Beg, Borrow, or Steal (When in Rome, #3)(14)
The ugly truth is, I wish I’d never supported her decision to go after her culinary degree. And deep down, I think I was really hoping she’d go out there, take a look around the city, hate it, and quickly come back. That is a horrible thing to wish, though, so I lock up that thought along with the rest in my Treasure Chest of Doom.
“Hello, ladies—let me see the cat,” she says in a whisper—the little nub of a bun on the top of her head bobbing as she tips closer to the screen.
“You too? I swear I could disappear completely and none of you would notice as long as Ducky is around.” I say it as a joke but then my heart constricts around the words.
Madison grins. “I’m not even sorry.”
“Of course you’re not.” Dammit. That came out sharper than I intended. Normally I wouldn’t feel bad at all about saying something like that to her. We’ve had little petty fights like all good sisters. But lately . . . I don’t know. Bickering with her doesn’t feel safe. I don’t want to do anything that will risk her not coming home. And also I know how hard it was for her to decide to go to New York in the first place. I’d pushed her into being a teacher like me. I’d basically kept her chained to Rome by insisting that we all needed to live close together. And she decided to break through all of that and go after her dreams. It killed me to realize I was truly the one holding her back from living her life. I refuse to do it a second time. I want her to come home when she wants to come home. To call when she wants to call.
I hurry to pick up Ducky and hold her squishy little face toward the camera to distract everyone from my comment. She yawns and it earns her extra oohs from the girls.
“Oh my god, my jaws are hurting from gritting my teeth so hard!” says Madison in a whine.
Amelia voices what’s been running through my head. “Come home for a visit so you can meet her! It’s been too long, Maddie.” Six months to be exact. She came back for Grandma’s funeral, but not since.
The whole gang, however, visited her in New York over Christmas when she couldn’t make it home. It was Annie’s idea that we surprise her, and though I was worried how she would react to finding us there, she did seem genuinely happy we came.
Her apartment was too small for everyone to fit, so the couples stayed in a hotel and I smooshed into Madison’s bed with her. Those moments were good. Maddie and I fell right back into the same close groove we had before she left Kentucky, and I was hopeful that whatever the weirdness was between us since she’d been gone was all just a result of the physical distance and maybe we’d stay in touch better moving forward. But in the end, we went right back to missed calls and strained text messages.
Madison smiles now and I find myself dissecting it—wondering if it’s real or not. “Well, now it seems I have to come home for two reasons. To meet my cat-niece and watch Emily slowly destroy her new neighbor, Jack Bennett!”
It’s going to be hard to keep the truth of just how bothered I am by Jackson moving in next door hidden from Madison because she’s the only one who has seen me interact with him the last few years. She knows firsthand how often we were at each other’s throats. But maybe this strangeness between us will come out in my favor for once and allow me to fly under the radar.
“First,” I say, dipping my head a little closer to the screen. “Can we talk about why you’re sitting on the toilet in your bathroom? That’s where you are, right?”
“Yes,” she says casually. “But I’m not using it.”
Annie tilts her head. “And why are you whispering?”
The sly grin that covers Maddie’s mouth tells us the answer before the words are out. “There’s a guy in my bed. A cute chef from my program.” She shimmies her shoulders underneath her baggy T-shirt. Or I’m guessing, his baggy T-shirt.
“The same guy from a few nights ago?” Amelia asks.
“Nope.” Maddie has never looked more proud or mischievous.
An image of James Huxley, Noah’s best friend, staring longingly at Madison during Noah and Amelia’s wedding flashes in my mind. We were all raised together since our parents were best friends, and so in a way, James has always felt like my brother. I had never even considered that one of us could have felt differently toward him until I saw the way he looked at Madison.
It doesn’t seem like Madison has thought twice about James, though, since she left. Hasn’t thought twice about any of us.
“What’s this guy’s name?” I ask Maddie, trying to hold back from blurting Be careful! Always use protection!
Madison waves me off. “Doesn’t matter. He won’t be around for long.”
Maddie is definitely more sexually adventurous than the rest of us. I think my siblings assume I’m just like Maddie in how much I hook up, but they’d be wrong. It’s actually a rare occurrence—especially lately. And when I do sleep with anyone, I never linger after. And I never bring men back to my place unless we are exclusively dating. Which hasn’t happened since Liam—my high school sweetheart, otherwise known as the person who first proved to me that forever is just an empty word that means nothing to some people—so basically I didn’t even need to mention the last part.
I really think I can trace most of my trust issues back to him. We had been together since freshman year of high school all the way through senior year. We were the couple that everyone voted Most Likely to Get Married. We were homecoming king and queen. We had plans. We were going to move in together and attend our local college with an aim to get married within two or three years. We were in love—real, honest-to-goodness love—and I believed our happily-ever-after with all my heart.