“Yeah,” I say, swallowing back emotion. “She curled up on her favourite couch as soon as I got there. I’ll swing by after dinner.”
Gran leaves and Addie takes my hand. Though no words are spoken, we start walking toward the pub. Addie squeezes myhand until I squeeze back, then leans into me. I exhale, place a kiss on her forehead.
“You don’t have to worry,” she says. “Tabitha is all in on team Zander. Your little heat exhaustion act really won you some bonus points.”
“It wasn’t an act. I was genuinely—”
“I know.” She nudges my hip with her own. “You just being yourself is endearing. You’re sweet and people are stupid.”
“What an insightful statement.”
“Shut up.” She laughs and it’s like listening to my favourite song. I smirk. She nudges again. “It’s not my fault if people choose to be ignorant.”
“No, no, it’s not. Inability to move beyond the past says more about them than it does about you.” I sigh. “Not that anyone should gloss over what I did, just—”
“You made a mistake.” Addie glances at The Glass Pond, a stained-glass warehouse that’s been in Beaver Creek since its inception, as we pass. “Stones at glass houses and all that. They better not have made a bad choice in their entire life if they’re holding onto something you did thirteen years ago. Especially if they knew what your parents were doing.”
Her eyes flash. My whole body reacts. My fingers twitch, my stomach muscles tighten, my throat goes dry. Something fierce, somewhere between pride and disbelief grips me. This woman would burn down the world for me.
I loop her in to me, twirling her until her body is against mine. Under the sign of The Dam Drunkard, I kiss her absolutely senseless. Her arms slowly drop around my neck. I feel her smile into the kiss.
“Thank you,” I whisper against her lips.
“Anytime,” she says and smacks my ass. “Now, let’s go.”
She doesn’t give me time to think about my nerves, just drags me into the pub. A laugh bubbles out of me as I stumble behind her.
Dammit, Addie.
Addie walks in confidently, scanning the booths on either side of the bar that encompasses the middle of the pub. It doesn’t take her long to spot her friends and drag me with her once again. I credit her with my ability to break into a careless grin as we sidle up to Simon and Tabitha’s table.
“Addie!” Tabitha exclaims, pushing Simon off the edge of their booth. Simon chuckles as he regains his balance and Tabitha hugs Addie fiercely. “You’re alive!”
“You’ve seen me within the last six days. You knew I was alive.”
“Yes, but now your boyfriend is here and I had to make a big deal about it.” Tabitha pulls back and meets my eyes. She gives me a quick nod. “Thank you for taking care of her.” I’m not quick enough to stop my face from displaying the instant confusion that hits me. “God, you’re so sweet that you don’t even know why I would say that.”
Addie shimmies into our side of the booth and shoots her friend a wary look. I sit down next to her. The two friends have a whole unspoken conversation through history I’m not privy to yet. Even Simon wrinkles his nose, moving his glasses up by an inch.
“Of course I’d take care of her. Who wouldn’t?”
Addie scoffs. “My mom. My ex from university. Honestly, Willow would probably leave me to rot as well.”
“I could see Willow doing that,” I mumble, picking up the menu. Addie mirrors my movements, squints down at the words in the dim light, then sighs. She digs in her bag until she finds her glasses. “The others are inexcusable.”
“You’re fully correct,” Tabitha says. “Addie fractured her wrist when she was doing her master’s degree.”
“Writing is a dangerous subject,” Addie says with a smirk. Her eyes sparkle behind her frames.
“She needed, like, a pin to help it set right—”
“Uh huh,” Addie interrupts, only half focused on the conversation now, her eyes trained on the appetizers. “I’m also a robot now, didn’t you know?”
“The asshole she was dating never showed up. She had a whole fucking surgery and hospital stay, absolutely loopy on pain meds, and he didn’t show up.”
“And then I broke up with him the second I wasn’t high.”
I stare at the side of Addie’s face, pissed off on her behalf. Her lips lift in a little smirk, as if she knows what I’m thinking. I reach for her arm. She upturns it and shows me the white line where the pin lives. I run my fingers over it.
