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I’m struggling to keep the blush off my cheeks, so I hide behind my coffee mug. “It’s more important to me that the kids are happy. I can’t hand them over to my parents. Not after what Sienna and I went through with them.”
“Hey, I hear you loud and clear. I’m just worried about you.” Phoebe sighs. “I don’t want you to give so much of yourself away that you have nothing left.”
I smile. That’s why I’ve always loved Phoebe: she thinks of me even when I don’t. Sienna was always the bright light between the pair of us, but Phoebe saw me just as clearly.
“Have I told you lately how much I love you?”
She gives me a sly wink. “You could prove it to me by telling me all the juicy details about banging your bad boy boss.”
“Ugh.”
“Wow, sex was that bad, huh?”
“No—”
“So it was that good?”
I shake my head with a shy smile. I know she won’t let up unless I give hersomething.“Let’s just say it was… explosive.”
Phoebe snaps her fingers and does a little shoulder shimmy for me. “Yes,queen!”
It’s easy to push away the unease when I’m with Phoebe. It’s easy to forget that I’m playing with fire. Just goes to show, really—rules are so easy to break.
22
EMMA
After breakfast, I say goodbye to Phoebe at the subway and cut across Central Park. There’s a city’s worth of people walking their dogs or lying on picnic blankets or running after their kids. It’s a perfect day for a nice walk through the trees.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t realize it until I’m passing right beneath it, but I know this tree. Sienna and I used to bring Josh here right after he was born. We’d lie around, just like all these people are doing today, and we’d talk and laugh and spend afternoons blissfully ignorant of the future that was hurtling down the barrel towards us.
I stop and look up. The tree looks a little barer now. Thinner in the trunk, graying in the leaves. I have that familiar pang in my chest. The deep aching stab that comes with the reminder that she’s not here anymore. We will never again sit under those sparse leaves and bitch about all the little things in our lives that we thought—at the time—would be our biggest problems.
Sometimes, I miss her so much I can’t stand it. That’s when I’m usually hit with memories I didn’t even remember I had in the bank.
* * *
“Did you see that? Did you see it?” Sienna said, grabbing my ankle. “He did a little twerk!”
I laid back in the grass, hands folded behind my head. I didn’t even bother opening my eyes. Sienna was always claiming that Josh did this and Josh did that. More often than not, what she thought was a sign of genius turned out to be gas.
“I’m not surprised. Heisyour kid.”
She smacked my leg. “You’re not even looking.”
“Si, he’sone. I sincerely doubt he’s twerking.”
“Just look!”
Reluctantly, I cracked open an eye and glanced over at my nephew. His chubby little hands were planted in the grass as his butt wiggled in the air.
“I think he’s just bending over.”
She threw me an irritated glare. “Look at that booty shake. Boy hasrhythm.”
Josh let out a little squawk and pushed himself upright, only to fall back down again. Luckily, he had some squidgy baby blubber and a diaper to keep him safe.
I stifled a yawn. “If you say so.”
