I slide my phone from my clutch and flick off location sharing. I text Mack:
SOS: Can you grab me? Walking. Feet dying. Please.
She’s shared her love for my terrible footwear before; she’ll get it.
I don’t look back at Sam. I don’t trust what will come out of my mouth.
I breathe in. Focus. I need a plan.
And luckily for Sam, I’m very good with plans.
3
BECCA
Idon’t stop walking until I’m past the gates and onto a quiet sidewalk. The night air is cool under the wide sky. Each step puts more space between me and Sam, and that’s the only thing keeping me steady right now.
I’m still pissed, fuming really, but I’m turning that into something useful: a plan. I need that more than I need to cry.
My phone’s already in my hand. I open our shared banking app.$37.82.My stomach drops. I try to inhale, but I can’t breathe. My vision is narrowing, but I can read it clear as day. A transfer to Holly Hughes. Two days ago. No memo, no business account. Not even a note.
Onlyour dreams funneled straight into her hands.
Before I can spiral fully, headlights flash across my legs. Mack pulls up in her black Acura MDX and leans across the passenger seat. “Get in.”
I do. My fingers shake as I buckle up.
“Thanks for coming,” I say quietly, in between my ragged breathing.
She glances at me. “You were supposed to be at the Hughes Summer Kick-Off, right?”
I nod. “I was. I left.”
Silence.
“Sam … he …” I can’t even say it.
Mack doesn’t push. She hits a red light and taps out a message on her phone. “Phoenix and Vanessa are coming. Chinese or pizza?”
Tears sting the backs of my eyes, but I force them down. My life may be unraveling, but this, this sisterhood, is still intact.
“Chinese,” I say, my voice hoarse. “With egg rolls.”
She nods and turns the radio up a notch. We drive in silence, the hum of the engine a buffer between me and total collapse. I stare out the window, jaw clenched.
Sam and I built that account dollar by dollar. The cabins were our dream.Mydream. And he gave it away. Without a word.
"What is this, Becs—tofu?” Sam leans over the pan, suspicious. “You trying to kill me?”
I roll my eyes and slide a plate across the counter. “Just try it. I got everything on clearance and came in $23 under budget. That goes straight into the cabin fund, so…suck it up, buttercup.”
He takes a bite. Chews. Doesn’t complain, just drowns it in hot sauce like the savage he is.
“Tastes like success,” he says, grinning around another forkful. “You’ve added, what, almost a grand in the last few months just by slashing the grocery bill?”
I nod. Before I can say more, he sets down his plate. Then he walks over and lifts me right off the ground and onto the kitchen island.
“You’re incredible,” he murmurs, kissing a slow trail down my neck. “I couldn’t do any of this without you.”
