Page 47 of Heat Advisory

I had just fed Miss Frizzle and was sitting on the couch trying to relax from my crazy day when my phone rang. I glanced down at the screen to see Morgan’s name. Did she already know? Or was this about her own wedding and unrelated?

“Hello,” I answered cautiously.

“Umm…so our old neighbor called Mom yesterday to tell her she saw you and Jay at a restaurant Saturday, and you got engaged. I assumed she was confused, but then Mom said she talked to Jay and he said it’s true. Cora?” Morgan rattled all that off without taking a breath, and I didn’t know what to say.

Annnnnd Mrs. Rainer’s phone tree had already started making its rounds.

I knew Morgan might be mad if I hadn’t told her, but she was also my best friend, so I didn’t want to lie either.

“Morgan, if I tell you what really happened, you have to pinky promise on your grandma’s life that you won’t tell a soul,” I explained. “Not your soon-to-be hubby, not your parents, not even your dog!”

“Oh shit, this is gonna be good,” she said, and I heard rustling in the background. “Okay, I’m in a safe space. Pinky promise. Tell me everything.”

And I did.

I told her all of it in great detail.

“So now you understand why we have to keep it going,” I justified.

“For how long?” she asked, and it was a question I had asked myself many times in the last few days.

“Umm…well…I don’t actually know. Jay didn’t clarify that.”

Her response was to just laugh into the phone. “Bestie, I’m only telling you this because I love you more than him, but he’s not gonna let you go. He’s wanted you for a long time and now he has you. He’s going to find any way to keep you, and I hope he does, because then⁠—”

“Then we can be sisters,” I finished for her. “Yeah, I know. But…this is just weird.”

“What part is weird?”

“Truthfully, the whole thing,” I told her and then paused. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Bestie, I know this is my brother, and yes, this is my dream come true for you two to be together—even though anyone being with my brother grosses me out—but if I honestly thought he was a dick or would treat you badly in any way, I would tell you. And I would also do anything I could to get you out of this. But I know he loves you, and I know you love him too. Circumstances that were out of both of your control just delayed the timing for you. But now it’s here, and I think you should take the leap of faith and…jump.”

Morgan was right. I looked back at my life and Jay’s and what each of us had done in the years since high school.

I was so happy with how my life had turned out career-wise thus far. Jay had mentioned a few days ago that he had wanted me to follow him to Texas and go to school there after he got settled, but I wasn’t sure I would have.

I had never been happier with my career, and it sounded like Jay’s life had turned out pretty good too.

It was that thought that made me realize if I had followed Jay around the country right after high school so he could follow his dreams, I may not have been able to achieve mine.

Maybe the timing just wasn’t meant to be for us to be together early on…but now?

I had a feeling that now the timing was just right.

16

“Rainfall is measured in inches and millimeters. My emotions are measured in pints of ice cream.”

—It’s science

Cora

A week had passed, and while Jay and I had talked every night, tonight was the first opportunity we’d had to go on a date due to our crazy schedules.

In some ways, it felt like we had just picked up where we’d left off in high school in terms of conversation and familiarity. But there was definitely something new, something deeper, that threaded through our relationships and still brought butterflies to my stomach.

Like right now, as my stomach fluttered at just the simple touch of his hand on my thigh as he drove his truck out of my complex.