“No!” I insisted. “We just rode around on the motorcycle.” I purposefully neglected to add how turned on it had left me.
“Okay, well, listen, as much as I want to hear more about your road trip with Hayes, I have to go home and get ready for work. You can call me anytime to talk about this sister stuff, okay? Dad stuff too. You know I know what it’s like to lose a dad.”
Cleo’s dad had died when she was in high school, and it had impacted her in ways I know I couldn’t begin to understand. I pressed my lips together. “What if I’m…” My voice trailed off. It felt too embarrassing to say out loud.
“What if you’re what?” she asked, digging her hands through her sweaty hair as she gave me an expectant look.
“A disappointment? She finds out this sister she’s all excited to meet is some unemployed American weirdo?”
“Okay, Franny.” Cleo planted her hands on my shoulders, a stern look on her face. “I want to validate your feelings while also reminding you to speak kindly about yourself, as if you were talking about a friend.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes with a sigh. “But she’s an architect and a designer. She does what I do, but, like, for real.”
“You’re not the Velveteen Rabbit, babe.” Cleo dropped her arms and nudged me onward. “I promise you, you’re already very real.”
Chapter Eight
Hayes
Saturday night, I showed up at Eleanor and Henry’s apartment for dinner with a bottle of wine and, oddly enough, a giant box of saltine crackers. The latter hadn’t been my idea; Eleanor had texted me as I was leaving my place, asking me to grab them, and so I’d stopped off at Gristedes.
I rapped on the door, and Henry greeted me in an apron, a tomato-sauce-covered spatula in one hand. “HM Three,” he said with a wicked grin, grabbing my forearm and yanking me in for a hug.
He was the only person who called me that. Hell, he was the only person I’d even let call me that. It had been one of the first things out of his mouth when we met. Eleanor had started talking to him at a party, a hot, sweaty Halloween thing with way too many people, at a loft downtown. Henry had been dressed as Han Solo, and she had shown up in full Princess Leia cosplay, and their outfit connection had won Eleanor over in an instant. After they’d spent two hours together chatting in a corner, I’d wandered over to say hi. Angie had been dressed up as a Freudian slip that night, in an actual white slip with words like ego and Oedipus complex written on it. I’d been…well, I’d been dressed as myself.
“Hayes,” I’d said that night, extending my hand.
“Montgomery the Third,” Eleanor had added, her nervous excitement dancing in her voice. Eleanor’s past boyfriends and girlfriends had all been skeptical of me, certain there was something suspicious going on between us when they weren’t around. But Henry hadn’t seemed fazed by our friendship.
“HM Three,” he’d said, clasping my hand firmly in a shake, his eyes bright with excitement and liquor. Henry was confident, cool with everyone, unafraid of anything and everything. And his accent only made him sound more polished. Born in Hong Kong and raised in the UK before moving to the States for college, Henry oozed worldly sophistication without an ounce of douchebaggery. He was a real unicorn.
“Do you have my saltines?” Eleanor called from the living room.
“Yes,” I said, furrowing my brow when I discovered her in the fetal position on the couch. “Are you sick?”
I turned to Henry, who was standing next to me, clutching an oven mitt, a stupid grin on his face. “Is she okay?” I asked him, worry creeping into my gut.
“Hayes, you dummy,” Eleanor moaned, not lifting her head. “I’m pregnant.”
“Oh my god, El.” My jaw went slack with shock. “That’s…that’s…”
“It’s a surprise is what it is,” she said, tearing into the saltines. “But a good surprise.”
Henry let out a little whoop next to me. The grin on his face could have stretched to the ends of Manhattan, it was so big.
“That’s amazing. Congratulations.” I leaned down to hug her and plant a kiss on her cheek. This felt monumental, exciting in a way I’d never experienced before. “I’ve always wanted to change careers and go into nannying, so—”
“Good lord, no.” She shook her head. “Besides, we need you as our cat sitter. Luna might get jealous.”