I push the thoughts back into a box. I need to get some work done. Amie’s house is quiet and cosy, especially with the curtain of fairy lights hung behind the sofa. With wind howling and rain lashing at the windows outside, and low clouds having stolen the day’s light long before nightfall, the lights offer a warm, comforting glow. Now I’m curled at one end of her too-comfortable sofa with a thick stack of papers in my lap, a pen tapping against my lip, and my new reading glasses—which I do in fact need, according to the optician, despite my insistence to the contrary—perched on my nose.
The only thing Amie’s house doesn’t have is Taylor Swift’s discography on vinyl. It’s my daily soundtrack. Instead, I have theLoveralbum playing quietly on my phone through Amie’s sound system. It’s not quite vinyl, but it’ll do the job. Regardless, the mellow melodies are making me smile. Until Katy’s phone call interrupts the music, that is.
“Lo is busy and Amie’s away and I’mbored.”
“Hello to you too, Sweet Thing.” I tuck the phone between my chin and shoulder, carrying an empty coffee cup to the kitchen and rinsing it in the sink.
“I need you to entertain me before I do something dumb, Roo.”
“Dumb like dye your hair, or dumb like open your legs?”
“Ruth Bevan, wash your mouth out!”
I cackle—quietly, since Maisy is asleep above my head—and rummage in a cupboard for a fresh tea towel to dry the mug and the dinner plates I’d left on the draining board earlier. I wait for Katy to continue.
“I almost downloaded that stupid dating app again.”
“Don’t do it, K,” I beg dramatically. “Remember Halitosis McHands?” That app matchup swore me off men—maybe forever. He lived up to the epithet, and after cutting the date short early, Ifound myself crying on Amie’s doorstep with wine in one hand and ice cream in the other.
“How could I forget?” Katy giggles. “So, entertain me. Tell me things. How was Maisy today?”
“Maisy was fine… Cam missed bedtime, but he’s on his way home, so he’s probably flying. He’s late, though. Amie is who knows where, I haven’t heard from her at all. She should be home but I don’t think she’s even taken off yet, according to that app she made us all download. She’s okay, right?” I return to the sofa and grab a handful of papers, scanning them quickly without really taking anything in.
“Yeah, babe, I’m sure she’s fine. She’s working. You know we don’t hear from her when she’s working.”
“You’re probably right,” I hum, not entirely convinced. “Anyway, my dumb brother is going camping alone in the woods.”
“Yeah, he said that.” If I didn’t know Katy any better, I’d swear she was smiling as she speaks.
“He shouldn’t. His leg, you know?”
“He seems okay, Roo,” Katy says patiently. “His leg is okay.” Katy has adopted Jay as a friend, and they’ve met once or twice for lunch at a new craft beer place. It’s nice—I mean, not that my brother and my best friend are doing whatever it is they’re doing, but to know my brother isn’t at home, stewing alone and moping about being discharged from the army. It’s nice to know he’s spending time with Katy, because she’s the best person I know, and out of everyone in the world, I trust her to take care of him.
“Yeah, well.”
There’s a soft snick as the front door opens, interrupting my grumblings, and then a light thud as a suitcase is wheeled over the small step at the threshold before the door closes again. Then, a quiet, gravelly voice calls out “Honey, I’m home!”
Seconds later, I hear “Amie?” and I stand and stretch, plopping my paperwork on the coffee table as Cam flings the living room door open.
“Oh, hey Ruth—Amie isn’t back yet?”
“I gotta go, K, I’ll call you tomorrow?” I wait for Katy to say goodnight before ending the call and turning to Cam.
“Nope.” I roll my shoulders back and then forward, trying to ease the tension from having been hunched over contracts for the last few hours. “I can’t get hold of her, either. The radar app thingy says she hasn’t even taken off yet.”
Cam checks his watch, then mumbles a curse under his breath.
“It’s still bad out there,” he admits. “I hate that I couldn’t be here for bedtime. I couldn’t even call.”
“She was okay. Sad, but she knows you’ll be here when she wakes up in the morning.”
“Thanks, Ruth. I just—it’s the first one I’ve missed, you know? We were delayed on the ground, and then we made at least four laps of the hold, and we had a go-around.”
For the first time since he entered the room, I pause to look at him. He looks tired. Purple half-circles sit below his eyes, and his usually sure and steady hands tremble ever so slightly as he sits on the edge of an armchair and unties his shoelaces.
“Not sure what that means, but it sounds gross.”
“It was turbulent and it took a long time.”
