This time, though, it ended up not being a message. April’s phone rang.
“Girl.” Simone only had to say the one word.
April ran her hand through the fine curls in her hair. She hadn’t added enough hairspray, so she wasn’t even certain they’d last until breakfast. “It’s not a big deal.”
Simone tsked. “Your hair?”
So what if she’d ditched her usual low ponytail? So what if she fixed her hairwith curls and everything?
“I needed to be sure my curling iron still works.” What if it stopped working, and she hadn’t realized it?
“And the skirt?” Simone gestured to the outfit.
So what that she’d also decided to wear a skirt? A cute, short number with binding around her midsection to make it seem a size smaller.
The season was still early enough in the fall that it wasn’t too cold for a skirt.
April ran a hand over the article of clothing in question. “Technically, it’s not even a skirt.”
Simone squinted, looking harder, even though April was sure she could probably see just fine. “Then what am I looking at that’s covering your ass?”
“It’s askort.” Itwasa skort because there were shorts underneath.
“What is a skort?” Simone looked as though April was speaking to her in Sanskrit.
April struck a pose.
“It’s cute. Shows your legs. You never show your legs.” Simone grinned. “I bet Jack will eat you up.”
The skort set was cute. Pale blue in the shade that matched her logo.
April’s heart sank a little. “I didn’t do this for Jack.”
She did it for herself, so she’d feel more confident around Jack.
“If you’re dressing up for you, I like that all the better.” Simone’s tone turned comforting.
“I needed to figure out how to wear the skorts in case we have to do photoshoots. I’ve never worn a skort before.” Because an athletic skirt—while comfortable—didn’t really fit into her usual routine. Sure, it was perfectly appropriate for a woman who taught yoga, she just hadn’t been sure where to wear it.
“Girl, stop saying that. It’s not a word.” Simone chuckled.
“It is a word!” And Simone was making this a much bigger deal than necessary. So what that she hadn’t quite known where to wear the skorts when they arrived because she was, through and through, a yoga-pants woman?
“Baby,” Simone held the phone away from her mouth and hollered over her shoulder. “Is the word skorts a word?”
April sighed, but she didn’t really mean it. Simone just needed to get through her drama. “It’s a word. Google it.”
“I don’t need to. I have Yelena.” Simone grinned. Then she held the phone away as she leaned toward Yelena’s muffled voice. When she held it back to her ear, she said, “You’ll be happy to know that Yelena said that if you want skorts to be a word, then I need to leave you alone about it.”
“I’ve got to go finish my right eye,” she said, ready to track down her kids and get them breakfast.
“Go, girl.” Simone waved and hung up.
April pulled her curtains closed. Leaning back against the fabric, she let her feet root into the floor, let her eyelids drift closed, and allowed her focus to become a pinprick at the end of her nose. Then she breathed.
“Make room for me,” Harmony’s hissing voice carried across the hall from April’s bedroom.
April opened her eyes, glancing around the room.
