I cut him a glare. “You’re on thin ice.”
“I’m just saying.” He doesn’t tone down his gloating grin. “Sounds cozy over there.”
“She brings in banana bread?” Lucy’s smirk is about ten times stronger than it needs to be. “That’s adorable.”
“Why?”
She stares at me like I’m an idiot. She often looks at me like that, but this one’s more pointed. “Uh, because she knows you love bananas. Obviously.”
“I don’tlovebananas.”
“Your favorite pie? Banana cream. Favorite pudding flavor? Banana. Who fishes through a bag of popsicles to find the banana ones?” Her eyes glitter at me. “That would be you.”
“Banana popsicles taste nothing like bananas,” Graham says.
“My point is, she’s been flirting with you through food, and I love it.”
My instinct is to argue. Rose hasn’t been flirting with me, as much as I wish she would. But I can’t admit that without putting a damper on our pretend relationship.
And yet…the banana bread isn’t the only time that’s happened. For my birthday last fall, she brought me a banana cream pie from Blackbird’s. When they had a special banana cupcake this spring, Rose brought me one “just because.” For Christmas, she gave me one of those Lego keychains of a mini-figure wearing a banana costume.
She paid attention to what I liked and remembered it. Just like she showed at the grocery store—she’s learned things about me. My heart beats double-time thinking about her filing information away under a folder markedReed. Even if I probably don’t want to know everything she’s put in there.
“We’re all familiar with the wonders of banana flavored foods,” Nathan says. “But we’re missing the most important point here: Does Rose have a friend for me?”
“Absolutely not.” I cut him off before he finishes his question.I cannot overstate my disinterest in playing matchmaker for Nathan. Or Graham. Or Lucy. Any and all of my siblings.
He heaves a dramatic sigh. “I guess we’ll just have to keep talking about your love life, then.”
“We really don’t.”
Lucy sits bolt upright, grimacing like a cat just hurled on the rug. “Has she seen the shed?”
Both Nathan and Graham screw their faces into similar expressions.
I focus on the coffee table. There’s a nick in the wood Luke and I put there when we were kids wrestling in the living room. “Not yet.”
“That could be a deal breaker.”
Nobody in my family appreciates my tiny cabin. Sure, the base building is a storage shed I bought at a big box store in Bend. But I turned it into a house two summers ago, complete with kitchenette and a full bath. “House” might be a generous term, but it’s essentially a studio apartment now. My apartment just happens to be in the middle of nowhere. Right where I like it.
Nathan slashes a hand in the air. “Don’t take her there until you’re ready to get dumped.”
“That place is freaky,” Lucy adds. “Creeper cabin vibes all the way.”
It’s not as bad as all that. On the severe side, yes, but it wouldn’t feature in any slasher flicks. I turn to Graham, who I consider to be the most sensible among them.
“I wouldn’t do it,” he says.
“See if I invite any of you out there again,” I mutter.
“You don’t invite us,” Lucy says. “We just show up.”
I retreated there to lick my wounds after my last breakup knocked me flat, but that cabin has become my refuge from the chaos in the coffee shop. I’m not meant to be around so many people day in and day out. My cabin is small and remote, but I’ve got uninterrupted views of the mountains during the day, and a million stars at night. I’ve got everything I need.
My thoughts drift to Rose on the other side of town in her big old house that completely fails to match her style.
I’ve got almost everything I need.
