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“Exactly,” Thea said with a sad smile, standing up to hug my mom and top off her glass.
“She would have been so proud of you,” Mom sighed. “So fascinated. She was like that, always interested. Always asking questions.”
Thea and I had talked about her mom hundreds of times, both of us mining our memories for something untouched by the stories my parents and her grandmother told us: a scent, an item, a time.
“What if we hated each other?” Thea asked with a mischievous grin.
Mom rolled her eyes. “Her hate you? Never. She loved everything about you. Even loved waking up all night with you. Both of you,” Mom winked at me. “In the early days, we’d split shifts. I’d take you both during the day and she’d stay up all night. At one point, we even kicked your fathers into one house and had our own little momma compound, just us two and your grandmother, Thea.”
We’d heard the story before. Nearly every year, always on our birthday, sometimes on the anniversary of her death, sometimes on nights like tonight, when we had a few minutes, just the three of us. Dad didn’t enjoy talking about Thea’s mom, or more specifically, how the man he’d considered his friend for decades disappeared, leaving behind his young daughter.
“He carries a bit of guilt about that,” Mom would say with a sigh anytime the topic of Thea’s dad came up and he’d walk away. As if the very proximity to Thea’s father made him culpable.
“Old times,” Mom said, clearing a tear with the back of her hand. “But you both are still young. Still plenty of future left for you both.”
CHAPTER24
Thea
“Your phone’s ringing,”Ben groaned, rubbing my shoulder.
“It’s not important,” I murmured, burrowing my face into the crook of his arm.
“How do you know that?” he asked, his voice alert.
Ugh. His awake voice. The jerk.
“Because no one important ever calls me,” I groaned.
“What if it’s about work?”
I stifled a giggle and pulled my head off his chest. “An emergency clothing situation? You think people are calling me about split pants and long hems on the weekend? It’s not even wedding season.”
The phone stopped buzzing on the side table.
“See,” I shrugged, kissing his neck. “No emergency. They hung up.”
“Must have found their number for an emergency tailor.”
The phone buzzed again. I sighed, leaning over him to pick it up.
“Yeah?” I grumbled into the receiver.
“Thea!” Warren’s voice pinged in my ear, so cheery that I pulled the phone away from my ear to check the time.
Eight A.M. Why was he so chipper?
“What’s up, Warren?”
“I have fantastic news. I was wrong.”
I sat up, brow furrowed. “Wrong?”
“About the Carters. They sent me a written contract this morning.”
“They put in an offer?”
Ben sat up beside me, tilting his head and mouthing, “What?”
