“You gotta get at least one vegetable, Cassie.”
“Yeah, so it can go bad in my vegetable drawer and I can throw it out later?”
She meandered to the next aisle, full of baking supplies she absolutely did not need. She walked down it.
“What if you bought vegetables but then immediately used them to make stir-fry for dinner?”
Cassie pretended to be considering it, but she was already heading for the produce section. “That doesn’t sound terrible.”
“Get peppers and sweet peas,” Erin said. “And carrots if you don’t have any rotting in your vegetable drawer.”
“I know how to make stir-fry, babe.”
“You’re the one who called me,” Erin teased.
Cassie did take her advice when it came to the sauce, though. Erin talked through the recipe as Cassie filled her cart.
“God, now I’m going to have to make stir-fry tonight,” Erin said. “I’ve talked it up so much it sounds delicious.”
“It better be,” Cassie said. She chose a self-checkout lane. “You better not have given me a recipe for a not delicious stir-fry.”
“Well, you know, it all depends on the cook. I can’t be blamed if yours isn’t as good as mine.”
“Oh my God, why do I even like you?”
Erin laughed and Cassie grinned wide enough to hurt.
They kept talking all through checkout and the bus ride back to campus. Cassie updated Erin about her classes and projects, bragged that she’d caught Professor Upton looking at her with this ridiculous Proud Dad face like three times since she’d told him about the job.
Erin talked about her patients—vaguely, HIPAA regulations and all—and Cassie decided she was too hungry to bother putting the groceries away. She wedged her phone between her shoulder and her ear and started cutting up peppers.
She almost dropped her phone, then almost sliced her thumb open, before she finally interrupted.
“Erin, hey, I’m sorry,” she said. “I want to hear the rest of your story but let’s switch to FaceTime so I have both hands to cook with.”
She could have just put it on speakerphone, but maybe she wanted to see Erin’s face. Sue her.
“I’ll call you back.”
Erin hung up and immediately FaceTimed.
“Hey,” Cassie said, grinning.
“Hey.” Getting to see Erin’s smile was way better than hearing it in her voice.
“Okay, so you’re going for a consult…，” Cassie reminded her, and Erin picked up where she left off.
Erin also started making dinner as they talked. Cassie critiqued her knife skills and Erin laughed at her. It’d been barely two weeks since they last saw each other, but Cassie loved this—sharing their time even if they couldn’t share their space.
As they sat down to eat—Cassie on her couch and Erin at the kitchen island—Erin asked, “Got any weekend plans?”
“Nah,” Cassie said. “It’s the a cappella retreat, so Parker’s gonna be gone all weekend.” She realized what she was saying as it came out of her mouth. They’d never talked directly about Parker. “You probably know that. Anyway.”
Worse than mentioning Parker—Cassie had been going to complain. Since Parker was gone, it meant Cassie would have Acacia all weekend without having to worry if she’d ditch her for Parker. Not that Kaysh had done that, but she was definitely amorphously busy more often since Cassie and Parker had been fighting. Even if they had been getting along better since the concert before spring break. Parker had even seemed excited at the idea of Cassie visiting from Boston over the summer. Mildly excited, but still.
Cassie tried to push through her awkwardness. “Acacia and I will probably be pretty chill, not get into too much trouble.”
“Are you saying Parker is the troublemaker of the group?” Erin was focused on her food, not on Cassie on her phone screen.
“Kaysh and I have been getting ourselves into trouble since we were kids,” Cassie said. “I’m pretty sure we’re the bad influence on Parker, not the other way around.”
“I’m sure Parker causes trouble all on her own,” Erin said. “I like to think I’m not a completely oblivious parent, though I’ll admit I’d probably rather not know a lot of what she gets into.”
Cassie took the opportunity to shift the topic. “What kind of trouble did you get into in school?”
Erin looked at her. Cassie grinned, and she could tell Erin was fighting a smile and then, “Well, there was this one time…”