“I am literally right here,” Briar said to Larry’s neck. “And I’m hardly a child. Thirteen is practically an adult now.”
“I know you are, sweetheart.” I reached over and side hugged her briefly, and she went back to scratching Larry, and I went back to trying not to give everything away.
“Okay,” Lucy said. “Stop deflecting. Tell us about Jasper.”
I sighed and looked down at my hands on the rail. There was no point trying to hide anything from any of them at this point.
“He asked me to dinner,” I said. “Friday. He’s picking me up at seven.”
“This is amazing,” Piper said. “Where’s he taking you?”
“He said it’s a surprise.”
“Of course he did.” Lucy practically glowed with vindication. “He’s that kind of man, isn’t he? The kind who plans things and doesn’t tell you what they are because he wants to see your face when you get there.”
“Lucy. Oh my god.”
“He’s a planner. A quiet planner. I knew it the first time I saw him at Mystery Night. Spencer had quiet planner energy when he was trying to woo me, and look how that turned out. We are deliriously happy.”
“Spencer is a chaos demon,” I shot back. “And the two of you got stuck in a cabin in a snowstorm. He planned nothing. Andwoo? Nobody says woo.”
“I mean, after the cabin. They start off planning, then reveal themselves as chaos demons later. It’s classic. Spontaneity is fun, Cara.”
“Jasper is not going to turn out to be a chaos demon.”
“That’s what I said about Spencer, and look at us now. Spectacularly in love. Just like you will be soon.”
Eliza, who had been waiting for her opening, leaned across Lucy and put her hand on my arm. “I’m so happy for you,” she said. Her voice was quieter now, the warm one she used when she meant something fully. “I’ve been quietly crossing my fingers since the morning at the Coffee Cabin. He looked at you like you were the only thing in the parking lot.”
“Eliza.”
“He did.”
“You’re going to make me cry into Larry’s neck.”
“Cry into Larry’s neck,” Lucy said. “He doesn’t mind.”
Piper set her glass of lemonade down on the top of the post and looked at me with the steady warmth she gave to almost everything. “Are you nervous?”
I thought about Jasper. The thing was, he wasn’t just handsome. It was everything underneath it. The way he asked before he touched. The wildflowers he’d brought without making a thing of it. The way he’d saidI like spending time with youlike it was simply true, and I was allowed to know it. The combination of all of it was quietly dismantling something I’d spent a long time carefully constructing.
“I am so nervous,” I said. “I have been baking. A lot.”
I made shortbread for tonight, and I made another batch yesterday for no reason, and I almost made a third batch this morning before I realized I was using flour as a coping mechanism.”
Piper paused. “When I was getting together with Ren, I had to choose between letting myself be overwhelmed and tryingto manage the feeling. I’d been managing every feeling I’d had since we were kids, and Ren was the first thing I couldn’t manage, and I had to pick. I picked letting it happen. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. It is also the only reason I have the happiness I am currently enjoying.”
I looked at her over the top of the rail. The other two were quiet, suddenly. Lucy had stopped grinning. Eliza had her hand still on my arm.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You don’t have to manage this one, Cara. You’re allowed to just have it.”
I scratched Larry’s neck because my eyes were filling with tears, and I needed somewhere to put my hands. Larry leaned into it, his chin going heavy on the rail, his eyes half-closing in slow llama bliss. I had been telling Larry about my life since Lucy had brought him home as a small, ridiculous baby llama six years ago. He had heard about every job I’d ever had, every almost-relationship that had gone nowhere, every fear I’d ever had about taking over the bookshop from Grandpa. He had never judged me. He was the best confidant a quiet woman could have asked for, and tonight he had just been promoted to witness, because my sisters now knew everything he knew.
“He’s going to be good to me,” I said, mostly to Larry, mostly to myself.
“He is,” Lucy said.
