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Those words jar me out of the memory.
We went from loving each other to not even being friends. No in between. We didn’t keep in touch over the last decade. I wonder if she’s thought of me in the interim. I’ve had trouble escaping her, if my working in her parents’ house is any clue. I’ve seen her on the covers of magazines even though I try to avoid looking. She doesn’t have that problem. Never is Allison Murphy standing in a store, worrying that her eyes might stray from a pack of Juicy Fruit and find my face next to a hot pink headline that reads HOLLYWOOD’S HOTTEST. Never does she flip through the TV, purposely skipping over a certain cable network in case she encounters me on a rerun of my award-winning show.
I have no idea what the fuck to say or do, so I stand awkwardly holding her while she clutches me. Her fists are wrapped in my shirt and her tears soak clean through to my chest. My head swims in and out like it did during an OSU vs. Michigan game when I was sacked and knocked damn near unconscious.
For the record, that hurt less than this.
She calms almost suddenly, her sniffs growing farther apart as I stand in Stephen and Cheryl Murphy’s foyer, their daughter in my arms. I catch a whiff of her hair. She smells fucking great. It’s almost animalistic to say, but I know her smell. Beneath the layer of sweet perfume and hair products, she smells like she used to. Damn delicious.
“Allie.” I gentle her away from my body, sucking in a full breath for the first time since she grabbed onto me. “What’s going on?”
Another sniff and she lifts her face. The tears have stopped falling, and her makeup is smudged beneath her gold-flecked brown eyes. Even with panda eyes, she’s beautiful. My heart mule-kicks my ribs in protest, reminding me that we don’t have the luxury of admiring how good Allison smells or looks. Not anymore.
“You don’t know what’s going on?” One of her eyebrows quirks.
What I’d meant by that question was, Why the hell was she standing here hugging me and crying like we’ve never been apart? Like there wasn’t a decade of murky water under the bridge. Like we’d been in touch this whole time and she was dropping in to confide in me. For self-preservation reasons, I can’t say any of that, so instead I go with, “I heard about the Oscar thing.”
An angry pleat flashes over her forehead like a streak of lighting. She swipes the hollows under her eyes as if she’s embarrassed she’d let her emotions get the best of her. “The Oscar thing.”
Sensing the thunder following that lightning strike, I take a step away from her.
“And the boyfriend-turning-on-me-after-my-criminal-act thing!” she booms. “Oh, and let’s not forget the tabloids-smearing-my-reputation thing.”
She tromps to the kitchen saying she needs a glass of water, and I stand in the foyer rubbing my neck again. I’m not sure how to react or—
“Oh, and thanks a lot. This was clean.”
Allie gestures at the short black dress she’s wearing, now decorated in powdery white drywall dust thanks to Yours Truly.
She’s standing there, that haughty fire in her eyes, righteous and self-focused.
I react before I think. “I didn’t ask you to cry all over me, Mini.”
Her nickname tumbles from my mouth before I can cram it back in. Bet she never expected to hear it again. I sure as fuck never expected to say it again.
“Don’t call me that,” she snaps.
Those are her last words before she stomps back into the kitchen. I watch her go, her strong, narrow shoulders pulled back, her walk elegant and confident.
“Though she be small, she is fierce,” I mumble. It’s a literary quote from college that I’m probably butchering. Suits her, though.
My stomach grumbles again, begging for food. I’ll be damned if I follow Allison into the kitchen. I run my fingers through my hair and glance upstairs. I left the saw, plenty of dust, and plastic strewn everywhere. I never leave a mess behind at a job—it’s unprofessional.
Today, I do.
I walk out the front door, skirt a blue Honda that I assume is her rental car, climb in my truck, and leave.
