AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sorry about the mess.”
“It’s okay,” I said, trying not to trip over the bags. “I’ve always been fine with being an only child, but now I’m kind of wishing I had a sister.”
“You can have mine,” she said.
Since we were actually speaking, I went to sit on the couch. Lark moved so I’d have room.
“She doesn’t listen to me. When I was younger, I used to think there was an age I’d get to where she’d actually hear me when I told her what I wanted or didn’t want. I thought it had happened when I dropped out of school, but here we are.” She gestured at the bags. “There’s a bunch of stuff in here. Take whatever you want.”
Lark and I were almost the same height, but her body was curvier than mine, so I wasn’t sure what she’d bought would fit or look good on me, but I was still going to look.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Not your problem,” she said, leaning back to look at the ceiling.
“I know Layne was going to talk to her about letting up,” I said.
“I’m sure my sister got distracted by boobs and didn’t hear anything,” she said, and I couldn’t help but snort with laughter.
“Boobs are distracting,” I said, forcing myself to my eyes on her face and not look at that part of her anatomy. “She’ll calm down, I’m sure,” I said, trying to be nice. “And if not, I’ll give you a shopping list next time.”
“Thanks,” she said with a sigh. “Liam asked me to go full-time at the coffee shop.” She said it softly.
“That’s great,” I said, and she nodded.
“I know. It really is. Being a full-time barista is such a joke to so many people, but I fought for this job. I work really fucking hard and I’m proud of myself,” she said, daring anyone to disagree with her.
“You should be proud of yourself. Do you know how many people would have a breakdown after just one shift as a barista?” I said.
Lark nodded and picked at the knee of her jeans.
“I know,” she said. “It’s not a dream career, but it’s something, and it’s mine.”
“Managing my mom’s pottery shop was my backup backup backup plan,” I said. “I only did it because she was struggling and I couldn’t get hired anywhere here, in spite of knowing everyone who was hiring. It was brutal.”
I shuddered. Nothing could make me want to go back to those first few months after college when I was in constant panic mode about the state of my life. Sure, the shop wasn’t my dream, and I didn’t want to spend my life there, but it was a steady paycheck, and it was pretty much the same every day. I could pretty much go through my day on autopilot. The only problem with that is some days I was bored out of my fucking mind and considered smashing every single piece of pottery so I wouldn’t have to sell any of it.
“I still have no idea what I want to do. I’ve taken every single personality test and job test and they all give me different answers. It’s probably a bad sign that I’m not passionate about anything,” she said.
“I’m passionate about my bills getting paid. That’s about it,” I said, and Lark chuckled.
“I get that.”
This seemed like a conversation that needed tea, so I got up and filled the kettle, like I would have done if I’d been having this conversation with Joy.
“Are you okay with lemon ginger tea?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Lark said.
I brought her a cup and she took it from me gently. “Thanks.”
Having a cup of tea in your hands was a good distraction when talking about deep topics.
“What do you want to do?” Lark asked.
“Read books all day,” I said. “Sometimes when the shop is slow, I’ll put on an audiobook. When the bookstore opened, I thought about applying, but I don’t want to sell books. I just want to read them.”
Lark nodded. “I like reading too. And sleeping. Big fan.”
