Page 63 of Tulips and Lost Time

“So you didn’t tell Kari?”

“I didn’t have to.”

“We just go home and act normal,” Britt presses. She walks with her hands in the pockets of her jacket. Kicking her feet out to send a rock rolling along the road. “We eat at the dinner table, and we say nothing. Sam isn’t really gonna care. But Alex will probably have a complete meltdown. So it’s best if he doesn’t know.” Then she glances across to me. “And if you decide to tell your lady friend, then that’s cool. Though it would be appreciated if you could ask her to be discreet. The last thing either of us needs right now is to have Alex coming after you with his police issued gun.” She raises a single, pointed brow. “We know he can get kinda heated sometimes.”

“Britt!” Laine’s playful voice carries along the street. Her excited yelp echoing as Britt and I come around the corner. But I groan as I bring my focus up and find Jess, too. “She’s returned!”

“Oh god.” Britt presses a hand to her stomach and silently burps, her cheeks filling with air in the world’s least attractive way. “Not a word, Lenaghan. Your sisters and I always talk sex. Like…” She widens her eyes. “Always. I do not want to discuss the size of your dick with them.”

“Please don’t.” I look up at the sky and shake my head as Britt’s footsteps speed up. “Not a damn word.”

“We have a surprise for you!” Laine calls out. We’re still a block away, which means everyone in our street gets a front-row seat to the girls’ reunion. Anyone would think they’d been apart for years. Potentially a whole world war, too.

“Kari?” Britt squeals. Jump-skipping as her fast trot turns to a scream and sprint. “Kari!”

I swing my head back down, my stomach hurdling when our eyes meet and her cheeks turn a pale, pale white. The three others all run toward Kari, crushing her in a group hug that brings Marc and Sam out of the house. But no matter the noise they make, no matter the strength they hug with, Kari’s eyes stay on mine.

Fuck. My. Life.

“I didn’t think you were coming home!” Britt wraps her arms around Kari’s neck and squeezes. “You said you were staying to spend time with Ten.”

Kari’s eyes trail over my face. Does she know what I did? Or is she more concerned about me knowing about Ten? Does she love him? Does she not love me anymore?

“I changed my mind,” she gulps, pulling back from her friends and fixing her hair. “I missed you guys, so I drove over late last night.”

“Oh man!” Britt grumbles. “If I knew, I’d have been home.”

“Where were you, anyway?” Jess grabs Britt around the neck and turns, so the foursome gives me their backs. Then they head toward the Turners’ house. “You sure as hell didn’t sleep in your own bed,” Jess continues. “And I tried calling your phone.”

“I was out with friends.” She lifts her chin for Marc as they pass. “Women are allowed to have fun without constant brotherly supervision.”

“Yeah?” He smiles at least, too fucking happy to have Kari home to care that someone else’s sister was out all night. And he’s so blind to the possibility it was me she was with, he doesn’t even give me a second thought. “You wanna go tell X where you were, Brat? He’s on duty down at the station. Bet he’d love to know where you slept.”

She scoffs and trudges up the porch steps with her girlfriends. “No thanks. I’m not really interested in that right now.” She turns and presses a noisy kiss to Kari’s cheek. “Welcome home, Kar! We’ve missed you.”

“I saw you yesterday,” Kari drawls. “Literally, less than twenty-four hours ago.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen you here in forever.”

“You pussed out.” Kane pushes away from the table, the legs of his chair scraping along the tile floor and makes his way to the coffeepot. He passes me and Billy by, unable to help himself as he drapes his fingers over her cheek and strokes as he goes. “She came home to check up on you, huh? Because she saw you the night before in the city. She knew you saw her with Biff, so she came running home to ask for forgiveness. Which could have been a cute romance movie thing, where she runs into your arms and three years of heart ache washes away with happy music and noisy kisses.”

I firm my lips and let him waffle on with his version of my story.

“She never wanted Biff. She just wanted companionship. So when she saw you’d come for her, she tossed him on his ass and chased you home. Except.” He places his mug under the coffee spout and hits the button to get the machine started. “You weren’t home when she came looking. Her romantic movie montage came tumbling down because you weren’t where you were supposed to be.”

I turn in my chair, twisting my neck to search his eyes. “You finished embellishing my life story yet?”

He only shrugs. “Does your version get interesting soon? Because apart from Biff’s ten-inch cock, I can’t say anything has been entertaining so far.”

I turn back and look down at Billy’s sweet face. “I hope to god you can’t hear or understand what he’s saying, Bill. This is completely inappropriate for baby ears.”

“She’s fine. We had two girls to test inappropriate discussions in front of. Chicken and Nugget are totally normal.”

“Says you. The rest of town knows to steer clear of the Bishop babies.” I bring my hand up and stroke the bridge of Billy’s nose, while outside, the sun rises in the sky until the world turns less black and more pink. “So I guess she came home looking for me,” I agree. “Maybe it’s because she knew I saw her with Biff.”

“Ten?”

“Yeah, we’re not calling him that anymore.”

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