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“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Tori asked as if she hadn’t just been in the same room as me for the past five minutes
“For doing that with you. For doing that to Willow. I shouldn’t have put you in that situation. I shouldn’t have suggested we do it again.”
“That bad, huh?” Tori asked with a strained laugh. I could tell she was trying her best to keep the moment light and playful, but this moment was far from either of those things.
Still, I couldn’t help but smile. Tori always had that effect on me. She was the one who made me smile when all I wanted to do was cry. She was the one who always kept me going. “I think you know the answer to that.” I put my hand on my head and groaned. “Shit, Tori. What the hell are we going to do?”
“We’re definitely not going to test out your ‘Maybe we were just really drunk’ theory again.”
“Could you please be serious for one second?” Even though I meant what I was saying and needed Tori to stop the jokes so we could actually figure out what to do, the smile didn’t leave my face.
“See, here’s the thing.” Tori’s smile dropped into a frown as she stared down at the carpet. “I’m afraid if I don’t laugh, I’m going to cry, because the truth is, I don’t know what the hell we’re supposed to do now either.” Tori continued to stare at her feet as she moved one across the floor. “I meant what I said last night. Willow is my best friend. I know she isn’t here, but it still feels like I betrayed her. When I’m not with you, I can rationalize all the reasons this is a terrible idea, then I’m around you and all I can think about is… well… you.”
I understood that feeling all too well. “I get it. Trust me. Which brings me back to the question of what we’re going to do. You’re one of my best friends, Tori. You’re the only reason I get through some days. I can’t lose you. I want to move on from these feelings, but I can’t do that by keeping my distance. I need you.”
Tori looked up at me, and now there were tears in her eyes. “I need you, too.”
I closed the distance between us and put a hand on Tori’s arm. That clearly wasn’t going to help our situation, but I couldn’t let her cry without doing anything. “I’m not going anywhere. I just wish I knew what to do.” I chuckled at the first thought that popped into my head. “You know who would know what to do?”
Tori smiled despite the tears running down her cheeks. “Willow. I know.” She looked toward the ceiling as if she was trying to see through it straight to Heaven. “Maybe we need to be together without being alone.”
“Together, but not alone.” It sounded so simple, but I was sure it wouldn’t be.
“Yeah, it shouldn’t be too hard given those two kids who keep showing up at our house,” Tori joked.
“Speaking of which, maybe we should go get them.” I missed both of them even though they were only gone for the night. Plus, with Tori staring at me with those big blue eyes and that perfect hair, it seemed like a great time to not be alone.
“Yeah, we probably should. Any idea what we should do with them today?”
The first idea that popped into my head was absolutely ridiculous, so I knew exactly who it was from. “Let’s go to the beach.”
“The beach?” As expected, Tori looked at me as if I was crazy. “It’s the middle of winter.”
I shrugged. “I know, but you asked earlier what Willow would do. She would say we need to feel the sand between our toes.”
A knowing smile came onto Tori’s face. “Let’s do it.”
***
A few hours later, we arrived at the beach with both little girls nicely bundled up so they wouldn’t get sick. It wasn’t hard to find parking close to the beach since no one wanted to go to a beach in New Jersey in the middle of winter, so before long, we were hitting the sand.
Emery tugged on my hand. “Can we go in?”
Before I had the chance to answer, Bella put her hand on her hip and rolled her eyes. “No, silly, it’s too cold to go in right now.”
Emery put both hands on her hips and glared at Bella, then looked up at me with the same expression. “Then why are we here?”
Honestly? To keep me from kissing Tori. Instead of telling the truth, I simply shrugged. “We wanted to do something special and different with you girls.”
Emery continued to glare at me. “What are we ’posed to do here?”
That was a great question. I hadn’t really thought that one through too much.
“I have an idea.” Tori opened her backpack and revealed a bunch of sand toys. “Let’s make a castle and you two can pretend you’re the princesses of the castle.”
“Yay!” Emery and Bella yelled in unison as they jumped up and down and started to claw at Tori’s backpack like rabid animals.
