“No chance you’re carrying twins, are you?” Wyn asked.
“Do Ilooklike I’m carrying twins?” Hadley snapped.
“I don’t know,” Wyn said with a shrug. “But you just said?—”
“Do you know anything about pregnant women?” I asked with a raise of my brows.
“Clearly not,” Wyn stated. “I didn’t mean you looked big. I just meant?—”
“I know what you meant,” Hadley said with a sigh. “Sorry, girl. I’m not myself.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Wyn said. “I’m not going to take anything personally from you two for the next several months.”
“I’m already uncomfortable,” Hadley explained. “I have to sleep on my back. I share my bed with a goat and a six-foot-three cowboy. And when we have sex, I have to get on top. And everything looks strange from that angle.”
“Where are the Aussie puppies?” Wyn asked. “Are they no longer sleeping in the cabin?”
“They’ve finally moved to the barn,” Hadley explained. “Thank goodness too, because I don’t know what I’d do right now if they still wanted to sleep on the bed.”
“Why didn’t you bring Mildred?” I asked.
“Because she’s not my dog,” Wyn said.
“She seems like your dog,” Salem said. “You take care of her like she’s your dog.”
“She’s not, unfortunately. And I do feel like part of me is missing,” Wyn said. “That little monster has been my companion since the three of you ditched me.”
The words were said in a joking tone, but I knew Wyn was hurt. She felt left out. Like her life was moving in a different direction than the three of us. And she wasn’t wrong. I’d felt like that too.
But now that I had Brooks . . . I understood what had happened to Salem and Hadley.
It wasn’t just that they moved away. It was that they’d fallen in love. That changed everything. That changed your North Star.
We hit the Hawthorne’s drive-thru and sat in the parking lot to eat our meals.
“Fried cheese curds,” Wyn said with a sigh. “God bless the state of Idaho.”
Salem sniggered. “Pass them back up front.”
Wyn handed her the paper bag and then rubbed her greasy fingers together. I gave her a napkin.
“So, when’s your meeting with Mr. Perkins?” Wyn asked me.
“Next Thursday,” I said. “Midmorning.”
“So, after I go back to New York,” Wyn said.
“Yep.” I nodded and took a sip of my butterscotch shake.
Wyn was staying the long weekend for the shower, but she was flying back on Tuesday.
“Ksenia already has two friends waiting to move into our room,” Wyn said to me. “Can you believe it?”
“Wow,” I murmured. “It really is the end of an era.”
“It was the end of an era when Hadley moved home. We just didn’t know it yet,” Wyn said.
I held out the bag of onion rings to her, but she shook her head.
