She realized that she had these people to help her, to go to battle with her if need be, but mostly to have a glass of wine with when the going got weird.
She feared she had a new fight ahead. But maybe she didn’t.
No matter what came next, she’d made the best decision in her life by reconnecting with her Sandbar Sisters. Thanks to Aunt Emma.
She raised a silent toast to her aunt.
And then she looked around.
She wished J.J. was here. That was the missing piece. J.J. and Dean.
Libby had lost her cool tonight. She needed to be patient. She needed to trust that this would work out.
And she needed to let J.J. heal in her own time.
She lifted her glass again. This time, the toast wasn’t silent.
“Hey, let’s drink to Dean. I miss him so much, and I just know he’d have been there telling me not to murder Stone.”
“Or helping you bury the body if you did,” Keith added.
They all raised their glasses.
“To Dean!”
She’d live to fight Stone another day, and Dean would be there in spirit.
She just hoped J.J. would be there in person.
ChapterThirty
J.J.
J.J. could hear the sounds of Burgundy Four through the windows of the house. She knew she should be there for the dedication, but she couldn’t do it.
The well-wishing was suffocating. Everyone was lovely. But she was having a harder and harder time breathing lately.
She didn’t want to see anyone. She was tired of being the brave face. This was the perfect time to do what she’d planned.
“Are you sure?” her mom asked. J.J. went through a little mental inventory. Did she have everything?
Jackie Pawlak was worried, and it was sweet. Although, she’d expressed her worry by smoking twice the number of cigarettes than normal. Dean would have laughed at that, J.J. realized. Ugh. She couldn’t tell him that joke. Was that ever going to end? She kept wanting to tell Dean something funny, or weird, or annoying.
“Hey, listen to this,” she’d say.
Dean would say, “All ears.”
“And beard,” she’d say back.
It was corny, they said it every time.
If she hustled, only her mom would know what she was up to.
“Look, Mom, you can have the place the rest of the summer. Jared’s going to be by every day to make your high balls. It’s all good.” Jared thought she was going away for a few days, which was fine. He’d figure it all out.
“But your friends are here. This is your home.”
J.J. looked at her mother, who’d been more motherly the last month than she’d been for J.J. and Jared’s entire childhood. “Mom, this is really Dean’s home. It was. I need to be somewhere that every square of carpet or swatch of paint isn’t something he did. You get it?”
