“I can—”
“I know you can. I’d have concerns if you made it to adulthood not knowing how to do the dishes. But I’m offering. It’s the least I can do, you let me stay over and you cooked for me and everything.”
I really needed to get on that job search as soon as possible. Especially if Alyssa might have been staying here, I was in serious danger of falling in love with her. “Thanks,” I said quietly, and she smiled sweetly at me.
“You’re very welcome. Thank you for breakfast. It was delicious.”
I wished I could have her for every breakfast. “I don’t just mean for cleaning up,” I said. “Thanks for coming over. Forletting me show you a dance.” For making me feel like, for one brilliant, perfect moment in time, I mattered—like I was perfectly enough just the way I was.
She stared at me for a second, her lips parted, before she gave me the sweetest, saddest little smile in the world, tears shimmering at the corners of her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, and she closed it, coming over to my side of the table and bending down to kiss me, her hands cupping either side of my face as she did. “It was my pleasure,” she said. “We’ll do it again, right?” She paused. “Dancing, I mean.”
I laughed. “Vertical dancing, or…?”
“Oh, Jesus. All orientations.”
I grabbed her by the hips, and she let out a surprised squeal as I pulled her into me, stumbling off-balance and laughing as I caught her, peppering kisses on the side of her face. “I’m not remotely through with you yet,” I laughed, hoping the thickness I felt in my throat didn’t come through in my voice. “I’m only letting you go temporarily so you can attend to the rest of your life, but you’d better get your cute self back here soon.”
“I’m all yours,” she laughed, and the thickness in her voice did come through, but I pretended I couldn’t hear it. The least I could do for her, after I’d gone and screwed things up joking about staying.
Chapter 27
Alyssa
Paxton Ridge really came alive as the spring rolled in towards summer. Of course, I might have been a little biased from the company I was keeping these days, but… I could forgive myself.
The mountains lit up with color as the days went by, and even though we didn’t talk about it publicly, Jade and I still found our ways to spend so much time together I wouldn’t know what to do with a day without her. Rolling over in bed to find a good-morning text from her was the best way to wake up—well, second-best, after the nights with her I managed to sneak in, waking up to see the way the same one lock of her hair always fell over her face in the morning and got caught in her lips. Waking her up by pulling it out and tickling her face in the process, and she’d scrunch up her features in protest at waking up, a sour little look that turned sweet as soon as she saw me there in the bed next to her.
God, I wanted to keep that forever. But I didn’t dare spend too many nights at her place. I made a conscious effort to stay on top of the rest of my friend group here—Linda looked at me differently, I think, after our loaded conversation on the hiking trail, and we never talked about it directly, but I feltlike she was more relaxed with me than I’d seen her before, more open, comfortable. I didn’t push her on anything about her relationship, just left the door open for her to talk about it if she wanted to, and she did a couple of times. It was only ever an oblique reference to it, but I could always see the way she lightened up after, getting something off her shoulders—venting about feeling obligated to go along with an event Charlie was planning and hadn’t consulted her on, or on her newest manicure that Charlie had scheduled for them together without asking her first. She always apologized after, something likeit’s not your job to listen to me rant about my own problems,and I’d just shrug and tell her that was what friends were for, wasn’t it?
You could tell it really meant a lot to her, because she even hugged me a couple of times without provocation. Even at a Birdhouse party one time, where people couldseeher willingly hugging somebody.
I still felt like I didn’t deserve it, but she insisted, so I went with her to meet her manager and chat over lunch one time—not about job openings, but just Linda introducing her friend, and the manager, Susanne, a sixty-eight-year-old white woman with the cutest little glasses that had die-cut flowers at the edges, cheerily chatted up a storm in a way that overcamemyimpostor syndrome. She was one of those people where even the most hard-edged self-critics would come away likeoh, yeah, I guess she likes me.
Daniela never fessed up to looking for job openings for me either—probably because she assumed things with Linda were moving towards me working at the college, based on that smug look she gave me when I told her about it, a sort ofyes, good, good, I’ve conquered this woman and convinced her to live in Vermontlook. But I still knew she had. She was a much better friend than I was.
She was the hardest part of all this. Every time I saw Daniela after a day snuck out with Jade, I felt this awful guilt like I was sleeping with her girlfriend, and a half dozen times I told myself I was going to tell her—that I’d find a way to sit down with her and admit to the situation—but every time I tried, something came up. Cat would come around randomly while Daniela and I were talking, or Daniela would be suddenly enthusiastic about a new job she’d taken on and I would talk myself out of ruining her good mood. They were all excuses, I knew, but they were my emotional support excuses. I was leaning on them hard.
Cat was still shaken from the whole interaction with Jade out on the hiking trail, and she avoided Jade and didn’t bring her up to me whenever we talked, but she was slowly coming back into her own. It was especially clear when Jade and I were chatting at the Birdhouse one time for a community potluck, playing it cool off to the side with a drink for each of us—a virgin mojito for Jade, since she’d driven me here, and we were planning to use it as an excuse to have to take me back to her place after this—when Cat emerged from nowhere and pulled her signature trick, sneaking up behind Jade and covering her eyes from behind.
“Guess who?” Cat sang. Jade didn’t miss a beat—handed me her drink to free up her hands, and she signed over her shoulder,hi, Kaitlyn.Cat scoffed, taking her hands away to put them on her hips. “Hey!” she protested. “You know who it is. Don’t tell me I sound like Kaitlyn.”
Jade turned back to her, sidling up next to me so we both faced Cat as she signed. “Can’t stand the sound of her voice, huh?”
Cat grinned, leaning on the table. She had a drink in her hand and a bit of a pink flush that made it clear it wasn’t her first drink, and it was a bit hard for me to follow her one-handed signs especially since she didn’t raise her voice enough over themusic, but I’d learned enough to catch up. “You two having fun over in your corner?”
I felt myself blush a little, and I laughed to defuse it. “We’re just gossiping about Nayla’sfriend.”
“Friend,” Jade repeated, saying the word out loud but signing a scissoring gesture instead. I almost choked on my drink. Cat laughed.
“Ah, I bet they aren’t doing it. Ellie’s a Capricorn and you know how Nayla feels about that.”
“I doubt the stars are going to get in the way if they want to bump uglies,” Jade said.
Cat finished off her drink before she set it down, a more serious expression on her face now. “Any updates? On your big move?”
Jade tensed up, and I wanted to reach out and comfort her, but in a public place like this… I settled to put a hand lightly on her arm, and she relaxed a little, dropping her eyes to the table. “Not a lot yet… still looking at jobs.”
“Mm.” Cat forced a smile. “Any standout places?”
