Page 121 of Return To You

Alex rolls her eyes. “She’s doing fine. We know what that means.” She takes a sip of her drink and stifles a grimace.

“Have some Wiener Schnitzel,” Chloe says, pushing the serving platter toward me.

“I’m really not hungry.”

My friends exchange the look.

“You don’t like it?” Haley says, looking around the table, then at our glasses. I take a sip. Ouch. It’s very sour, and really… “What is it?” I ask.

I’m saved from Haley’s murderous look by my phone’s ringtone. I jump out of my chair and check the display. Ethan. I pick up and go find privacy in my bedroom.

His voice rumbles like a welcomed storm after a hot summer day. “Hey, darling. Sorry I didn’t call earlier. There’s poor service here, believe it or not.”

“See?” I giggle like a giddy teenager. “It’s not just Vermont.”

“Mmm. God I love your voice. What are you doing right now?”

“Sitting at the foot of my bed, talking to you.”

“And before that?”

“The Bitch Brigade came over for dinner.”

“The who?”

“The Bitch Brigade.” I tell him how that moniker came about just last week.

“I didn’t know you were the entertaining kind. But I’m not surprised.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I say coyly, “but to be honest, they think I need to buy deck furniture. Pretty much they lectured me on my poor hostess skills.”

“I don’t know about the hostessing, but the deck could use a little more… actually, forget it. I like having you on my lap.”

“A-ha. Now you see my point.”

“Are they still there?”

“Yeah, they got here not too long ago.”

“Call me when they’re gone? I want to hear all about your day, minute by minute. But I don’t want them to continue bashing your hostessing skills.”

His sweetness goes straight to my heart. “Including the minute-by-minute account of Mrs. Summers’s Brazilian bikini wax?”

“I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds painful and not something I need to hear. Unless it caused you some trauma you need to offload on me.”

I laugh out loud and hang up with the promise of calling him the minute the Bitch Brigade is gone.

“Ohmygod, look at that smile!!” Alex gushes.

Haley shakes her head. “I can’t believe my brother is responsible for that.” Then she looks at me seriously and squeezes my hand as I sit down. “I love you,” she whispers softly, tears in her eyes. “And swear to god, he might be my brother, but I will kill him if he hurts you."

Kiara pops a piece of bread in her mouth. “Fuck. What was that about?”

“We’re the Bitch Brigade. You said it yourself. We look after each other. And this one,” Haley says, taking my hand again, “has been my soul sister since we were born. So… my blood brother better not mess it up.”

“Haley, it’s fine. We… Ethan and I, we have an unconventional relationship. First off, this is all very new, and we need time to figure out how we want to be together.”

Although I can’t help but wonder… are you truly together if you don’t spend each and every night together? In each other’s arms, breathing the same air? Making love?

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