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“He hadn’t,” I confirmed, curling up in the corner. “He was nice to her, but Seb was nice to everyone.”
“By all accounts, he still is,” my sister said. “I obviously have no interest in sports whatsoever, but he pops up in the entertainment sections every now and then. Did you know he organizes huge toy drives for kids in foster homes and hospitals every year? Plus he donates a ton of money to local kids’ hospitals in Montana every year.”
“You’re making it very hard to keep hating him.”
“Yeah, you hate him.” She snorted and set her mug down. “Hols, you don’t think I believe that, do you?”
I sighed, holding the mug as close to myself as I could. “I don’t know how I feel. It’s all really weird, and I thought I was over it all, but then I saw him again…”
My sister smiled sympathetically. “You never got closure on your friendship. It’s okay to feel the way you do. You guys were inseparable for years, and I know that night hurt you. I just don’t get why you’re waiting until Saturday to find out what he wants to tell you. That’s four days away.”
I looked down into the swirling mass that was the melted marshmallows in my cocoa. “I don’t know,” I said quietly. “I guess I’m in denial.”
“You guess?”
“Fine, I’m in denial.” I met her eyes again. “What if I’ve been wrong all these years, Ives? What if I ruined our friendship over a misunderstanding? Then what do I do?”
She touched her hand to my knee. “Then it happened,” she said simply. “You can’t change what you did eight years ago, Holley. You were a completely different person back then—you were younger, more naïve, more easily led by your emotions. You can’t judge yourself for what you did then. Only how you handle the situation now.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“Eh. You learn a lot when you’re incubating a tiny human and have a lot of time to eat cake and watch TV.” She shrugged. “There’s also a lot of sappy, motivational stuff on Tumblr.”
I fought a smile, but it failed the second she grinned at me.
“Seriously. If you want to ignore it until Saturday, then ignore it. But you can’t be mad at him until then if you’re not going to fix it.”
“All right, Dr. Phil, I get it. I don’t think I’ll be seeing him until Saturday anyway, so it’s fine. It’s all fine.”
“It’s not fine, is it?”
“Of course it’s not fine. How am I supposed to last until Saturday not knowing?”
“Then text him and tell him to meet you tonight so you can talk.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Why not?” Her tone was dry, and her amusement flickered in her eyes as she fought a smile.
“I don’t want him to know I care!”
“He knows you care.”
“I know, but I don’t want him to know that I know that he knows.”
Ivy counted that on her fingers. “I think that makes sense.”
The front door opened, and Kai stepped in, pausing when he saw me. “I see you two got a lot of packing done.”
Ivy blinked at him, giving him her best innocent look. “Well, you see, it’s like this.”
“Tegan was hungry,” I started.
“So I had to feed her, and then she puked everywhere,” Ivy continued.
“So we had to bath her,” I went on. “Then she wanted cuddles.”
“So Holley cuddled her so I could take a shower because I was covered in vomit.”
“Then she needed to sleep, so Ivy boobed her until she fell asleep.”
“Then Vincent stopped by with cake and woke her up, so we had to do it all again.”
“Then we were so tired we had to sit down for a moment and talk over all my life’s problems,” I finished.
Kai’s lips curved to one side. “So what exactly did you get packed?”
“Three towels, all the bath bubbles, and…” She trailed off.
“I bubble wrapped some candles!” I offered brightly.
He stared flatly at me. “Productive day, then.”
“Yep.” Ivy grinned and accepted the kiss he offered her. “If you go into Tegan’s room and wake her up, I’m going to kill you.”
“I’m not going in there. I’m coming to join the conversation about all Holley’s problems.” He took a seat in the armchair. “What is it this time? Stuck between a romance or a thriller?”
I offered him the finger. “Just because you’re my brother-in-law doesn’t mean you get to talk shit to me. That’s my job to you.”
He grinned. “But that’s not fun.”
“I have to be honest and say that I don’t really care,” I mused.
He poked his tongue out at me right as Tegan started to wail from her room. “I got her,” he said right as Ivy went to move. “Stay there.”
She smiled at him, and he brushed his hand over her hair as he passed her.
I sighed.
Oh, to have a love like theirs.
