Page 142 of Muddy Messy Love

I give Ella a little wave and smile, which she returns with those glowing, chubby cheeks I’ve missed so damn much. She’s noticeably taller too, dressed in lilac frills and slipping down Hannah’s hip. Hannah hitches her back up. “Can we sit and talk a minute?”

“Sure,” I say, stepping out from behind the counter, cursing myself. A kinder person would have already offered instead of standing here frozen like an idiot. I motion towards the studio. “Come through here.” They do. I cut off a lump of clay from yesterday’s scrap pile for Ella and smack it down on the table. “Do you mind her getting dirty?”

Hannah shakes her head, then glances down to Ella. “Do you want to play with Avery’s special Play-Doh, cookie?” Ella nods but eyes the clay suspiciously. In fairness, Play-Doh has way better colours, and she probably doesn’t remember making the monsters at Mini-Bees.

While Hannah sets her up on a stool, I gather a bundle of kid-safe modelling tools and lay them out in front of Ella, then grab an apron from the folded stack and squat down to her height. Ella searches my face with that innocent curiosity kids seem to have, and I bop the end of her nose with my finger. “Hey, princess. I’ve missed you. Have you been doing lots of dancing lately?”

She nods enthusiastically. “Yep. With my friends.”

“Oooh,” I say, hooking the tiny apron over her head and shiny pigtails. “And what are your friends’ names?” I tie it around her little pot belly.

“Isabella and Alex.”

Alex I know, but Isabella is new. I look up at Hannah. “You have a new one?”

“Yeah,” Hannah says, sliding her hands into the pockets of her soft pale jeans. “A lot has changed.”

Right. For some reason, that information makes my stomach curdle. I pick up a plastic cutting tool and carve a few lines into Ella’s clay, then hand it to her. “Here you go. You can make snails and caterpillars or even a unicorn. Do you like unicorns?”

She crinkles her nose. “No, they’re not real. I’ll make a fairy.”

That makes me laugh. “Good idea.” Jeez, she’s talking way more. To be honest, I’d rather keep chatting with her than face her mum, but I’m no coward. Kind of. …Well, I’m working on it.

Standing up, I look at Hannah. Hurt and confusion float in her ocean-blue eyes like an oil spill. Ohfuck. That look alone confirms it. She had nothing to do with Cole’s shitshow, and from her perspective, I abandoned our friendship without a word like she meant nothing. But what else was I meant to do? Everything was so huge and dark and muddled. And there was so much hurt. Nuclear-level hurt.

“Nice place you have here,” Hannah says, forever polite even though she’s clearly stricken.

Double fuck.

“Thanks.” I smile sadly and motion to the adult-sized stools at the workbench Beth let me steal. “It’s all pretty new.”

“I know.” Hannah takes a seat at one end. “I saw you in the paper.”

“You read the paper?” I hop up on the stool adjacent.

“No, but Marla does. She showed me.”

Marla. I hope that poor woman wasn’t forced out of retirement just because of me. But Tej was leaving too, and it was all so abrupt, so maybe she was. I drop my gaze to the bench and pickat my fingernails, wishing I had a lump of clay to play with like Ella.

“How was opening weekend?” Hannah asks.

“Delightfully busy.” I smile.

“Good,” she says.

Silence ensues, and it’s hard to breathe when the air is thick with unspoken words. An elephant may as well be tap-dancing around the studio in a pink tutu at this point. A minute later, we move to speak at the same time, then both stop, apologise, and awkwardly chuckle.

“You go first,” I say, abandoning all bravery. Chicken noises cluck in my head.

“Well,” Hannah sighs, “Cole won’t tell me what happened with the two of you.”

I flinch, and tears immediately fill my eyes. As if staring at his female clone wasn’t hard enough, she just had to say his name aloud. Since Jen’s pep talk, no one else has, and I’m used to people tiptoeing around the crime scene of my heart.

“And you,” she continues, “cut me off like a gangrene limb.”

My gaze snaps to hers, finding tears wetting her cheeks too. I stare at my broken friend and gulp. As usual, she deserved better. “Hannah, I’m so sorry. When everything happened… Well, I didn’t know if you were in on it.” Her brows furrow as I suspected they might. “I was in shock—devastated. I didn’t know what else to do but run.”

“We were friends, Aves. Or at least, I thought we were.” Her voice wobbles. “You could have come to me. Whatever it was.”

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