Page 101 of Crack the Ice

I sigh, closing the distance again and placing my chin on his chest. “Your sister wants me to meet her at Beautiful Pour.”

His entire body stiffens, hands coming to wrap gently around my elbows as his eyes trail over my face. “Are you okay with that? Especially after everything that happened with Sheila the other day?”

“I think I have to be. I need to squash this, even if things don’t go back to how they were. This rift is eating me up inside. It’s like unfinished business, and my brain won’t let it go.”

He nods, understanding dawning on his face. “Okay, do you want me to go with you?”

I give my head a small shake, my teeth biting into my lip. “No, stay with the kids, have breakfast. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Okay?”

“Now?” he squeaks out. “You’re going now?”

“Yes, rip the Band-Aid,” I say before I stick my tongue out and lick a line up his chest, smiling as goosebumps pop up in its wake. “Be good, and I’ll finish this later.” I place a kiss over his heart and turn before he has a chance to say anything, or, you know, pull me back to bed and never let me leave, which doesn’t sound like a bad idea, really.

I pull on a pair of black joggers and my pink Hawks sweatshirt before planting a kiss on Mav’s cheek and running out the door before my brain can tell me what a horrible idea this is. My car roars to life, and I pull out of the driveway with a shaky exhale.

I’m still mad—maybe that isn’t the right word. Hurt might be better. I know that it was a shock, but still, for her to have been my friend for as long as she has… She knows how I get when I’m caught off guard, let alone in front of other people. And she did it twice. Even still, my stomach turns the closer I get to Beautiful Pour.

I know Maria will kick her out if she makes a scene, but that does little to calm my actual nerves. I love Lana, but I won’t let her get in the way of the family we’re trying to build. I can’t. Enough time and pain has already passed.

Parking my car, I take a deep breath and push the door open, finding Lana’s blonde head of hair through the window the second I step out. One more deep breath and I make myself go inside.

“Hey,” she says, standing to wrap me up in a hug. “Thanks for coming.”

When we break apart, I notice there’s already a coffee waiting for me. “Did you poison it?”

She snorts, head shaking softly as her eyes fall to the table. “No, Cecy, I didn’t poison it. I deserved that, though.”

“Why did you react like that, Lana? I’ve been trying to figure it out for weeks. That isn’t like you at all.”

Her fingers tap against her cup, her lips rolling together as she tries to get her thoughts together. “At first it was shock. You barreled into your house wrapped around my brother like a monkey. I didn’t even know you guys had a thing back then.”

“You know we were days away from telling you and Markus when everything fell apart?”

She looks up at me through her lashes. The bags under her eyes look so out of place. “What happened?”

I sigh, looking around the coffee shop to make sure there’s no one listening in on our conversation. It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to use an overheard conversation to make a story. “It was an accumulative situation, Lan. He got busy, and I got tired of begging for his attention.” I look down at my hands, fingers rhythmically squeezing against the backs of them. “We planned out our whole life, kids, the house, the pets. Then I got sick, and part of that dream was taken from me. He’d already lost enough. He didn’t need to be put in a position to pick the family we’d dreamed up or me. He could still have it, even if I couldn’t.”

Her brows disappear into her hairline. “You can’t have kids?”

I give my head a gentle shake. The corner of my lip pulls to the side.

“But you’re so good with them. All of them, not just Lily and Cade.”

“And I love them. No one else knew. Mav didn’t even know until I unloaded on him by accident because he wouldn’t leave me the hell alone.”

She snorts out a laugh before taking a sip of her coffee. “That tracks.”

“There were so many other ways to go about this, Lana. You of all people know how my brain reacts to being blindsided. I’m trying to understand, I really am, but I’m struggling.”

The grip around my cup tightens as I wait for her response. Each second feels like a year and a half, my heart rate spiking as I think about the fact that this could really be the end of our friendship. I hate that thought.

“I don’t have an excuse, Cecy. I wanted to hurt you because I was hurt. I knew exactly what I was doing. I just didn’t care. The shock wore off, and then I was just angry. Angry you didn’t trust me with any part of this. Angry you hid it from me. Scared I’d lose you both if this goes to shit.”

“You don’t think that maybe you would have lost us by acting like a neanderthal anyway?”

Her face splits into a smile as she stares into her coffee. “Not at the time, but I do now. Which is why I asked you to meet me here. I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I don’t expect you to forgive me, nor do I expect you to welcome me back with open arms. But I did want you to know that I regret it, and I hope one day we can look back at this and laugh.”

“Yeah, me too.”