“Jack called,” Rachel said with a deep inhale. “I told her he fell in love with her.”
Kitty and Simone both said, “Ohhh.” In tandem.
“Didn’t we agree to wait on that?” Simone asked. “Until after this big event that she’s been preparing for since forever.”
“You knew about this?” April asked, pulling herself together because, dammit, that’s what she did. It’s who she was. She reached for the powder and gave her skin an extra dusting in case she’d rubbed any off with the whole forehead to knees move thingamabob.
No one responded.
“Seriously,” April said. “How long have you known?”
Rachel suddenly couldn’t meet her gaze. Neither could Simone. She looked at Kitty.
Kitty absolutely met her gaze like a head-on collision about to happen. She looked her dead in the eye and said, “Since he told Beast he was thinking about staying in Denver and asked about office space.”
“Yeah, I’ve known since right about then, too,” Simone confessed.
“We thought we agreed to talk to you later.” Kitty glared at Rachel. “Because, Gumdrop, you’re in love with him, but you’re trying very hard not to admit it.”
April couldn’t move. Her muscles seemed to have atrophied, which was a huge disappointment, because how could she teach other parents how to be calm on the biggest parenting web channel of them all when she couldn’t even move her lips? Then again, how could she do it mid-meltdown? These were currently questions with no answers and—looking to the clock—she had approximately ten minutes to figure them out.
“I’m not in love with Jack.” She didn’t think so, anyway. She loved her kids. She loved her parents. She loved her friends.
Somebody like Jack?
Who makes you feel again.
“Oh shit,” she said, dropping her forehead to her knees again. This wasn’t about missing Jack’s presence and his, well, extracurricular activities. Oh dear, no. With Jack, she’d seen herself as something other than a burned-out mess. How could she not fall in love with the man who had helped her see that?
A man who understood friendships and appreciatedherfriends. Including all the eccentricities they brought along as baggage. A man who kissed her good morning even when he was working. A man who built her son a frog habitat and drank Crayola water and wrote songs with her daughter.
The man who showed her how to see herself as something more. As someone who could catch the attention of a man like Jack and feel…worthy.
“I cannot believe I did this,” she murmured, head still at her knees.
In for four counts, hold for four—
“I think we just had a teensy bit of what my mama would call a breakthrough.” Kitty giggled and squeezed April, then stomped her feet like she was super giddy about this turn of events. “Now, what are we going to do about it? My vote is we call Rachel’s Travis, convince him we need the company plane, and we all fly our tuchuses to Cali to bring that man home.”
April turned her head to gape at Kitty. She couldn’t just get on a plane and go to California. She wasn’t Britney Spears.
“Beast has a lead on some office space,” Kitty added.
“I can’t go get him,” April said, meaning every word. “I’m supposed to be here proving…” Proving she could live a life without training wheels.
Right now, that seemed kinda ridiculous.
Kitty took April’s hands in hers. “Gumdrop, youhavebeen doing this”—she waved around the room—“by yourself for going on a year now; what more do you have to prove?”
“That I can make it.” Reluctantly, April sat up, giving the dizziness a moment to pass.
“Oh, sweet baby April, just because youcando it yourself doesn’t mean you should.” Kitty’s expression was one of total sympathy. Like she’d just told April the worst news ever, and she was super-duper sorry about it.
April blinked. Holy Cheez-Its. Kitty was freaking right.
“Is she right?” April asked, directing the question to Simone and Rachel because she didn’t trust herself at the moment.
Rachel was studying her clipboard again like it held the answer to how Travis made his margaritas taste so delish. Simone gnawed at her thumbnail like she did when she didn’t want to say something that would sting.
