Page 49 of Dear Ripley

I ignored Morgan watching me closely, my eyes finding Ripley’s face. We hadn’t been this close to one another in so long. How was it that she was even more beautiful now? She wore the last eight years well—better than I did, for sure—even though I was certain at least some of them had been as hard for her as they had for me. Her letter had been clear about that.

My fingers tingled where I hid them under the table, filled with the memory of running over her soft cheeks. She still looked as soft as she always had. The way she’d call me Liss in those moments. The way she’d called me Liss at the end of her letter… Perhaps it wasn’t unsurprising that she’d come over. She still enjoyed playing with fire sometimes.

As my mom began speaking again, Ripley’s eyes slid to the corners, watching me. She remained angled at my parents, but she was looking at me, and it didn’t help me decipher her tone at all.

“Well, we’ll let you get back to your dinner,” Ripley said abruptly, her eyes flicking away from me as quickly as they’d arrived.

Beside her, Morgan was grinning like the cat who got the cream. After throwing Ripley under the bus, I thought she might want to be more contrite, but that wouldn’t be very Morgan.

She turned and walked away while my mom was still calling a parting greeting after her.

“What was that?” Dad asked quietly once we were alone again.

“What was what?” Mom fired back, sitting up straighter and playing innocent.

He rolled his eyes. “You know what. What exactly are you up to?”

She looked at him, smiling politely, but something fierce was swirling underneath. “I’m not up to anything. We talk to Ripley all the time, she lives here, and if Alicia’s going to be back here, they’re going to have to be around each other.”

He shot me an apologetic glance, one loaded with the fact that we both knew Mom was up to something, but also both knew she wasn’t necessarily wrong. Ripley couldn’t keep avoiding living her life on my account, and I couldn’t keep feeling… whatever it was that running into her made me feel. We needed to be around each other, and survive those encounters, to move from what we were now, to casual acquaintances.

Joel finally dropped back into the seat beside me, clearly also ignoring the buckets of tension. “Ripley not joining us?”

I scowled at him as Dad shot him a warning.

He laughed. “I’m just asking. It’s not like we haven’t eaten with her before.”

“That was a long time ago,” I shot back, only realizing once I said it that they could have eaten with her any number of times in the last eight years and I wouldn’t have a clue. However, when nobody corrected me, I assumed they didn’t regularly dine with my ex, and Joel was just being a troublemaker.

“Just saying, she’s welcome to join us.”

My expression darkened as I watched the way he was grinning at me—so confident and self-assured. He knew every boundary he was pushing, in that exact way only siblings could.

I grinned back at him. “So is Ekundayo.”

“Ooh, is Ekundayo here too?” Mom immediately asked, looking around excitedly. “Have you met him, Alicia? Lovely boy. Works for Ripley.”

Joel shot me a betrayed look. I simply shrugged and grinned at him in the exact way he’d been grinning at me. Siblings were like that, and I could give as good as I got. That hadn’t changed while I was away.

Chapter 16

Ripley

The world wanted to see things burn. I was certain of that now. What other excuse could it have for my abysmal luck lately? I made every possible effort to avoid running into Alicia, barely going anywhere these days, and yet, somehow, she still managed to be in the exact places I couldn’t avoid going?

There was something deeply unlucky about running into Alicia and her family the one time I let Morgan drag me somewhere.

“I’m never letting you talk me into going anywhere ever again,” I muttered to her as we were led towards our seats.

She laughed. “Yeah, right. You love it here, and you owe me for all the time I’ve been spending cooped up in your apartment.”

“Since you’ve recently insisted I take up residence in your home to stop you wasting away in front of gift-wrapping videos, I don’t think I owe you anything. Especially not a run-in with my ex-wife.”

“That was clearly more for you than it was for me.” She thanked the person seating us and dropped into her chair, looking far more awake than she had when she’d shown up at the shop.

I thought about arguing with her that nothing about running into Alicia was for me. Nothing about the way she messed with my head or my heart did anything good for me. But I knew Morgan well enough to know she’d have a comeback for every point I made, and she was so utterly delighted by the whole thing that there would be no reasoning with her.

She watched me carefully—the same way I’d caught her watching Alicia—and my insides clenched, bracing for impact.

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