“What are we talking about?” Cat’s voice said, and we both jolted back from one another as she inserted herself into the conversation, playfully scowling. “I don’t appreciate you two having secret conversations without me. Fill me in.”
Daniela was smooth, at least. “I was just saying we should book a hotel room together, crash for the night, and then head back to Vermont together. You’re here to help me bully Alyssa into coming back with us, right?”
Cat beamed, turning to me. “Oh, I love bullying my friends. So? You’re coming, right?”
They were even starting to match each other’s speech patterns. I wondered if they’d been that obvious for a bit now and I didn’t notice. Of course, apparentlytheydidn’t notice either. Even when theykinda sorta had sex a little bit.
I could never leave these people unsupervised.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a plan.”
I looked past them, back at where Jade was leaning against my car, giving me that knowing smile, the one I wanted to see filling all my days.
“I’ll come home.”
Epilogue
Alyssa
Vermont welcomed me home. Paxton Ridge—my people there—Jade wasn’t wrong that they all wanted me back, judging by the party they threw at the Birdhouse when I came back, and a conga line of people coming up to me to tell me not to pull something like that again. I’d never imagined I could feel so loved by getting yelled at by thirty people in succession.
I cried and hugged people and had more drinks bought for me than I knew what to do with, and I stayed at Jade’s side the whole time, my hand clasped in hers, and I swelled with pride that I got to parade her around like this asmygirlfriend.
I was still pretty sure I didn’t deserve this, but there was an entire town’s worth of people who would fight me if I said that, so I kept it to myself. Maybe it wasn’t important whether I deserved it or not. Maybe there was nobody watching and deciding if this was fair or if I’d earned it, and all that mattered was that it was happening, and it was everything I could have wanted, so I could be happy.
And when I went back with Jade that night, that was definitely what happy looked like to me. I showered in her bathroom and wore one of her shirts to bed, and we lit the candle she’d made for me as we nestled in bed together and talkedabout little things until the little hours of the night, and we put out the candle and fell asleep side-by-side in the first night of my new life.
The days went by in a whirlwind from there. It felt like I was back for fifteen minutes before I was talking to Susanne from the college, and thirty minutes before I was sitting in a formal job interview, and maybe thirty-five before I was sitting at my desk wondering if everyone who started a new job felt like an impostor. It worked out well—I started right as the spring semester ended, and the college was a fever dream during summer courses, which meant I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know how anything worked. Linda and I bonded quickly over workplace gossip and of navigating the summer schedule, and it wasn’t long before the place started to feel like home.
I bounced back and forth for a while between staying at Jade’s place and staying at Daniela’s, and as much as it was fun, as much as I was deeply grateful for all the support, and as much as I loved them both in different ways, I finally felt like I could breathe once I got my own place, a little townhouse on a quiet residential street about halfway between Jade’s and the Birdhouse. It was my first time having a place all to myself, and it was a mixture of pride and embarrassment that I only now finally felt like an adult. Committed to dressing the place up beautifully, making my own style, and I found out quickly I had no clue what I was doing, and that even if I did, I wasn’t doing interior design while being friends with Daniela and getting away unscathed.
Of course, in Paxton Ridge, you never really had your own opinion without getting a dozen others, so I had a lot of guests who all weighed in on the process. My home transformed from a blank slate into a collage of everyone I loved, and getting home from work to find everyone’s fingerprints in artworks,color choices, cute little knickknacks and everything in between—I was quickly learning whathomeactually meant.
Even Abby pitched in. I apologized profusely for how I’d jerked her around, but she wasn’t kidding that she was fine with trouble, because she just laughed it off. If someone treated me like I’d treated Abby, I’d probably still be up in my feelings about it for the next six months at least, but… I guess some people were more emotionally mature than me.
Things changed at the Birdhouse, between everything with Cat and then everything with me. People started asking too many questions, and near as I could tell, Drew got mad he lost control of the narrative. I saynear as I could tellbecause it wasn’t like he was forthcoming about the situation: instead, he made a whole dramatic show about the Birdhouse having too many regulatory troubles, and that it would have to close down after the Pride events, which would have to be downscaled, but Charlie was one of the first to step up to make sure leadership was established and the place would stay open. Cat quickly reprised her role helping run the place, this time with some official recognition and more say in the matter, and the Pride celebrations were every bit as good as they were sold.
I helped out, too, of course, firstly because it felt like the least I could do to give back to the place that had given me so much, but also secondly because I was nosy and liked to mind everyone else’s business. I dove in happily for long planning sessions and committee meetings with Cat and Charlie, who slowly warmed back up to each other, and when the month wrapped up, I was just happy to kick back and breathe a bit.
Or so I thought, anyway. July 1st, I’d bought a box of chocolates on the way from work over to Jade’s place, only to find her idling in her car out in the driveway. I made a production of getting out of my car, closing the door, locking it, turning around, walking two steps to Jade’s car, and bendingdown to her level through the window. “Try not to run away from me before you’ve even seen me, dearest.”
She smiled dryly at me. “Would have given you five seconds of advance notice if I’d had it myself. I’ve been told as of thirty seconds ago that there’s a party at the Birdhouse and I am required to bring my partner, beloved fixture of the community, one Alyssa Taylor.”
“Who’s texting you like that?”
“Cat. Who else?”
“Who else indeed,” I laughed, hanging my head. “What do youmean,a party at the Birdhouse? We just had thirty days of parties.”
“Think that’s the idea,” she said. “Everyone else putting on something to thank the people who’ve been organizing over the past month, so we can just show up, have some drinks, hang out, play that dumb trivia game, and dance a bit.”
I relaxed. “Well, if you insist. I mean, if I get a chance to show off all those new moves you’ve taught me…”
She raised an eyebrow at me, fighting back a smile. “You mean dancing moves, or…?”
“Jesus, Jade, I mean dancing! I’m not an exhibitionist,” I laughed, shoving her playfully, my face warm. “We can get to those moveslater,dear.”
“Works for me,” she laughed. “I’ll drive us. Hop in?”
