Page 64 of Dear Ripley

Ripley had often called me brave. Maybe that was what this was. Or maybe bravery was just foolishness in noble disguise, for I was definitely a fool, and this situation had nothing noble about it.

I slipped the sealed envelope into one of the pockets in my coat mere moments before Harlow knocked on the door. With my heart pounding as if I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t, I yanked the door open and smiled at her. She looked happy but exhausted.

“Are you okay?” I asked, looking her over.

She nodded, patting her stomach. “Yeah. I ate something last night that baby didnotlike. At all. So, naturally, spent all night hearing about it, and getting very little sleep.”

I winced. “Ah. I’m sorry. Do you want to do this some other time?”

“Absolutely not.” She reached forward, wrapping her fingers around one of my wrists, and dragged me out of the house, attempting to tow me away before I’d even had the chance to lock the door.

I fought her off, laughing as I did so, to give myself the chance to lock up and avoid the ire of my parents. “Hang on, silly.”

“It’s not me, it’s the baby.”

I shot her a look over my shoulder. “You do realize you’re going to have to wait for the baby to actually be here and have motor functions before you can get away with claiming they had anything to do with dragging me out of my house.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not like that. Obviously, I’m the one dragging you, but it’s because the baby needs pancakes.”

“I thought the baby was sick,” I argued back, rejoining the walk to Didi’s.

“Yes, they were. Last night. Very,verysick.”

“Thank you for that,” I said, wrinkling my nose. Pregnancy and birth were… something.

“But now, we’re both famished and the baby needs pancakes.”

I laughed. “Pancakes. Got it. Let’s go.”

She smiled, walking in silence for a few steps before she started watching me from the corner of her eye. “Are we dropping that off on the way?” she asked, her voice lofty and innocent.

“Dropping what off on the way?” I replied, my stomach clenching and my pulse picking up.

She scoffed. “That letter you’ve got badly hidden in your pocket. The one practically guaranteed to be for Ripley.”

I fought in vain against the blush taking over my entire being. “Oh. I, uh, didn’t know you could see that.” I attempted to block the letter with my arm, cursing the fact that I’d really thought the pockets were big enough to conceal it.

Harlow laughed. “You’re funny when you’re embarrassed.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You definitely are.” She paused, her head tilting. “It’s nice to see it again.”

“How do you mean?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Just that… well, you haven’t been like this in a long time. Never with Gabe…”

I nodded. I wasn’t surprised. The more time went along, the more I was convinced I had been nothing like myself with Gabe. I’d thought I was at the time, and I thought I’d liked him, but it was nothing like being around Ripley—even as… whatever we were now.

“You never seemed… I don’t know, uncontrollably attracted to him,” Harlow said with a shrug.

“Huh.” I chewed my lip. “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t. He was attractive—at least until all of his terrible opinions tarnished the armor—but it was neveruncontrollable. Not for either of us. From the beginning, everything was just… very measured. I think he liked my position and status more than he ever liked me,” I said, feeling how true the words were as they came out. I hadn’t really let myself think that before, but there was no denying the ring of truth to it. “He liked being in a relationship, and the status that word had, far more than he liked me or our actual relationship.”

“Yeah, well, he was a dick.”

I laughed. “He was. But so was I.”

“You absolutely were not,” she insisted immediately, linking one of her arms through mine.

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