Page 11 of The Way We Fell

“What’s your favourite food?” Katy’s sweet, gentle voice wakes me from my dangerous daydream. Her eyes scan the sandwich menu as she speaks. I train my eyes on her while her attention is elsewhere, taking the time to memorise as much as I can while I think about my answer. The perfect arch of her eyebrows. The shallow slope of her nose. The tiny freckle beside her left eye. Why are all of these things standing out to me?

“Ruth’s—what did you call them? Fancy Nugs? But the way Granny Bevan used to make them.”

“I think I might agree.” She closes the menu with a quiet snap. “Fancy Nugs, or maybe tacos. Ruthy makes good tacos, too.”

“She makes a lot of good things in the kitchen,” I agree. “Mum and Dad made sure of that. Neither of us could get away with not learning to cook.”

“You cook too, huh? Is there anything the Bevans can’t do?”

“None of us can sing. But I’m decent in the kitchen,” I admit. “Not as good as Ruth. But I can feed myself.”

“You’re full of surprises, you know?” Her eyes sparkle at me as she offers an indulgent grin, and something in my chest begins to stir.

Katy is my little sister’s best friend. She’s off-limits to me as anything other than a friend. She has to be. There’s no way she’d even want to be anything more, not with the amount of baggage I’m carrying. I’m not conceited enough to think she might want me even without the baggage, but the longer those coffee-coloured eyes burn holes into my soul, the more I think I might like calling Katy Keller a friend.

Chapter five

Katy

"Ioweyoureallybig, K.” Amie ducks back into her car and emerges with a dinosaur-patterned suitcase and a duffel bag. She drops both on the pavement just long enough to quietly close and lock the car door, before hoisting the bags back into her arms and following me down the short path to my front door. We continue our whispered conversation inside.

“Honestly, it’s no bother. You know I’m happy to have her.”

“You’ve had to change your plans for me because Mum’s not well. I mean it, Katy. I owe you.”

“Fine, I’ll let you buy me dinner when you get home.” I use my elbow to flick on the standing lamp in the corner of my living room before depositing a sleeping Maisy on the sofa. Amie looks at her with tender eyes, pulling one of my chunky blankets over her daughter’s still body, before wrapping me in a bear hug.

“Love you, Katy-cat. Give her a kiss for me when she wakes up, yeah?”

“Of course. You’d better go if you want to beat the traffic.”

“Fuck, I hate this.” Amie sniffles, then shakes her head and hands while sucking in a big breath that lifts her chest and shoulders. “Okay, time to fly.”

I suck in a long, slow breath of my own as Amie leans in to kiss Maisy’s curls softly before standing and heading for the door. The love she has for her daughter is something I can’t help but desperately want for myself someday. I’ve always known I wanted to be a mum someday, and watching my best friend’s journey into motherhood, and getting to join her as Maisy’s godmother, being part of the village that helps her raise the beautiful girl asleep on my sofa, has only made me want it more. Seeing Amie emotional—seeinganyoneemotional, with any flavour of emotion—gets me in my own feels, and I have to fight back my own tears as I meet her at my front door.

“Stop it, K, you’re gonna make me cry.”

“Me? You’re the one makingmecry!”

Amie wraps me in another hug—a quick one this time—before wrapping her hand around the door handle.

“I’ll be back on Friday. I should be back before lunch, but we’ll see.”

“Get out of here, A. Be safe in those unfriendly skies.”

Amie blows me a quick kiss as she backs out of my house, and I pretend to catch it and tuck it into my imaginary pocket. I stand at the door and wrap my fuzzy cardigan around my body, watching as she folds herself into her car and pulls away, driving off into the early morning darkness.

I didn’t have to rearrange too many plans to help her out, despite what Amie says. I have a short shift at the supermarket this evening, covering the evening supervisor who is sick, but Paloma has agreed to come over and watch Maisy for a few hours. Other than that, my only plan for the day—for the rest of the week, even—had been to go for a wander around the shops. That can easily wait. I’d much rather spend the day with my favourite three-year-old.

But as it’s only a little after four in the morning, and she’s still asleep, I might as well take some time to have a quick shower and dress for the day, first. I’m not sure what we’ll do, but Amie said something about a new jigsaw puzzle in Maisy’s bag, and I expect she’ll probably want to play with her planes and dinosaurs at some point. They’re her favourites, and we often use the planes and model street furniture to build elaborate airports for her dinosaur families to fly from.

When I return to the living room, she’s still fast asleep under the blanket. I retrieve Roger, her stuffed dinosaur—her favourite toy and near-constant companion—from the floor, where he’s fallen, and tuck him beneath her arm. She stirs slightly, murmuring something in sleep, before stretching out her legs and falling back into the arms of slumber.

I might as well take the time to catch up on some reading. One of my favourite authors published a new book last week, and I’ve been looking forward to it for months now. I finished my last book last night, so I’m finally ready to get stuck in to this new cowboy romance. It’s full of small-town vibes with the promise of dirty talk, and highlights have been popping up all over my social media feed from authors and readers alike as they fall in love with yet another book boyfriend.

I make myself a cup of coffee and a slice of toast before settling into the enormous armchair in the corner of the room, book in hand.

It turns out the cowboy is ex-military. I’m not usually one for military romance. I much prefer cowboys or athletes, or small-town men with big dirty mouths, but I’m hooked on this book from the first page. The grumpy-sunshine story is compelling, but six chapters in, my mind begins to drift.

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