“We’re twenty-seven and gorgeous.”
“Twenty-six and gorgeous, but I’ll allow the round-up since you bought the wine.”
“My birthday, my rules,” she declares.
I laugh into the glass, and something in my chest loosens for the first time all week. Grayson dropped me off forty minutes ago with a kiss against my temple and a promise to collect me after his afternoon session. I’ve given up on ever getting my car back because every time I ask if it’s done, he hands me the keys to one of the seven cars in his garage.
I told him he can chauffeur me around then. I didn’t think he would be so smug about it.
The world out past these windows is full of headlines, trackers, and trees that turn out to have men in them. In here, there’s just my friend across the table, her ponytail catchingthe light, and the small cake she’s already announced she’ll be sharing with exactly no one. She watches me over the rim of her glass for a beat too long.
“He really loves you, doesn’t he?”
I set my wine down. “Yes.” My voice comes out smaller than I planned. “He does.”
“And you love him.”
“Brooke.”
“Don’t Brooke me. I know what you look like when you’re holding a feeling out at arm’s length so it can’t get close enough to hurt you.”
I open my mouth, then close it. “It’s not that,” I tell her finally. “I do love him.”
“Then what?” she presses.
I push a piece of bread around my plate with one finger. “Part of me is scared.”
Brooke reaches across the table and stops my hand, her fingers warm over mine. “Miranda.”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“You don’t, actually. You only think you do.” Her voice drops into the register she saves for my hardest patients. “Life’s been a series of doors slamming on you since your mom got sick. You learned to flinch at good news because the next thing through the door was always a bill, or a knock from someone with a clipboard, or another loss.”
“I don’t want a therapy sess—”
“Listen to me. I’ve been in your corner every step of the past three years. I’ve watched you hold yourself together with hospital tape and pure stubbornness.” She squeezes my hand once. “But that man dropped you at the curb in a Range Rover, kissed your forehead, and called me by name to ask me to take care of his fiancée while he was at practice. So I’m telling you, asyour best friend in the world, that you’re allowed to love him. He adores you. Take the chance.”
I swallow hard. The bread basket has become very interesting. “It feels like he’s always doing things for me, and I never know what to do back,” I admit. “He pays off the debt. He puts a ring on my finger. He stands between me and his ex-wife. He fights every fire I walk into before I’ve even asked.” My throat works. “I don’t have anything to give him he doesn’t already own, Brooke.”
She lets go of my hand and sits back. “It’s not about matching him. Big gestures aren’t a scoreboard.” Her tone softens. “It’s the small things. As long as it means something, it doesn’t have to compete with a mansion.”
“Such as?”
“Make him dinner.”
I stare at her. “You know I can’t cook.”
“I know you can read.” She grins. “Recipes exist for a reason, Miranda.”
“Brooke.”
“I’m serious. We eat fast, we hit the grocery store on the way out, and I give you a recipe my mother used to make. Four ingredients. Even you can’t ruin it.”
“That’s a deeply insulting bet.”
“And yet you’re not arguing it,” she points out, lifting the menu. “Order something light. We’ve got shopping to do.”
We wrap up dinner, and one recipe turns into three. By the time we leave for the grocery store, she has me convinced I can roll out a five-course meal. We walk to the store, and I know Grayson will be pissed that I went out like this. But nobody recognizes me, so it’s all good.
