Page 99 of Dear Ripley

“Yeah, that’s what I’m imagining happening.” Harlow shrugged. “I’m sure she’ll decide finding someone new is better than having to see the three of you ever again.”

I frowned. “She’s more concerned about the three of us seeing you reject her than she is about what you want.”

Harlow looked at me and it was obvious that she was finally realizing some things about her own relationship that she’d been blocking out. “Yeah. As sad as that is, it’s all about the public perception. I’m not the public in her mind. You are.”

“Wow…”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Hopefully she’ll use the time to work on herself. I doubt it, but I don’t wish my experience on anyone else, so maybe she’ll surprise us all. Though I hope we never find out either way.”

Alicia smiled, soft and proud, at her. “None of that is your problem or responsibility anymore. And, if she ever does come back around, we’ll all be there, in your corner.”

“Absolutely,” Morgan agreed readily. “Team Village forever.”

Harlow giggled. “I don’t think—”

“I know.” Morgan shrugged in the way she did when she’d decided something justwas. No debates, no questions, no other opinions. It just was. And so, we were Team Village.

I laughed again. I didn’t know what was happening with me and Alicia either. I didn’t know a lot of things, but I knew Morgan, and that was so very her.

I also knew I wasn’t leaving Alicia and Harlow’s lives again. Come what may, I was in it for the long haul. I put my hand on top of Harlow’s where it rested on the Formica table top. “Team Village forever.”

“Well, if everyone else is doing it,” Alicia grumbled, reaching over to add her hand to the pile. “Team Village forever.”

The jolt that ran through me when she placed her hand on top of mine was echoed by the tremor in her voice. I was certain she hadn’t thought it all the way through—too busy complaining to consider the repercussions of touching me—but I was glad of it.

For all the ways we’d been coming back together and learning to trust one another again, we hadn’t broken the touch barrier. Now, she’d breached it, and every touch came rushing back.

I thought I might cry, or hyperventilate, even when she pulled her hand quickly back, her face pale. My skin burned like her touch was still there.

I wished it still was.

And that was when I knew what I needed to do. I’d had my time, I was done living without her. Maybe it would go badly, maybe we’d still be in different places, but, for the first time in almost a decade, we were physically in the same place, and I wasn’t going to waste that chance.

And I was going to trade Freddie’s chocolate pie—that we hadn’t yet gotten to—for Ekundayo’s help setting up what I needed.

Chapter 35

Alicia

It was nice to be back at my parents’ house again, even if I was already missing Ripley more than I should. Eight years of learning how to live without her, destroyed in a few weeks and replaced with a deep, aching, absence the minute she was gone again. Even the promise of sleeping in an actual bed again tonight wasn’t enough to soothe the pain of missing her—or the worry that things might break down again now we weren’t stuck in Morgan’s apartment together.

Someone knocked at the door and my foolish heart screamed for it to be Ripley—hopeful, almost expectant. We’d shared so many moments in the last twenty-four hours, surely it had to be her, showing up to—what? Declare her unending love for me? Ask for me back? I was fairly certain I’d lost that chance long ago. I’d started our demise—for a long time, I’d been in denial, but I understood it all better now, and I knew this was on me. I was going to have to be the one to take the leap.

I headed out of the living room and into the hallway where Joel was letting Ekundayo in. I smiled instinctively, wondering whether those two had figured anything out yet—dating, attraction, the key to the universe and existence. With Ripley filling my head, they felt like one and the same.

“Ekundayo brought chocolate pie,” Joel told me, excited and nervous in a way that told me they were still in the mutual pining phase.

“That’s very sweet,” I said, smiling at Ekundayo—who looked equally nervous. “Any particular occasion?”

“Oh, no. Um, just…” he chewed his lip, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether tonight was the night. Was he here to take the leap and ask Joel out? I hoped for both of them he was. “Uh, just, Freddie dropped it by the store and Ripley said I could have it, you know, bring it over here, share it.”

Of course Ripley was involved in this. She’d given Ekundayo some kind of pep talk and sent him over here with Freddie’s cooking to sweep a boy off his feet.

Slightly odd choice to do it while our parents were home.

I froze.

She’d done the same thing with me. She’d come over here, nervous and fidgety, and, with my parents downstairs, she’d confessed her feelings.

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