Page 67 of Is It Casual Now?

“Oh for crying out loud.” Bunny pulled her arm away and leaned forward in the couch, elbows now resting on her knees. “This is one hell of a bad idea.”

“She’s getting more attention, and it’s better to get on her good side before she gets any more traction. She’s making a hell of a lot of trouble for some others at the moment. It’s what I like to think of as a preemptive strike,” Siena said, feeling slightly guilty about the twist to her own story. It hadn’t happened in this order, but it made it easier for her to justify the interview. To them, and more importantly to herself.

“Like your interview with her?” Bunny waggled her eyebrows. “That was…unexpectedly sweet.”

Siena’s cheeks burned. She really hadn’t expected the interview she’d given on a whim to turn out as well as it had. Jamie had done a good job on it, which had boosted her confidence that Jamie wasn’t only in it for the gossip.

“It was,” Piper chimed in. “I read it even.”

Piper usually stayed as far away from tabloids or news like that as possible. Siena relaxed back into her chair and glanced at the door again. When was Jamie going to be here? She’d never been late to a meeting before. In fact, she was notoriously always on time or early.

“What crawled up your butt?” Bunny asked.

“Nothing,” Siena lied. She and Jamie hadn’t been on good terms since their last conversation, that distance between them growing with each passing day, and it didn’t sit right in Siena’s chest.

“Don’t lie to one of your oldest friends.” Bunny gave her a pointed look. “You’ve been distant.”

“I’ve been thinking about the past.” Siena sighed heavily and ran her fingers through her long hair. She couldn’t get Tori out of her head lately, not that she wanted to be in a relationship with her again, but because of how screwed up Siena had been when they were together. “Did I tell you that Harley went as a rock star for Halloween?”

“What?” Piper said. “A true rock star?”

Siena chuckled lightly and whipped out her phone and pulled up a photo that she’d taken when she and Tori had gone out trick or treating. She handed it over so Bunny and Piper could look at it. “My God, she’s getting so big,” Bunny mumbled.

“Grew a foot this last year, I swear. She looks so much older now that she’s in school. Acts older too.”

“Little bug is growing up.” Piper pouted her lips and looked like she was going to cry in an exaggerated way. “We’ve got to find some time to hang out with her again.”

“Yes, she’s been asking for that.” Siena took her phone back and noted the time. Jamie was now officially late. And there hadn’t been a text or a call about it either. Jamie was always the professional. Siena had no doubt that she would show up when she said she would show up. Putting her phone onto the arm of the chair, face up so she could see it, Siena looked to the door.

Surely Paula would be in soon, telling her that Jamie was here and ready to set up for the interview.

“So how’s Tori?” Piper asked.

Siena frowned. Tori was doing amazing. And it irked her in a way that she hadn’t actually said out loud before, but maybe with Bunny and Piper she could. They’d been there throughout the divorce, from Siena’s bringing up the conversation to Tori to her plummeting and treating herself like shit afterwards, to slowly bringing herself back up.

“Is something wrong?” Bunny asked.

Shaking her head, Siena tried to mask her feelings. “Tori’s doing great. She and Miranda are moving in together. She and I had a whole argument about bunk beds.”

Bunny snorted. “Piper broke her arm on hers.”

“Hey now!”

“I know.” Siena rolled her eyes. “I told Tori as much. It wasn’t pleasant. But she won out. There really isn’t another option for the room. And lo and behold, Harley broke her arm on it. Remember? I had to race out when we were meeting with Bea and Jo.” She sighed heavily. “Do you ever wonder if you keep making the same mistakes because you’re not healed or if it’s just because you’re too stupid to learn from when you did it before?”

Bunny and Piper froze. They glanced at each other, clearly sharing some sort of conversation that Siena wasn’t included in. Bunny flung herself back into the couch, her hand alongthe top edge of it and behind Piper again. She eyed Siena cautiously.

Piper was the one who spoke. “That’s pretty deep for pre-interview conversation, Siena.”

“Sorry.” Siena rubbed circles into her temple and glanced at her phone and the door again. Ten minutes late. Jamie wasn’t coming, was she? “I just can’t stop thinking about Tori.”

“Really?” Bunny frowned. “I thought you were over her.”

“I am. I don’t mean it in aI want to get back togetherway. I keep thinking about our marriage, and divorce. But mainly why I asked her to get married in the beginning.”

“Because you loved her?” Piper asked, her leg bouncing up and down like it always did. She wasn’t nervous, it was just the extra energy that the woman seemed to always carry with her.

“Because I loved what she could give me.” Siena loosed the words, and she could feel the tension rising sharply. “I love Tori, don’t get me wrong, but I was never in love with her. I was in love with the idea of what she could give me that I couldn’t give myself. A family. And when she gave me that, I realized it wasn’t fair to her to keep her tied to someone who couldn’t love her the way she deserved.”

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