Page 83 of Designed for Disaster

“Then I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt my costumes so I can keep you company,” she said, patting my leg. “You’ll be known far and wide as that weird girl who makes awesome furniture and who has a disembodied ball gown following her everywhere she goes.”

I chuckled a bit at that idiotic image. “I told you not to try and cheer me up.”

“I’m not,” she insisted. “I’m just trying to assure you that I’m not going anywhere. Tonight or any other night. So, I suggest wemake ourselves comfy. We could watch a movie or something to distract us. No rom-coms, of course. I’m thinking Michael Bay. Action. Car crashes. Explosions.”

I hummed, unmoved by the idea.

“Or…we can go to your workshop so you can channel your feelings into your work?” she suggested. I just shook my head. “Okay, then. The other option is that we could sit here for a bit and just be sad.”

“I kind of just want to sit and be sad,” I admitted. “At least for right now. I’ll rally tomorrow.”

“That’s fair,” Stacy said. “Then I suggest we at least eat our feelings.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“Pizza?” she suggested.

“As long as it’s the cheesiest, greasiest pie in New York.”

“Of course. You’ll need the calories to fuel your big sads.” Stacy leaned over and hugged me again. “One heartbreak, men-suck, let’s-burn-the-world pie coming right up.”

Trent

We’d been moved from the main waiting room to a small family room on the cardiology floor once Dee was transferred from the emergency department. I hated waiting in hospitals. All it did was remind me of all the hours I’d spent here with Papa Daviswhile he underwent his treatments, and then later as we waited for him to pass.

It was too warm, and the chairs were too hard, and the guys still shot me concerned looks every two seconds as we waited for an update from the doctor that had taken Dee’s case. Worse than all of that was that I could feel the heat of Jimmy’s stare from across the room. Every time I looked up, he glanced away hurriedly, but I could tell by the way his brow furrowed that he was frustrated.

“Hey,” I whispered to Aiden slumped in the chair next to mine. “Can you come grab me if the doctor comes back? I’m just gonna go talk to Jimmy.”

He sat up, nodding. “Sure thing. Where are you gonna be?”

“Just down the hall,” I said, inclining my head toward the door. “We won’t go far.”

I got to my feet. As soon as Jimmy turned my way, I caught his eye and flicked my head toward the hall. He stood, stalking past me like a sullen teenager. I took a deep breath, reminding myself that hewasstill a teenager. And with his grandmother in the hospital, his wallet god only knew where, and his cheek swelled up to twice its usual size, he maybe had good reason to be a little sullen. But he seemed to be twisting himself into knots over something, and I wasn’t going to let that slide. Whatever was upsetting him, bottling it up wouldn’t help.

But it turned out, I didn’t need to worry about getting him to open up. We walked through a set of automatic glass doors, and as soon as they closed behind us, Jimmy whirled around, his face crumpled in anger. “What’s your problem, man?”

“Okay, calm down,” I said. “I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about Natasha!” he said, his voice rising. “You’re screwing up everything!”

A bud of irritation bloomed inside me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I grumbled, defensive.

“I do so. Natasha told me what happened between the two of you on the drive over here.Aftershe came all the way out there to get me,” he said pointedly.

I gritted my teeth. I was grateful she’d been there for Jimmy at that moment. I owed her one, but I didn’t have time to dwell on the status of my relationship—or lack thereof—with Natasha right now. “Look, Jimmy. You’re young. You don’t quite get everything that’s going on. But right now, my focus has to be on Dee. I don’t have time to deal with this Natasha situation.”

“Well, make time,” Jimmy snapped, surprising me. “And, sure, I may be young, but I’m not stupid, Trent. I have eyes and ears. You treated Natasha like absolute crap.”

“She wasn’t exactly a saint in return,” I muttered.

“She explained what her intentions were!” he cried. “She didn’t deliberately set out to hurt you! How could you even think that? What’s wrong with you?”

“Well, what the hell was I supposed to think?” I growled. “Mom had information that only Natasha could have known. And Natasha never said anything to me about meeting up with her.”

“You were supposed to think that you were jumping to conclusions like a dummy.”

I scowled. “She did it all behind my back, Jimmy.”

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