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“Same old,” I said to Derek. “You?”
“Same old,” he said back with a grin.
“How about you, Parker?” I said while strolling into the kitchen to search for our wineglasses.
“Busy but good. Lots of cases these days.” He leaned against the counter and accepted a glass from me.
“That’s awesome. I think that would have been my next line of work, you know? After what I do now. I love the idea of solving a case.” I popped the bottle and poured wine into everyone’s glass while Jane clung to her juice.
“You’d be good at it, I’m sure. Give some of the creepy ones a run for their money.” Parker smirked as he hit his glass against mine.
“All right, so what can I do?” I asked after my first sip.
We spent the next couple of hours finishing packing things up and helping get things into Derek’s car. Jane ordered pizza, and Sadie waltzed in while we sat around in the living room, on our third bottle of wine.
“Hey!” Sadie cried. “I’m missing all the fun!” She put down her stuff and rushed to sit on Parker’s lap, leaning over him to give him a kiss.
He grinned up at her, wrapping his arm about her waist in a protective way. Geez, these two couples could really make one sick. Especially someone like myself who was not in the right love zone at the moment.
“I’ve prepared a glass just for you, my dear,” I said, pushing it forward on the coffee table, and Sadie picked it up with glee.
“You came just in time to drink and eat,” Jane said with a wink.
“Amazing. But sorry I missed out on helping.” Sadie winced.
“No trouble at all!” I saw Jane make a motion with her head towards me, and Sadie sent Jane a message with her eyes.
“All right, what is it?” I said aloud. “Come on, no secrets here.”
“Well,” Sadie looked down, and she started to fiddle with Parker’s hand. “I just thought you should know that Parker has asked me to move in with him as well.”
“Oh,” I said, clutching my glass, staring at them both. I was not a crier, but I could feel the familiar ache of tears in my chest and cheekbones. “Well, that’s great!”
I smiled, but it felt forced. Everything was changing all around me, and with Brad, things seemed to be moving backward. I was afraid, yet I wanted more. I didn’t feel anything for his son, yet I kept going out with him instead of the person I really cared for. And my mother kept playing a starring role, getting in the way.
“We will keep paying rent, of course, so you can stay here as long as you want,” Sadie continued. “Jane had the idea that we’d use this as the place for rehearsals for our contests.”
I honestly hadn’t even thought about the rent. My mind was too full of other things.
“Oh, well, that’s a great idea! I like that. Thanks guys, but are you sure you want to keep paying your part of the rent? I could just find a smaller place of my own.”
“They wanted you to have this place since it meant so much to you all,” Derek said. “It was kind of the only way we could convince them to move out,” he added, and Jane hit him on the arm.
“It wasn’t that hard to convince me. You are soon to be a father, you know.” She patted her belly, and he put his hand over hers.
“What do you say, Cassie?” Sadie asked hopefully.
“Of course, I think it’s great! You have lives to lead; you should do this and enjoy it.” I polished off the rest of my wine, mostly to have something to do with my mouth than say anything else.
“Great!” Jane said. “We’re looking forward to it.”
“I’m glad you’ll still want to do contests. We don’t have any in the works right now, unfortunately.” Normally, I thought about singing contests all the time, but it wasn’t even in my immediate thoughts.
It was weird.
“I’ll get looking for something,” Sadie said with a wink.
The buzzer rang, and Jane jumped up a little unsteadily. “Pizza’s here!” She cried.
