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Hazel shook her head. “Hunter says he begged you to forget this.”
“Yeah. So he can win.”
“He called off the bet.”
“Right.”
“Why are you doing this?” Hazel smacked the stainless-steel counter. “You hate traveling. You hate sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag. You don’t like to be cold. All reasons you’ve given for not staying at the cabin. Not to mention this.” Hazel spread her arms wide, encompassing the café.
“Ms. Crofton and Gemma are stepping in to help. It’s all arranged. It will be fine. Everything is going to be just fine. I’m going to have fun, and Grady is great. It’s all perfect.” She was babbling.
Hazel tipped her head, a knowing arch in her brow. Janie only babbled when she was flustered. “What does Mama B say?”
“I’m a grown woman.” Resentment charged through her veins. Why did everyone have to be against her? Even Zel! How was that fair? “Maybe there’s something to this leaving thing.”
“What does that mean?”
Janie glared at her best friend. “It means that maybe it’s time I make new friends. Time I find out how life looks outside of Luna. After all, Hunter did. My dad did. Who knows what I’ve been missing?” Her heart cracked even as she said the words, opening old wounds and oozing bitterness.
Hazel didn’t flinch, though the mossy green of her eyes lost their fire. She shook her head. “You don’t mean that.”
Blinking, Janie looked away. “Maybe I do.”
The kitchen settled into merely the humming of the refrigerator and the quiet drip of the leaky faucet into the sink. She needed to get that fixed before she left.
Dread gaped wide in her gut. Which was silly.It’s only a couple of weeks.
What if it wasn’t? What if it turned out to be more—what if she left and didn’t come back?
Was that what she wanted? In the past few weeks—months even—it seemed like she’d lost her footing here. Everything had become too complicated. Too awkward. Maybe, after all these years of clinging to home, it was time to let go.
How ironic would that be—the moment Hunter came back, Janie decided to leave?
A long sigh whispered into the silence as Hazel took a step closer. “Promise you’ll call me?”
Through a storm of anxiety and confusion, Janie lifted her head and looked back at her friend. “You want me to?”
“Every day, I hope.”
Relief tumbled through Janie as she stepped forward and hugged Hazel. “You’re still on my side?”
“I don’t think there’s a side in this, Janie. You and Hunter—” Hazel cut off whatever she was going to say as she stepped back, gripping Janie’s arm. “You’ve always been my friend. I’m always going to be yours. No matter what.”
Janie nodded. “No matter what.”
At least she still had that. As Hazel left through the back kitchen door, Janie tried to inflate her enthusiasm with that consolation.
It fell flat.
Maybe everyone was right. This was foolish and silly. Did she really have something to prove?
The memory of Hunter standing across the bonfire, holding her with a contemptuous stare surfaced in her mind. The fire in her belly flared, and her spine stiffened. She didn’t want to live like that anymore.
Hunter saw her as a coward.
She did, in fact, have something to prove.
Twenty-Five
