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She nodded sadly. “I call it hell.”
“I don’t need a thank-you card, Rach,” I said gently. “I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you, and that I cared. Have a seat.” I released her and gestured. “I ordered you a vanilla latte with an extra shot.”
“You remembered from when we used to meet at Common Grounds in Lakeside.” She sank into the chair I pulled out and cupped her hands around the large cream-colored mug with the name of the coffee shop on the side. “Man, I need the caffeine.”
“So, I hear you’ve been working at Footit’s.” I sat in the chair across from her.
“Yeah, the weekends are brutal. Takes me a bit to recover. But it’s honest work. The tips are pretty good, and I like being busy.”
“Addy’s there,” I pointed out.
“Hell isn’t complete hell with Addy around.”
“I’ll bet she helps a lot.”
Rachel nodded.
“How’s Claire?” I asked. “She’s seventeen now, right?”
“Yes.” Rachel’s gaze took on a faraway glow. “About the same age we were when everything went wrong with ABCR.”
“You and I were a little younger than the others.”
“Sixteen. So yeah, a little.” She tilted her head to a reflective angle. “But in Southside, age is just a number. I felt middle-aged then. Now I feel practically ancient,” she mumbled.
“The shit we went through, we had to grow up fast.”
“Still going through shit, but done growing, done with nearly everything. I’m just a mother now.” She set down the cup that she’d practically drained dry and glanced away.
“How’s Claire handling everything?” I asked softly. I could see how Rachel was handling it. Poorly.
“She’s wonderful. Beautiful.” Rachel swiped away wetness that had escaped her eyes and refocused on me. “Claire has a caring heart like Addy, so she already has a friend at school, but she’s still hurting.”
“She misses her dad.”
“Daniel was a wonderful father.” Rachel’s full bottom lip trembled. “They were incredibly close.”
I’d never seen Rachel so troubled. Not when their mother died, and she and Addy were hiding in Winston’s basement storage room, and not when Addy was with Martin, not at first. Rachel and I had both been shut out and had no real clue what she’d been dealing with until it was too late. For me, being the age I was at the time, the whole deal with Addy and Martin had felt like rejection.
“I appreciate you asking, but enough about me.” Rachel gave me a firm look. “Why don’t you ask about her?”
“How is Addy?”
I wanted to know on so many levels.
What had happened while I’d been overseas that had made her retreat so far into herself? And how had she been this past week since serving me walking papers? It had been torture for me. I could barely function. Sleep eluded me. Food had no flavor. My sheets smelled like her. I hadn’t washed them, of course. Even my favorite chair reminded me of her.
“Not so good,” Rachel said, and I went hyperalert.
“How so?” I leaned over my cup of joe and a glazed doughnut that remained untouched. Food was one of my passions, but that and so many things were uninteresting without Addy.
“I don’t think you want to hear this.” Her brow creased. “I don’t want to be the one to tell you since I always wanted you for Addy.”
Yeah, I always wanted me for Addy too.
“But she met someone,” she said. “At the gym. God knows she can’t meet a guy anywhere else. She’s an ice princess at the bar, turning down every guy who approaches her.”
“She get hit on a lot?” My hands curled into fists. I wanted to pummel any guy who even looked at her.
