Page 48 of The Likelihood Of You

Silence.

More silence.

Nothing but a few slurps from Bagel as she’s drinking.

“Oh.” Is all she says. I can’t tell whether she’s concerned, angry or what, but before I can even decide, a smile, so genuine anddainty, makes its way onto her face, as her hands reach for mine. Her Mothers’s intuition was in full force. “What’s she like?”

My Moms loved Darcie, and it meant so much to me that they did. The first and only time I brought her back to meet them at my childhood home, they never left her side. From the second she stepped through the door to the moment the last thread on her cardigan left, they were glued to her.

Which was why it probably hurt them more than it hurt me when I told them what happened.

They begged me to let them come to New York and stay with me for a while, but I couldn’t face anyone yet. It was bad enough having Charlie howling at me for statements to pass onto the news outlets and magazine reporters. After a month of wallowing, I surprised them in Boston and let them have me for a whole week, feeding me pie and carbs because I apparently looked like a corpse (I probably did) and making me laugh so much that I questioned whether going back to New York was what I wanted to do.

I’d already signed the contract forDefenders 2, but that didn’t mean my tiny hometown hasn’t been stuck in my mind ever since that week.

That’s something I told Florence about, and I watched the way her green iris' sparkled the more I spoke, the way they do when she talks about her Nanna or baking.

I think she’d like it there.

“She’s wonderful,” I say, my cheeks heating up. “I met her at The Rolling Pin of all places.”

Mom's jaw dropped ever so subtly. “Is that where you met? Well, howabout that!”

“Yeah.” I scoot closer to Mom. “After I met her, we bumped into each other a few months later, right outside Pins. She explained how she was looking for a job because she’d just moved here. She’s from England, and has this adorable accent. So I offered her an assistant job for the production company I’m with, she took it, and now we kind of work together. Well, used to. And then—”

“Jacob.” She laughed, giggles spewing out of her along with the sugar crumbs still hanging off the corners of her mouth. “Honey, slow down.” She let out a long breath and encouraged me to do the same. “You lost me at the fact she’s from England.”

I hadn’t realised I was talking so fast. “Sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” She pulled at the sleeves of her navy blue cardigan, disguising a chill while keeping her eyes focused on me. “Is shethatwonderful?” She asked with a smile.

I don’t know whether she meant to put the emphasis on the word ‘that’, but it made my ears prick up. Like she was trying to ask, ‘Is she that wonderful that you can’t wait to get all the words out to describe her’.

She was more than wonderful. She had all the qualities a person could ever wish for. She had a quick wit and wasn’t afraid to use it against me. She bakes, and has all these big dreams that I know will all be hers someday. My God, she could even make Wes smile. And he quite literally was the devil reincarnated. So unless she was a secret Satanist, she was magic.

I knew my answer before Mom even offered up that question. “Yes. She’sthatwonderful.”

All my Mom’s have wanted since Darcie left was to see me happy. Not just in the sense of finding someone else, just happy. Optimisticabout the future. Because there was a time when I wasn’t. But now? Now I know a girl who doesn’t even make me want to compare. Florence is a different type of wonderful. She was my unexpected plot twist. My third act turning point, and I need to find out how our story is going to end.

I would have loved her to be here today. I could have told her that my Mom was in town, and seeing as though she wanted to open up her own bakery, my Mom would be the perfect person to talk to. But really, it would have been a selfish tactic just so I could show her off, show my Mom that she was as wonderful as I said she was.

But something’s changed.

I know she’s not telling me something, and I’ll find out what it is. Those eyes that looked at me from across the kitchen, green and hopeful, were not the same eyes that looked at me today. I just hoped it wasn’t me that had made them lose the sparkle I was so used to seeing in them.

We waited until the sun fell between the buildings and the breeze became crisper to call it a day, rounding up Bagel and taking my car to the airport. I gave Mom a hug, telling her to pass one on to my other Mom for me and text me as soon as she landed.

I distracted myself just enough on the ride home to keep Darcie away from my thoughts, but the second my key lodged into the lock ofmy apartment door, all those feelings became a cyclone in the depths of my stomach.

I slipped my foot between the door as I cracked it open, and the more my body moved, the more on edge I realised I'd become. What freaked me out more was how Bagel was acting the same. She'd never hesitated about waltzing into her home like she was the one who bought it, but all of a sudden she was thinking about where she set her paw down?

Almost like we both knew something we couldn't see was staring back at us.

I nudged the door open, slowly, the creaky hinges not helping my jumpy heart. Somehow it felt like she was here, bleeding into the shadows that were casting across the hallway, waiting for me. Like the ghost of her wasn't just invading my thoughts, but my life, too.

I was having aScreammoment. I was keeping my back to the walls and sneaking around the place likeIwas the one intruding. Bagel followed close behind me. But after we cleared every room with my spine not leaving the safety of the walls, I let out a heavy breath, looking down at Bagel and passing her a nod, giving her the all clear, before she rubbed her nose against my jeans and disappeared into the kitchen.

After showering the day away, I climbed into bed, curling myself up like a child who’d had a nightmare, trying so hard to fall asleep, but my efforts were pointless thanks to the text tone of my phone startling me for the second time today.

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