Page 33 of Sven

“Why is that?” Sydney asked, absentmindedly scrolling through her phone.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Oh.” That seemed to get her attention. “Is it juicy?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“You’re no fun.”

Natalie zipped up her suitcase and looked around the room. “Well, I think that’s it.”

Sydney got off the bed and pulled her into a hug. “Don’t be a stranger. You didn’t move all this way to not see me all the time.”

“Please, I’ll be around all the time. You’re the one busy at the hospital all the time. You won’t even know I’m gone.”

Sydney helped her load her car.

Once everything was in, Natalie hugged her again. “I know I was only here for a few weeks, but it really means the world to me. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Let’s do dinner next week.”

“Of course.”

When she pulled into Sven’s house, she rolled into the garage like he had told her to, and he was there, leaning against the door frame.

“Do you need help?”

“That’d be great.”

In a couple of trips, they got all her things to the pool house.

“Is that it?”

“Yeah, I didn’t bring much from me when I left Alabama.”

“Why did you move here from Alabama anyway?” he asked.

“That, my friend, is a story for another day. Will the baby monitor work out here?”

“Yeah, and we have this,” he said, walking over to the intercom on the wall. “I’ll have to make sure it still works.”

“As long as the baby monitor works, I’ll be good.”

As she said that, Winnie’s cries came from Sven’s pocket. “Well, it would seem like it works. I’m going to head in and get her and let you get settled out here.”

“Hey, would it be okay if I invited someone over?”

Sven stilled and slowly turned to look at her. “Who?”

Something about the way he asked made her think this was not only checking to see who she would bring around his kid, but she decided to leave that thought alone for now.

“Sydney, she’s my best friend, and she just kind of wants to see where I live.”

“Oh,” he said with a small shake of his head, and the smooth smile returned to his face. “Yeah, that’d be fine.”

He turned to leave. “Oh, I meant to ask you, how would you feel about coming to family skate next week?”

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