“You did not break your leg because you skipped work,” Theo says in the background on her end of the phone.
I slide to the floor in front of my fridge and rub Jitter’s belly when he flops to the ground and rolls over like he’s trying to get into my lap. “It’s remarkable how much I agree with him these days.”
“If I hadn’t skipped work that day—” she starts, but she cuts herself off with a shriek of laughter. “Okay! Okay! I would’ve just broken my leg in the breakroom instead!”
“Is he tickling you?” I am not jealous of my friend. I do not want a man in my life. I am not contemplating knocking on my neighbor’s door and asking if we can get naked in the name of stress relief when I’d be secretly thinking it was something so much more than that, much like I suspect he’d think it was more than that after everything that’s happened between us since he got to town.
Dammit.
“No, he’s piling kittens all over me and they’re climbing on my head,” Laney says. “And I’m working from home today. Are you working today?”
“Called in sick.”
“Are you sick?”
“Physically? No.”
“Are you avoiding your boss?”
“Some.”
“You want to go talk to Emma,” she says.
This is what Laney and Emma and I have always had. We’ve known each other for so long that we can practically read each other’s minds.
“I saw her Saturday and she’s just not her and I hate that,” I tell Laney.
“And she’ll know what Chandler loves.”
“No. No.” My hand curls into Jitter’s fur. “I will not drag her into this.”
“I can,” Theo calls.
“Go feed your cats or scoop some litter,” I retort. “Do not bother her with my problems. I refuse to pump her for information. I want—”
“Things to be normal again,” Laney finishes for me.
“Yes. They’ll never be the same. But we’ve always found normal again. And we can’t find normal if we’re not talking.”
We’ve been through so much together. Emma’s mom passing away when we were in middle school. Hard teachers. The heartbreak of break ups with first boyfriends. Whispered tales of when we each lost our virginity. Stressing over which colleges we could afford or which we hoped to get scholarships for.
My mouth getting me in trouble.
Laney stressing entirely too much about perfection.
Emma daydreaming about buying my grandparents’ house to live in with her perfect dream Ken doll man and having a million babies and dogs and cats, and watching deer and elk and fox and bears wander through the yard while she washed dishes.
She daydreamed about washing dishes.
And it was so perfectly Emma that neither Laney nor I questioned it. I still wouldn’t.
“Come get me,” Laney says. “I can reschedule my meetings. I’ll go with you.”
An hour later, I pull up to the old single-wide trailer that Theo lived in at the edge of their dad’s land before he bought his cabin further up the mountain in a more secluded area on a much, much larger lot.
I thought I was a gossip.
I have nothing on Theo Monroe when he wants to know something, and he’s apparently been tracking Emma’s movements very closely. I would’ve started at her office, but Theo was very firm in his orders to go to his old trailer. She worked late last night then went to Dad’s place. Should be up soon.
The lights aren’t on. Will she be mad if we wake her up? Or should we sit here and wait? Will she appreciate the items in the back of my car that I’m bringing as a peace offering? Will they even work on snow?
“It’ll work,” Laney says from the passenger seat.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did. It’ll work.”
I back up my SUV into the closest spot I can fit where Laney will have the shortest path to the front door. We haven’t had fresh snow in a few days, so I can’t tell if the tracks around Emma’s current hideout are old or new. There’s no visible movement inside the trailer.
“Should I have texted first?” I ask Laney. “Should we have waited until after work today? Do you think she’s still asleep?”
“No to all of that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Hand me my crutches.”
Okay. She’s sure.
I climb out and walk around to her side, retrieve her crutches from the back seat, and open her door for her.