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“I don’t want to be the bigger person. I like being small,” I muttered.
Joy gave me a silent look. Okay, fine. I grabbed a napkin and grabbed another brownie. She probably hated brownies as much as she hated happiness.
I walked over to Honor and she looked up as if she’d been expecting me.
“I brought you a brownie,” I said, like a dumbass as I held it out to her.
Honor’s eyes flicked down to the brownie and then back up to my face. Her eyes narrowed.
“You didn’t let the twins poison it, did you?” she said. “You know I found fake plastic vomit on my car and a rubber snake in my purse this week. I wouldn’t put anything past those two.”
“Pft. As if I’d participate in such an obvious ploy as poison. It’s okay if you don’t like brownies. The brownie was more of a metaphor.” I didn’t say anything about the other pranks.
Honor sat there for a beat and then took the brownie from my hand.
“I’ve never eaten a metaphor before,” she said, and I almost laughed.
“I’m sorry about the twins,” I said, not sure what the fuck I was doing apologizing. I hadn’t done anything.
“It’s fine. I understand. I was young once too. And I have a sister. We used to play pranks too.”
Right, the sister.
“I have a younger brother,” I said and since it was weird to keep standing while she was sitting, so I took the seat next to her, which happened to be on the other side of Sydney.
“My sister is younger too,” she said. Interesting. I didn’t get older sister vibes from her, but I did get first-born child vibes.
“Does she live around here?” I asked.
Honor shook her head. “She lives with me when she’s not in college during the summer, but she’s going to be a junior this year at school in Boston.”
I couldn’t believe that Honor was talking to me like a regular person. Then she took a bite of the brownie and kept going.
“She hasn’t declared a major yet and I’m apparently being a nag for asking her to think about it. I told her I’ll support whatever she picks as long as she picks something and follows through on it.”
Honor took a breath and I could tell that was something she’d been holding onto.
“She sounds like a pain in the ass,” I said, and Honor let out a shocked laugh that was so lovely it almost made my toes curl. I’d never heard her laugh before, and maybe if I had, she might have pissed me off less.
Honor’s laugh was the kind of thing you wished you could hold onto.
“She is a pain in the ass, but I love her.” Honor shrugged one shoulder and took another bite.
I was about to tell her about my brother when book club started, and I couldn’t.
Honor pulled her paperback copy out of her bag and I noticed that there were little tabs sticking to the pages. Oh, she’d made notes. She had prepared for this.
Would I expect anything less from her? No. Not after what’d I’d seen when she worked with Mark.
I was torn between my desire to gush about how much I loved the book, and my desire to watch Honor and see what she was going to say.
This time she did talk, and her observations were insightful. As I’d suspected, she had identified with the realtor character, but she did criticize her for some of the decisions she made. It was strange to hear her saying that the character should have put love over her job. Who was this Honor? She wasn’t the same person I saw every day at the house.
This Honor wore jeans and thought love was important and laughed and had a sister who annoyed her.
I didn’t know what to do with this Honor. The one who glared at me and didn’t speak to me because I was beneath her notice was much easier to deal with.
I got myself a little cup of wine when everything wrapped up and I felt someone behind me.
