Page 53 of After All

She couldn’t just leave Scott on his own and have dinner with her dad. She had promised to be there to help Scott while he was healing. Yeah. That was why she couldn’t have dinner with Dan. Definitely. So what if Scott was getting around fine on his own and had a ton of friends and a mother who could help him out with meals if needed? Peyton hadpromisedto be there and she would be, dammit.

And so what if it was a great excuse to avoid eating with Dan?

An hour later, she was still wound up about it. A mixture of guilt and frustration twisted through her. In spite of the brightly colored cookies she was decorating. And that pissed her off too. Decorating always calmed her down and made her happy.

Of course, maybe if she wasn’t decorating, she’d be throwing things or swearing instead of just thumping mixing bowls and measuring cups down on the counter harder than necessary. Thankfully she was using the plastic ones.

“Everything okay?”

She looked up and felt herself blush as she found Adrianne standing in the doorway that led into the kitchen from the front of the bakery.

“Sorry. Just…grumpy.”

Adrianne joined Peyton at the prep table and looked over the flower- and butterfly-shaped cookies that were cooling on the racks, waiting for frosting. “These are for Emma’s garden club?” she asked.

Peyton nodded. “I have honeybees and ladybugs too,” she said. “She wanted simple sugar cookies to go with the tea and coffee, but I showed her the decorated ladybugs and she loved them. I also talked her into doing dirt cups—chocolate pudding with crushed chocolate cookies on top and gummy worms.”

Adrianne grinned. “That’s awesome. What can I do to help?”

Peyton laughed and felt some of her frustration melt away. “You’re the boss. You do whatever you want.”

Adrianne shook her head. “This is your party. Just tell me what you need.”

It was her party? Not really. It was Emma’s. But the ideas to make it special and something Emma would love had been Peyton’s. She had to admit that made her feel good. “Well, how about frosting butterflies? We need lots of yellow. It’s Emma’s favorite color.”

Adrianne gave her a smile. “Wonderful.”

They worked for almost five minutes without talking, applying different colored frostings and designs to the butterflies. But eventually Adrianne asked, “What happened?”

Peyton sighed. “To make me grumpy?” she asked.

“No offense,” Adrianne said. “But I know you’re staying with Scott. Sometimes suddenly being with someone almost twenty-four-seven is tough. And it’s my experience that men who are not feeling well, or who are being told not to do things they want to do, can be especially difficult.”

Peyton laughed at that, feeling something warm unfurl in her chest. Adrianne was talking to her woman to woman about men trouble. She almost wished Scottwasher problem, so she could commiserate. Obviously, she was around Adrianne a lot and she was fascinated by Adrianne’s relationship with her husband, Mason. Mason was a genius. Literally. Which made him different from the other guys in Sapphire Falls. In a really great way. But no, Peyton’s issues were with another man entirely.

“It’s my dad,” she confessed. “Or my mom, actually.”

Adrianne gave her a sheepish smile. “Sorry to assume it was Scott.”

Peyton waved that off. “He hasn’t been exactlyeasy, but…” She trailed off as she thought about Scott and how it had been to be essentially living with him. “Actually, he’s been very…great,” she finally said. It was hard to come up with the right word. It hadn’t been easy, but it hadn’t been a hardship either. It had been tempting. That part had been hard. But that part had also been fun. And frustrating. And yeah, actually, kind of great.

“So what’s up with your dad?”

Peyton had never shied away from talking about her parents. Everyone knew everything anyway. Dan and Jo’s relationship, Jo’s illness, how Peyton figured in—or didn’t—had been well-known facts in Sapphire Falls long before Peyton was old enough to tell, or keep, secrets. That was, strangely, something she’d always been kind of grateful for. She wasn’t the type to hide her feelings. When Peyton was happy, people knew it. When she was pissed off, they knew it. She was terrible at poker.

“He just texted to say that Mom is going to rehab. Again. And he wants to have dinner while she’s gone.”

“That’s great, right?” Adrianne asked.

Peyton wished it was great. She wished she could summon even a fraction of the hope and happiness she’d felt the first time Jo had decided to go to rehab.

But this was the fourth time. And all together, her stays equaled about fourteen days.

“Well, he only wants to see me because he doesn’t have anything else to do while she’s gone,” Peyton said.

“How long is rehab?”

“It’s supposed to be thirty days.”

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