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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kelsey leaned back in the salon chair and sighed. “This is exactly what I needed. I’m so glad you were ready to come out again.”
Maisie, in the chair beside her, reached over and grabbed her hand. “I just needed to get through the holidays. Mom’s been … it’s been extra hard on her.”
They were both in the sit-and-wait stage of their styling. Kelsey was getting a different color for the first time in years—this blonde had a subtle touch of red—and Maisie was getting a hot oil treatment for her natural hair.
They’d had this date on the books since before Thanksgiving, but Kelsey had been surprised when Maisie had called the day after New Year’s and said she wanted to keep it. After the salon—new hair, facials, mani-pedis—they had a reservation for lunch at a swanky brunch and lunch restaurant near Utica Square.
Then Kelsey had to work. She was going in late today because she’d be working late. A few times a month, they offered a spay and neuter clinic at deeply discounted cost. Kelsey would be performing surgeries all afternoon and into the evening.
She both loved these days and hated them—loved providing the service but hated how exhausted she’d be at the end of the day. For the most part, independent rescues and home-based fosters filled the appointments, and she admired the people who volunteered so much of their time, their homes, and their finances, to helping helpless animals. Anything she could do to make that work easier, she happily did. But wow, she’d be wrung dry by the time they turned out the lights.
So the timing of her BFF date with Maisie was absolutely perfect. Pampering, friendship, and good food. No wine with lunch, though, sadly.
“I can’t even begin to imagine how bad it would hurt to lose both my parents at the same time.” Kelsey shuddered. Maisie’s mom was in her late fifties, so it wasn’t like she didn’t know how to live without her parents, but still. The Turners were as close as Kelsey’s family was. Maisie had grown up going with her parents to her grandparents’ house for dinner once a week, a tradition that had gone on for decades, ending only with her grandparents’ sudden death. Losing them was like the family losing a wheel.
“Yeah, it sucks. I’m worried about Mom. Linc says it’s too early to worry, they died less than a month ago, but Kel, she’s barely put clothes on since it happened. She was okay until after the funeral, and then she just … she justcrashed. She has to go back to work next week, and I don’t know … a lot of improvement needs to happen in a few days if she’s going to make that deadline.”
“Your mom’s tough, though. She’ll be okay.”
Maisie sighed. “That’s what Linc says. And Daddy. I hope y’all are right.”
“We’re here, too. If you need anything, or your mom, you know all you have to do is ask.”
“I know. I love you.” Maisie gave her hand a tight squeeze.
Kelsey squeezed back. “I love you, too.”
~oOo~
Maisie sipped her wine as Kelsey looked on with envy. “Okay. Now that we’re out of Snoop Central and can talk just the two of us, we need to get to thereallyimportant topic of the day: you and Dex. You know I already love him for trying to save Grammy and Pop. How doyoufeel about him?”
Kelsey’s cheeks grew hot, and she sipped her sparkling water. “I feel pretty good. Really good, actually.”
“Yeah?” Her friend’s grin was bright.
“Yeah. I really, really like him, and things have been really, really good.” It would be truer to say she was in love with him, but it had happened so quickly she wasn’t sure Maisie, or anyone, would understand.
Still, Kelsey could make both those assertions with the confidence of truth. Since their talk on New Year’s Eve, things had indeed been really, really good. As good as they could possibly be, in fact. She and Mr. Darcy had spent the whole weekend, from Friday to this morning, with him, and it had been like a test case for a possible future, full of cozy domesticity and calm. Absolutely perfect.
And the sex was … wow. Kelsey didn’t have a wide array of experiences in that regard, so it probably hadn’t meant that much to Dex when she’d told him they were having the best sex she’d ever had. But Dex had had a wide array of experiences, and he’d told her the same thing. He wasn’t the type to shine her on, so … wow.
She certainly did really, really like him—yes, she was in love with him, but before she embraced that feeling completely, she was trying to pump the brakes a little and make sure what had happenedbeforetheir talk was the anomaly, not what had happened after it.
They had started the new year with an idyllic weekend of love and comfort and peace. Oh, she hoped it was the harbinger of more good things to come.
“That’s terrific,” Maisie said, still grinning. “And dude is a snack, too. Those eyes! That ass!”
Kelsey smirked. “You should see that ass unwrapped.”
Maisie laughed and clapped her hands. “I bet!”
Their salads arrived. When the server had departed again and they began to eat, Maisie swallowed and said, “After that Greg fucker, I thought you’d never put yourself out there again.”
Kelsey didn’t like to talk about, or think about Greg, but Maisie was the only person in the world with whom she could bear to face the topic. “For a while, I wasn’t sure I would.”
“It makes sense, you’d turn to the Bulls when you were ready to try again.”
