Efficient feels like the right word.
I’m still staring at Piper’s colorless portrait when the balcony door creaks open.
I glance over my shoulder to see her standing there.
She doesn’t see me. She steps out with her face tilted toward the sky, as if trying to drink in the air. Her eyes are closed. She looks like she’s been holding her breath for three hours and finally found some space.
Then she opens her eyes, sees me, and jumps. Her hand flies to her chest. “Griffin.” It’s half-laugh, half-gasp. “Jesus. You scared me.”
I raise my glass. “Sorry.”
She looks at me for a second, then a genuine smile appears. It’s the kind that lights up her eyes before her mouth even shifts.
There she is.
She’s in a cream dress that fits perfectly and looks like something she’d never choose for herself.
“When did you get in?” she asks, walking toward me.
“An hour ago. I would have come by, but—”
“You’ll be there tomorrow,” she says, waving it off. “That’s what matters.” She steps to the railing, looking out at the town. “I haven’t seen you much since you came back.”
“We’ve both been busy.”
“True.” She tilts her head and begins tugging at the hem of her dress, making small, restless adjustments as if she can’t get it to sit right on her skin.
“What are you doing out here, Pipes?”
She glances over. “Needed a minute.”
“You want to sit?” I ask. “You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The breathing thing. The one you do when you’re about ten seconds away from a panic attack.”
A surprised laugh breaks out of her. “I don’t have a breathing thing.”
“Piper, you’ve had a breathing thing since you were ten.”
“That’s extremely invasive of you to retain,” she mutters.
“Guilty.” I nod toward the table in the corner. “Come on.”
She tucks one foot under her in the chair and looks more like herself in ten seconds on this balcony than in that ten-foot portrait inside.
I nod toward the event space. “I saw the sign.”
She makes a face. “It’s enormous.”
“I thought I’d walked into a wake. Then I heard the music.”
She groans. “Not you too. His mother chose the music.”
“Did his mother choose it for a rehearsal dinner or for an open-casket viewing?”
Piper doubles over with a full, head-back laugh that shakes her shoulders. “It’s so bad.”
