“You might,” I said.
I’d never looked hot a day in my life anddefinitelynot in high school.
“Do we have to have this conversation again? About how people think you’re cute all the time and you don’t believe it because you have enough self-esteem issues to start a quarterly magazine?”
“Only quarterly?”
Zara sighed, and I knew she was pinching the bridge of her nose without having to see it.
It hit me, then, that I wasn’t going to see it. Not when I got home. Maybe not for a really long time. New York was a long way from Seattle.
I missed her already and it’d only been a handful of days.
“You’re so lucky I love you,” she said.
The last mouthful of coffee made me shudder, but I swallowed it down anyway. I needed all the caffeine I could get, since I was running on maybe a grand total of ten hours of sleep this week, none of them in a real bed.
“Someone has to.”
“Lots of people love you,” Zara said. “You know that.”
“Let’s hope my sister loves me when I show up with bags under my eyes big enough to fit all my worldly possessions and absolutely zero knowledge of floristry.”
“She doesn’t want to see you for your floristry skills.”
The seagull gave up on me, waddling off to the greener pastures of a toddler who was waving a piece of pastry around like a scavenger-attracting beacon.
“That’s good,” I said. “Because I tried to look stuff up and I feel like I know less about flowers now than I did a week ago.”
“You’re not nervous, are you?”
“You ever seenLittle Shop of Horrors?” I asked, finishing up the last of my coffee with a wince.
Zara burst into laughter.
“Laugh all you want, you’re not the one in danger of being fed to an alien plant,” I said. “Was it an alien? Or am I making that up?”
“I don’t know, but you sound tired,” Zara said. “Promise me you’ll take a little time to rest while you’re meant to be on vacation? I mean, if you can’t promise me you’ll get laid...”
I snorted. I definitely couldn’t promise that.
“I’ll try,” I said. “To rest, not...”
“Well, keep an open mind,” Zara said. “You never know where you’ll meet the love of your life.”
“You met yours on a group hike,” I pointed out. “So I know one place I absolutely won’t meet mine.”
“No, you’re gonna meet yours in line at a bakery.” She laughed. “Look, I have to go, and so do you. Text me when you get there safe?”
“Can do,” I promised. “Tell Kaitlyn you’re lucky to have her.”
“Don’t you mean she’s lucky to have me?” Zara asked.
I grinned to myself. “Isn’t that what I said? Love you, bye.”
By the time I went over to toss my cup in the trash, my seagull was trying to drag away half a pastry the kid I’d noticed earlier had dropped. The clouds had also parted, the sun was shining down and making the waves sparkle, and I was almost ready to admit that getting out of Seattle had its perks.
I’d never been to Otter Bay before, but as I wound my way past the big welcome sign on the side of the highway, something about it started to look familiar. The way the light hit the trees, the silhouette of the cliffs that enclosed the sheltered bay it was presumably named for, something about them made me feel like I’d seen them all before.
