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“No, you get that peanut butter kind and sit on the couch, your legs curled up underneath you while you emit a long sigh every few seconds.”
Jill burst out laughing, the sound loud and beautiful in the nearly empty house. “Every few seconds,” Jill said between giggles. “That’s so not true.” She took another bite of ice cream, ignoring Hannah’s displeasure about the mixing. “So…you and Luke? Anything new going on there?”
“No,” Hannah said, perhaps a little too casually. “Same old, same old.”
“You haven’t kissed him yet?”
Hannah acted shocked and scooped up another bite of mint chocolate chip from the opposite side of the container so she wouldn’t get any chocolate with it. “I’m waiting forhimto kissme,” she said.
“Mm.” Jill nodded like that was the right thing to do. “When do you think that’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “Luke is…he’s sort of enigma. He’s super sweet almost all the time, and then sometimes, he’s got this mask on, and I can’t tell what’s going on in his head.”
“That’s the Y-chromosome at work,” Jill said.
Hannah giggled and licked her spoon clean. “We get along great. We’re learning about each other.”
“The chemistry is still hot, though, right?”
“Mm.” Hannah didn’t normally spill too many relationship details, especially physical things like kissing, but she’d told Jill all about the fireworks that cartwheeled through her body whenever Luke so much as walked in a room.
“Are you going to Beeville with him for his birthday?”
“Yes,” Hannah said, looking up as sudden alarm ran through her. “Do you think it’s too soon?”
“It’s not until May,” Jill said, meeting Hannah’s eye. “It’s like, six weeks from now.”
“His parents will be there.”
“You can meet his parents,” Jill said.
“Then he’ll want to meet mine,” Hannah said, giving Jill a meaningful look.
“Hey, I took Slate home to meet my family,” she said. “Haven was there and everything, and wow, it was almost a bloodbath.” She trilled out another laugh, but Hannah’s stomach pinched.
She put her spoon down. “Okay, I’m done with this. I’m not gaining back that ten pounds I lost with mint chocolate chip.”
“Seriously,” Jill said. “Save the calories for the butter pecan.” She grinned at Hannah, who always ate her way through several cartons of butter pecan ice cream after a break-up. Except for Chuck…who hadn’t even warranted a single spoonful of the stuff.
She wasn’t sure what that said about him, or about their relationship. Maybe nothing. Maybe she hadn’t liked him as much as she’d thought she had. Maybe everything about their relationship had been superficial.
“Your family isn’t that bad,” Jill said as she got up and put their spoons in the sink.
“Are you kidding? Remember that Thanksgiving you spent with us? You looked like you’d witnessed a horrific crime and couldn’t wait to get away.”
Jill laughed again, capping the ice cream containers and turning toward the freezer. “That was only because Bethany had called the wishbone, Hannah. Thewishbone.”
“She was thirty-eight years old,” Hannah said, and they both burst out laughing again. With the ice cream put away, they migrated over to the couch in the living room. Jill sighed as she sat down, and Hannah did too, putting her feet up on the coffee table.
“Are you ready to get married?” Hannah asked.
“I’d go say I-do tomorrow,” Jill said, tucking her feet under her body. “The dress will be done next week. We’re doing a final walk-through with full color illustrations and even a 3-D rendition of the hall on the twelfth.” She smiled at Hannah. “Yeah, I think we’ll be ready.”
“How’s your mom?”
Jill’s sadness descended on the room quickly, as if the sun had suddenly been snuffed out, leaving only darkness behind. “She’s doing good, actually.” She reached up and wiped her eyes quickly. “She just really wanted her hair to be back in time for the wedding.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Hannah said, reaching over and taking Jill’s hand in hers. “She’ll be beautiful, no matter what.”
