Page 7 of Dropping the Ball

“I don’t want pretty,” I tell her. The word conjures delicate floral wallpaper and scrolled furniture. “I want—”

“Serene,” she says. “I know. Iknowyou.” Our eyes meet, and a collection of contentment molecules in my chest organizes into a murmuration of its own, because even though it’s taken time, we’ve grown as tight as sisters should be.

“Do you want to look at any other pieces?” Micah asks.

The answer is yes, I want to look at more pieces. Now that I understand how he works, I want to see and study every single piece in this place. I want to guess its inspiration, see if I can figure out how his brain was working when he made it.

Which makes me sound like I’m reviving a high school crush. It was never like that. Except for most of my senior year. But that crush lasted exactly as long as it took to break my nose.

“No time to look right now,” I answer him, a half second after the silence gets awkward. I am Cool Kaitlyn, and I am not excited about his eclectic wonderland.

“Then I’ll have my assistant handle your purchase and schedule delivery for you,” Micah says. He waves down at his casual outfit. “I only stopped in to grab something from the back room, so I need to get back to my workshop.”

Oh no he isn’t. He is not going to one-up me on who ends this interaction.Iam ending this interaction, and he’s trying to beat me to it.

“I have somewhere to be too, unfortunately,” I say. “I’ll send my own assistant over to handle this purchase next week.”

“I can’t hold it past Monday night,” he says.

“I’ll let her know. We better get going, Madison.” I turn to walk past my sister, who is trying to hide her confusion.

Micah falls into step beside me. “Sounds good.”

I reach back to snag Madison’s wrist and pull her along, not slowing down even a tiny bit. Iwillbeat Micah out of this store.

“Do you have a website with all your available pieces?” Madison asks, hustling to keep up.

“I do.”

“Great. Katie’s doing a minimalist thing right now, by which I mean she has exactly one room furnished, so I’ll set up operations in her moonscape of a house and look at your stuff online to figure out what else to put in there.”

Micah’s designs moving into my home . . . It gives me that exposed feeling again. I’m shivering in my emotional SKIMS while Madison plots to spend thousands of my dollars on making my house a shrine to Sir Pectoralis Nosebreaker.

I pick up my pace, feeling guilty for forcing Madison to keep up, but I’ll make it up to her. We’ll stop for a half gallon of her new obsession, Blue Bell gooey butter cake ice cream. I don’t want to live in a world where they discontinue it before her pregnancy is over.

When we reach the entrance, I sense Micah veering left, which is the way we need to go, but I guide Madison toward the right.

“Good to see you,” Micah says. “It’s been too long.”

I glance at him over my shoulder, like I’d already forgotten he was there. “Oh, yes. You too. See you around.”

But what I mean isIt’s been too soon.

Way, way too soon.

I walk as fast—but casually—as I can in the opposite direction until we round a corner, then I stop.I literally ran into Micah Croft.

“Why are you speedwalking your waddling sister like we’re running from the mob?”

Madi’s breathing is labored—uh, make that a bit heavy—and yes, she’s waddling, but it’s cute. Even pregnant, Madison’s the hotter version of me. Imagine a bombshell blonde—Margot Robbie—glammed up on the cover ofVogue, full lips pouty, blue eyes sparkling. That’s Madison. By contrast, I’m . . . like a serious Elle Fanning. Imagine someone painting Madison as a subdued Victorian-style portrait, the blue of her eyes muted, thinner lips, flatter hair. You’d see it and think,She’s probably pretty when she smiles.

I am. And I do smile. When I have a good reason to.

“You aren’t waddling,” I tell her.

“Liar. Did we just run away from Micah?”

I scoff. “Pfft. No.”

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