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At least, I think I do.
While I ponder the idea, which is a bad one, she steps toward me and wraps her arms around my neck, lips at my ear. “Goodnight,” she whispers.
“Goodnight.” I gently wrap my arms around her.
Scottie’s hands cup my neck, and she kisses my cheek.
In the next breath, she’s out the door and hustling to her red truck in the driveway.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IF THE TRUTH IS A DEALBREAKER, THEN LET IT BREAK.
Scottie
“House of Chaos,how can I direct your call?” My sister answers her phone.
I laugh. “Hey, Steph.”
“Please tell me you’re calling because you’re visiting Asheville, and by visiting, I mean coming to babysit while I have a spa day.”
“I’m pretty sure when you were pregnant with Winnie, you said three kids can’t be that much harder than two.”
“I was wrong. There. Are you happy? Three kids—threegirls—under six is the definition of an early mid-life crisis.”
“Is it a bad time? I don’t want you to lose one of my nieces because I’m distracting you.”
She sighs. “Winnie’s still sleeping, and Avery and Mable are eating breakfast. I have maybe ten minutes of calm before the next storm. Tell me something exciting. Let me live vicariously through you. And if you don’t have anything, make something up.”
I open my glass jar of overnight oats and sit at my table. “Oh, I have quite the update for you. Guess who showed up at the store?”
“I slept three hours last night and said I have ten minutes tops. No time for guessing.”
“Fine. You’re no fun. Price Milloy.”
Silence.
I’m not sure if she heard me or if she’s still on the line.
“Steph?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. I know you gave me the option to make something up, but I’m not making this up. He lives in Austin. No job. No family. And something’s really off about him. I can’t explain it, but it’s a feeling. Kind of a dark feeling.”
“Like he’s up to something?”
“No. Well, maybe. I’m not sure yet. But I definitely feel something.”
“You would know. I don’t know how you’re so in tune to people’s auras or whatever you call it, but you’re usually right. Have you told him?”
“No. I can’t. Not yet.”
“How does it feel seeing him after all this time?”
“Weird. In some ways, it feels like it’s been a lifetime, but in other ways, it feels like we’re back in Philly, like I should be scoping out local concerts and new restaurants to try.”
“Do you think you’ll develop romantic feelings for him again? I mean, is this fate?”
