!” Sienna shouts into the darkness, the trail of fairy lights strung up on tall posts along the rows of flowers flickering like magic. “And three glasses!”
“Seriously?” we hear Tessa grumble on a shout, and we grin at each other.
A few minutes later, Tessa comes into view, her short, wavy blonde hair visible in the darkness, followed closely by Darci. Tessa reaches up and pushes her red-rimmed glasses back into place on her nose, a blanket in her other arm. Darci carries a bottle of wine and the glasses, her dark hair pulled into a perfectly messy topknot on her head.
“Scoot over,” Tessa orders, catching the edge of the swing to stop it.
“There’s no way we can all sit on this!” I argue, but do as I’m told. Sienna shifts closer to me, making room for Tessaand Darci. They squeeze in and the old wooden swing groans ominously beneath the weight of all four of us. I laugh nervously. “Mom is going to kill us if we break this swing,” I complain, shifting in the seat, my left hip being gouged by a rough wooden plank. “Ow!”
Tessa tosses the blanket across our laps as Sienna and Darci pour wine into the glasses. Darci refills my glass, and then sets the bottle down on the ground next to her. I can still hear the swing creaking and groaning.
“We’re fine!” Tessa insists, wiggling between Sienna and Darci, who both complain loudly.
“Ow, damn your hip is bony!” Darci grumbles.
“This is fine. Totally fine,” I mutter under my breath, hunching my right shoulder in to give Sienna a little more room. “We’re fine.”
“Stop wiggling,” Sienna laughs, and finally the four of us seem to be in a halfway comfortable spot. Sienna pushes off with her toe on the ground, rocking us back and forth gently. “See, this is nice—”
The old wood groans ominously, shifting under us as the swing makes its forward arch, and then several shrieks of terror ring out as the entire swing gives out, the wooden beam above us splintering in the middle. We all go careening backward onto the ground. Wine spills everywhere, arms and legs flying, and then we finally come to a stop with the backrest of the swing lying flat on the ground.
Flat on our backs, legs straight up in the air, none of us dare to move or even make a sound.
And then, shocked peals of laughter break through the twilight.
Sienna reaches out her hands and clasps one of mine with her left and waits for Tess and Darci to grab hold of her right hand aswe all laugh. I’m crying, tears rolling down my temples into my hair from laughing so hard. I can’t breathe.
“Ohmygod, I’m going to pee my pants!” Darci laughs shrilly, crossing her legs tightly. Tessa laughs all the harder, wearing most of her wine down the front of her shirt. Thank God the glasses Darci had brought out were plastic—probably Mom’s doing. She knows us too well.
Sienna rolls the back of her head along the ground to glance first at the other two, then brings her gaze back to mine and says, “Let’s never get too old, too busy, toowhatever, for this. Promise me we will always come back in the fall. And that someday we will all find our happy ever after, right here in the gardens, just like Mom and Dad did, and just like Darci did. Promise me that no matter how much time passes, or what happens in our lives, we will always be here for each other.”
Tears prick my eyes again and I nod. She turns her head toward the other two and they nod, too. I squeeze her hand tight in my own and whisper, “Always.”
One
Louise
PRESENT
“Lou, did you forget you’re scheduled to cover the bar today?”
Shit. Yep. Sure did.
Glancing at the clock, I squeeze my eyes shut and groan internally. “Yes, I’m sorry, I forgot. I’ll figure it out and be on my way.”
I don’t exactly know how I’m going to manage that at the moment, since I’m supposed to be on my way to a six-year-old’s birthday party… in fullDisneyRapunzel get up.Double shit.
My long, insanely thick golden blonde hair is already braided up and I’d been in the process of sticking dozens of faux flowers into the plait when my phone rang. The classic,DisneyinspiredRapunzel dress in pinks and purples is hanging up on the back of my door, waiting to be put on. This is really not great timing. Craaappp.
“What time do I absolutely have to be there?”
A heavy sigh meets my ear over the phone, followed by, “If you can get here no later than four, that would be great. I can cover until then, but Grace has a soccer game and I promised her I won’t miss it. She’s not handling things well. I really need to be there, Lou.”
