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Then again, there was another option.
“I apparently own a condo,” I said. “Would you like to come with me to find it?”
I felt my heart beating faster and faster as I waited for Morgan to answer.
Please come with me. I can’t do this without you.
“Yeah, of course,” Morgan said. “I just need to tell Layana—”
Layana said, “I heard. Go for it. I expect pictures.”
Why would Layana want Morgan to take photographs of my condo? Probably better not to question why Layana did anything.
Morgan grinned at me. “Let’s go.”
I held her close in the elevator, and held onto her hand as I drove, too. Morgan was quiet, and a strange energy thrummed between us. It made sense, as in a single night everything had changed, even if I hadn’t wanted it to.
“Tell me about tonight’s show,” I said as I followed her phone’s directions toward the address listed on my driver’s license.
“It was an interpretive dance competition. Chester was weirdly amazing. You should have seen it.”
“I wish I had.” I would have much preferred to have been sitting in our hotel room watching the show over being trapped in my father’s manor.
“He won. That was a good call. Layana, Glitter, and I were all at the bottom. So me going home was a good call, too.”
Because she didn’t expect to win, because she wanted that for her friends. “You deserve success as much as Glitter and Layana do.”
She snorted. “Not tonight I didn’t. I threw a drumstick at Waylen.”
“He deserved it, I’m sure.”
“It was an accident.”
“I stand by my statement.”
She chuckled. “I fell, and it flew out of my hand. It might have blinded him.”
“He’ll look more interesting in an eyepatch,” I said. “It’ll add an air of mystery to his orange face.”
“Chester said something like that, too.”
I could hear the smile in Morgan’s words. It felt nice, like a warm hug, and lessened the panicked ache in my chest. This was my happy place—anywhere Morgan was. I needed more. I needed another day, another week, where it was just the two of us and the world outside of that could wait.
“It says we’re here.” Morgan pointed to an old three-story brick building. The wordsTicklish Toffee Towerswere printed between lines of narrow windows. “Please tell me you live in theticklishbuilding.”
“It’s more shoebox than tower,” I said, pulling to a stop in the small lot in front of the building.
The once industrial complex had softened through time and thoughtful renovation. Its bones still carried the echoes of its past life—heavy machinery churning sugary confection.
Being here coaxed my memory. I said, “It used to be a candy factory.”
“So that’s a yes on living here?” Morgan asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s every child’s dream—buy a sweets factory and sleep in vats of cotton candy.”
“Now we’ll both be disappointed to find a bed,” I told her.
