“I think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m so sorry for putting you in this position, Wrennie.”
Wren smiled sadly. “I know that.” None of this had started with bad intentions. And if it had gone the way they’d originally thought it would, it really wouldn’t have been that big a deal.
The fault here was Wren’s. Because of what she’d let happen at that hotel, and how she’d handled it since.
“Good luck,” Wren said.
“Thanks. I’ll text you later. Let you know how it went. Or you know, if I get fired, I’ll swing by with ice cream and wine.”
Wren chuckled, despite her misery. Lark firmly believed no problem was so big that it couldn’t be cured with Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia and a bottle of Prosecco.
She and Lark said their goodbyes.
Wren put down her phone, then stretched out on her side on the couch. She briefly considered turning on the TV, simply in hopes of drowning out all the voices raging in her head, calling her a fool.
Glancing at the coffee table, she decided the remote, which was all of five feet from her, was too far away. And since it was sitting on top of her current novel, she dismissed the idea of disappearing into a book as well.
Instead, she lay there, staring at the wall, replaying every second she’d shared with Grayson until night came and exhaustion finally allowed her to fall asleep, right there on the couch, fully dressed and miserable.
Wren laughed when Remi threw her hands up dramatically, declaring the heroine in the book they’d read for the romance book club literally too stupid to live.
Mila, who’d loved the book, shook her head, recapping all the ways the heroine had proven herself to be plucky and intelligent, but Remi remained unmoved.
Edith leaned over to Wren, speaking quietly. “I’d like to tell you book club isn’t usually this crazy, but it would be a lie. It’s always like this. Which is why I’m thinking of proposing we meet more often.”
Edith cackled, and Wren couldn’t help but join in.
When she’d woken up this morning, she’d been certain she would send her regrets, making up some reason why she couldn’t come, but several things had happened that changed her mind.
One, Lark—who hadn’t texted last night—called her bright and early, bubbly and happy despite being hungover. Apparently, Nora had taken the news of their twin swap very well. In fact, she’d been so entertained by the story, she’d called Remi to join them in her office so Lark could tell it again.
Neither Nora nor Remi had been mad, assuring Lark that her job was safe. So she’d launched into a retelling of all the times in the past when she and Wren had pulled the switcheroo prank. At one point, the three of them had been laughing so hard and so loud, Mila and Gretchen heard it from downstairs in the winery kitchen—over the din of the music and patrons—and went up to investigate.
That was when bottles of wine were fetched and “Lark’s confession” meeting morphed into an impromptu girls’ night at the Storm women’s farmhouse.
Lark not only hadn’t lost her job, she’d spent the night and gotten an invitation to move in.
According to Lark, there were two empty rooms in the large farmhouse, since Lucy and Mila had moved out to live with their significant others. At some point in the evening, Lark had mentioned how she was desperately saving to get her own place, and Nora and Remi had complained about how quiet the house was now, with just the two of them in residence.
Mila suggested Lark move into her old room, and from there, a plan was hatched.
As far as Wren could tell—it was hard to follow, since Lark had been talking so fast and excitedly—the new living situation was a done deal, and Lark would be moving to Stormy Weather Farm right after Harvest Festival weekend, Gracemont’s equivalent to Mardi Gras, on a much smaller, quieter scale.
Even knowing how well Nora and Remi had taken the news about her working the festival instead of Lark, Wren had still planned to skip the book club.
Until Nora texted, telling her how thrilled she was that Wren was joining them and how she was looking forward to getting to know her better, now that Nora and Lark were about to become roommates. Nora was sure that she and Wren would become good friends as well.
And, as nice as that was, Wren still wavered on attending.
That was when Edith’s text arrived, telling Wren that she and Manny couldn’t wait to try the blue cheese appetizers she’d signed up to bring.
There was a very small list of people in her life who Wren couldn’t say no to, and Edith and Manny were both on it. Simply because they were wonderful and kind. Edith was an attentive landlady, who always made sure the apartment Wren rented from her was safe and secure. Manny served as Edith’s manager, so he’d been there several times in the past year to fix various things, and he’d always been so sweet and funny.
So if Edith and Manny wanted her blue cheese apps, they were getting them. Even if that meant she’d had to lay on the couch with a cool washcloth over her eyes this morning, trying to get the swelling from crying too much last night to go down.
“I’m having a lot of fun,” Wren confided in Edith, wishing she hadn’t said that with such a strong tone of surprise. The warmth she experienced from everyone in the room had eased the tension knotted in her chest when she arrived.
