Adele’s brow lifted.
Brighton ignored her.
“I’ll spend the day with them,” Brighton continued. “It’ll be fun.”
“Oh good,” her mom said, exhaling so loudly her breath buzzed into the phone. “I’m so glad to hear that, baby.”
Brighton nodded, even though her mother couldn’t see her, and proceeded to ask all the right questions about her parents’ trip—when they were leaving, the name of the winery, etcetera and so forth.
By the time she hung up ten minutes later, her chest felt tight enough to burst.
“Aren’t you a smooth liar,” Adele said, pocketing her own phone and leaning one shoulder against the brick wall, facing Brighton with her arms folded.
Brighton leaned her head against the building, looked up at the inky black sky. “My parents are going to France for the holidays, I had to say something.”
Just like she’d said so many somethings to her parents since the Katies booted her out—I’m doing awesome! Things are going great! Of course I’m still playing! I’ve got a gig this weekend! And the next! I’m a star!
Okay, she hadn’t exactly said that last one, but the spirit was the same. Her parents believed she was a fully-functioning adult in Nashville, paying her rent dutifully and living her musical dream as a solo artist. They didn’t even know how to access Instagram or TikTok, much less search for their own daughter among the accounts. The lies were easy, harmless, and made Brighton feel like someday, they might actually cease to be lies if she just kept at it. Kept at . . . what?
All she was doing was slinging martinis and grinding her teeth at every musician who stepped onto the Ampersand’s stage.
“Fuck,” she said, dropping her head into her hands. She just wanted to go home. Maybe she still could. She had a plane ticket. She loved Grand Haven more than any other place in the world. She’d be fine spending Christmas . . . all alone.
But without her parents, she’d have no buffer. No traditions to fall back on. Every shop and restaurant, every bike path and snow-covered sand dune, every rise and fall of the lake already reminded her of Lola, every time she went home, but she always had her parents to distract her. Her mom, only twenty-one years old when she had Brighton, was her best friend, and without her . . .
Brighton would drown under all the memories. She’d absolutely drown by herself. She knew she would.
Before she could stop them, tears streamed down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away—Adele was her friend, sure, but Brighton hated crying in front of people—but Adele saw them anyway.
“Baby girl,” Adele said, pulling Brighton into her arms, which really set Brighton’s tears loose. Adele patted her back and let her cry, which Brighton took full advantage of. She couldn’t even remember the last time someone hugged her—probably her mother, back in March, right before her entire life blew up.
Again.
“All right,” Adele said, rubbing Brighton’s cold arms. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.” She pulled back and looked Brighton in the eyes. “You’re coming home with me for Christmas.”
Brighton blinked. Sniffed some snot back up her nose. “What?”
“You heard me,” Adele said. “You’re not going home by yourself, and I know I’m your only fucking friend in the world, so you’re coming to Colorado with me. You can tell all your woes to my mom over a nice cup of cocoa—she’ll love it, my sister and I never tell her anything.”
Brighton prepared herself to refuse, but who the hell was she kidding? Adele was her only friend, and she was desperate enough right now that the idea of crying into a strange woman’s lap actually sounded pretty nice.
So she nodded, dried her eyes with her shirt, and then she and Adele went back to work. The next day, she got on her airline’s website and then went to a potluck dinner with Leah, complete with a five-minute blessing over the green bean casserole, having spent her rent money on the exorbitant fee to change her plane ticket from Grand Rapids to Colorado Springs.