Page 1 of All's Well that Friends Well

JULIET || eight months ago || Juliet 24; India 26; Aurora 28

These daysit seems like I can’t do anything right.

I mean, look. I can put together an outfit for any occasion. I can teach ballet or tap or jazz. I can do a perfect—and I meanperfect—smoky eye.

But I can’t find a job. I can’t even figure out how to make myself sound good on a résumé. No one cares that I can do the splits, you know? I have zero relevant skills for anywhere that’s hiring, and I have yet to find a company that cares about ballet or cute clothes or spot-on makeup, either.

So I am going to teach my big sister to bake a delicious carrot cake, because she asked for help, and no one ever asks me for help. I will get that one mission right, even if it’s the last thing I do.

It will not be the last thing I do, obviously. But I will devote myself to this cake nonetheless. Because aside from fashion and ballet, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’scomfort baking. And since India wants to learn, I will teach her.

I’ve applied at every bakery within ten miles, by the way; none of them are hiring either. So.

I hurry around the kitchen of the house my sisters and I rent together, gathering ingredients. I had a bit of a meltdown a while back over not being able to find work, which resulted in stress-baking a million cupcakes. Thankfully my sisters helped me offload all of those baked goods onto the people around us, but our little oven is probably still traumatized. So today India and I will be working in our parents’ kitchen. It’s only a few minutes away, and they’re not even home, so we won’t be underfoot.

They’re on a ten-month cruise, living the dream—and rudely leaving behind their four children, who wouldalsolike to be living the dream. Cute swimsuits and endless fresh fruit and days full of sunbathing, an audiobook playing in my ears. How incredible does that sound? Pretty amazing, right?

I guess I can’t complain, though; not really. Lucky, Colorado, is a paradise of its own. Even more than that, it’s home. The sun is bright and the sky is impossibly blue, even when I’m feeling cloudy inside.

Sometimes when I’m hit by unpleasant memories, reminders of things I’d rather forget, I go outside and stare at the aspen-covered mountains. They’ll change color in a few months, one of my favorite times of year. I watch the trees blow in the breeze, take a deep breath, do some stretches while the wind plays with the grass. Those things are usually enough to prop me upright again.

I’m pulled out of my reverie when my phone chimes; it’s India, asking what’s taking so long. I remind my sister thatdeliciousness cannot be rushed and reassure her I’m on my way. Then I stow my phone back in my pocket.

I glance out the kitchen window briefly at the mountains in the distance and continue gathering supplies. We need a few eggs, so I put some carefully in a sandwich baggie, and then I grab the flour and butter and a few more things. Cream cheese, obviously, for the frosting—the best part of carrot cake is the cream cheese frosting—as well as sugar.

All these things bulge out of the grocery bag I stuff them in, but I manage to make them fit. I hurry out through the laundry room and into the garage, where I tuck my bag of baking supplies into the back seat of my secondhand car and carefully buckle it in.

“Safety first,” I say sternly to the bag. Then I hop into the driver’s seat, and I’m pulling up in front of my parents’ place five minutes later.

I blink forcefully as I look up at their house—myhouse, too, the place I grew up. This is where I practiced ballet in front of the bathroom mirror after my first ever dance lesson. It’s where I got ready for my first date. It’s where I cried with my sisters when our dad had a health scare years and years ago.

My life has been lived here. It’s weird knowing that my parents are searching for a short-term tenant to rent the house while they’re on their cruise; weird to think of another person in the space that’s still so personal even though I don’t occupy it anymore.

I hurry up the lawn, pushing the strange twinge of loss aside and keeping my eyes firmly on the bag full of ingredients cradled in my arms. At this point things are looking precarious, but so far nothing has fallen, and it needs to staythat way. Each step I take is careful and balanced, and when I reach the front door, I open it and step gently inside?—

Just in time to hear a scream.

It’s not just any scream, either; it’sIndia’sscream. And my sister is not a screamer.

Dread sinks in my stomach, a slime-coated, nauseated feeling that has my heart pounding all the way in my throat and liable to rise further. Forget about keeping my supplies safe and balanced; at India’s shout of alarm, I barrel through the family room and into the kitchen, where my eyes find several things at once.

India, backed up against the kitchen counter—and a giant, toweringman.

He’s one billion feet tall, and I’ve never seen him before in my life, and he’s reaching for the knife block.

A scream of my own escapes my lips as I shudder to a halt behind India, my precious bag of baking supplies tumbling out of my arms. The bag of flour hits the floor like an explosion, poofing white dust into the air, and my brain isn’t even working, but the man is still approaching my sister, and his hand is still outstretched toward the knives, and—and?—

And I will never let anyone hurt my sisters.

I launch myself at him, a strangled cry ripping from the back of my throat. I don’t know what my plan is, but I do it anyway; I leap for him.

Only my feet get tangled in the plastic sack, and the heavy bag of flour is in my way, too, and I plummet forward. The scene before me disappears rapidly as the stone tile rises to meet me, and above me I hear a sickthudlike the sound of someone being hit over the head?—

Followed by the unmistakable sound of a giant man falling to the floor.

The strange manwas Luca Slater—the new tenant my mom forgot to tell us about, the one renting the house until he can find a place of his own. He was reaching toward the knife block when he saw India and me, yes, but only because he wanted to hang his keys on the hookabovethe knives. He’s scary-looking but incredibly handsome, especially once I realized he wasn’t trying to kill my sister—thick, dark hair; square glasses; a straight nose; a strong jaw.

I saw these little bits of manly perfection up close. In exquisite detail, in fact…

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