I raised an eyebrow, but got my phone out and took a picture as instructed. “Since when are you Miss Outdoors?”
Mandi shrugged. “I’ve been hanging out with your sister a lot in the lead-up to the wedding. We’re going camping in the summer.”
“You’ll die,” I said. I would have died, too, so I didn’t mean it as an insult. Just a statement of fact.
“Or I’ll have a fantastic time and meet a cute park ranger and go live in the wilderness and leave all of this behind.”
My phone vibrated in my hand just as I was about to tuck it back into my pocket.
Aiden:having fun?
I wasn’t sure what the answer to that was. Especially since Mandi had just told me she wanted to run into the woods and never come back.
“You wanna talk about how much stress you’re under at work?” I asked, meeting her eyes.
A flash of telling Aiden I feltfreenow that my parentsthoughtI was gay—or dating a man, at least—came back to me.
Now that Mandi knew some part of the real truth—as much of it as I knew, anyway—everything was suddenly easier with her. We could actually have been friends, maybe.
I paused to text Aiden back.
It’s been an experience. Tell you about it later. Dad okay?
“Not really,” Mandi said. “I think you just heard it, anyway. Maybe this sparkling career life isn’t everything it was cracked up to be.”
I’d been starting to have the same thought myself. I was twenty-seven and I’d found a gray hair last week. Just the one, but…
Mandi worked twice as hard as I did. All she seemed todowas work.
Aiden:your dad’s fantastic and I love him.
I smiled at that. At least they were getting along.
“For what it’s worth, coming from someone who’s miserable? I think you should be happy.”
Mandi’s face softened, a tiny smile turning up her bright coral lips. “Thanks,” she said, shoving her hands in her pockets, sweeping snow aside with boots that would’ve been better suited to aCharlie’s Angelsmovie than a woodland walk. “I think you should be happy, too.”
I glanced back down at my phone, smiling at Aiden’s last text.
He’s pretty great. Take care of yourself.
Aiden responded instantly with a single purple heart, and I knew it was just shorthand forthanks, talk lateror something to that effect with a little added affection, but that didn’t stop my whole body tingling with warmth for a moment.
“That your boyfriend?” Mandi teased.
“Shut up,” I said, sending a generic red heart back with a lurch of my stomach and then pocketing my phone in a hurry before I could think about what I’d done.
Scary as it was, it was alsoexciting. Exciting to feel like this, even if I wasn’t quite sure how I felt.
“Come on.” She waved her folder at me. “The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can go inside where all the warmth and booze is.”
I laughed, traipsing after her in the snow, smiling as I thought of what was waiting formewhen we finished this.
12
Aiden
My stomach hurtfrom laughing with Carter’s dad by the time we came to the last item on the list. He wasfun. More fun than I even remembered him being as a kid.
