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Anna? Getting married?

Obviously she’d dated in the last nine years. I wasn’t delusional. But engaged? To some asshole named Beau??

“I’m sure she told you all about that,” Terri said dismissively.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling a little sick.

There was no way Terri hadn’t posted on socials about that, which meant she had and I’d been blocked there, too, so I couldn’t see any posts Anna had been tagged in. I realized now that I’d been relegated to nothing more than random photos that slipped through the cracks over the last nine years and they obviously didn’t tell the whole story.

I felt blindsided. And robbed.

Whether she hated me or not, I did not hate her. I’d still wanted to know she was thriving and happy. Loved. Maybe not that she’d loved someone else—that I could have gone without. But I missed her. I had a vested interest in her well-being. And she’d had a vested interest in making sure I knew nothing about her. It hurt in a way I was having a hard time quantifying. But I’d done it to myself. What else did I expect?

“God, that man adored her,” Mark said, scrolling through the photos that I was only half able to focus on.

“Who can blame him?” I said quietly.

Ivan wrestled the trash from the kitchen bin and went out back. He’d been gone about five seconds when we heard shouting in Spanish.

Terri looked up. “What happened?”

“Some pinche raccoon is back here eating pancakes in the yard,” he called.

Anna and I shared a look. She almost smiled. Almost.

“Pancakes?” Mark called. “Are you sure?”

More Spanish, but cursing this time.

My cell phone vibrated. My brother Leo. Shit.

In the chaos of the last half hour, I’d forgotten to tell my family I was running late.

“Excuse me, I have to take this.” I got up and went to the hallway. “Hey—”

“Where the fuck are you? I thought you were getting here forty-five minutes ago.” A mixer was running.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “I was. Something came up.”

The mixer turned off. “What came up?”

I wasn’t sure I should tell him about Anna. If she didn’t hold up her end of the bargain, I didn’t think I could handle the additional letdown of having to admit to everyone she wasn’t coming over after all.

“There was a little fender bender. I stopped to help someone.”

I could feel the eye roll. “Okay, Superman. When are you getting here? We’re starting Home Alone and people care if you show up for some reason.”

I scoffed. Oh, how I loved being home.

I peered around the corner to my ex-girlfriend in the kitchen. “It’s complicated. Start without me.”

“Mom’s not gonna like that…”

“Can’t be helped.”

He hung up on me.

I stayed in the hallway for a moment to catch my breath, leaning against the wall between two gift-wrapped photo frames, eyes closed. When I opened them, she was there, a vision of beauty, teleported in front of me with her arms crossed.