Page 84 of Space Oddities

“No can do.” Jules, stock-still after being pin-pricked, waits for the seamstress to nod her approval over the hem length before kicking out of her shoes. “Love means no secrets.”

“Then you can love me a little less, Starr,” Rose jokes. “You can keep your bedroom shenanigansprivate.”

Both laugh, but I can’t quite lift my lips into a smile. “Everyone has secrets.”

“Well sure, I guess.” Jules unzips, completely at ease with her boobs out in front of everyone. “But not between you and the people you love.” She grabs her T-shirt once she hangs up her gown. “Learned that the hard way, didn’t I?”

Rose nods solemnly, as if thinking over what happened to Jules a few weeks ago.

“Now there isn’t a damn thing that Holt doesn’t know about me. And the man still loves me.” She tips her head to one side, apparently pondering what she just said. “Or maybe he loves mebecausehe knows everything about me?”

The seamstress fluffs out Rose’s gown and checks the hem.

“I don’t know much about relationships, having never been in one.” Rose faces the mirror. “But I have to agree with Starr on this.”

Jules nods, picking her pants up off the floor where she dropped them earlier. “Of course you do.”

Rose rolls her eyes but continues. “My father never really knew all that much about our mother.” She shrugs, causing her hemline to rise, and the seamstress to tsk. “None of us did, or do to this day. To hear my grandpa tell it, my mama just sort of showed up. As I got older, I became more aware of my dad’s struggles. He loved her, but it was like trying to hold on to smoke— no substance. Too many unanswered questions.”

“Didn’t help that the woman wasn’t faithful.” Jules catches Rose’s eyes and pauses. “Ah, no offense.”

“No offense taken.” A sad smile pulls at Rose’s lips. “But that was just one more not-so-secret secret between them. Sometimes she’d just leave, and no one knew if she was ever coming back. Dad, never knowing why she’d left, felt like it must have been his fault. As the tension between them built up, he spent more and more time with his cars, blowing off steam 100 miles per hour at the track.” Rose looks straight into my eyes, like she’s talkingtome and not about her mother.

Maybe she is.

Finished checking the last hemline, the seamstress gathers her things and scurries out of the large dressing room, head down and eyes averted. We might have subjected her to a little TMI, but at least this time we aren’t three sheets to the wind.

Jules stomps her feet into her motorcycle boots. Standing, she checks herself out in the mirror, looking just as confident in a Captain Marvel T-shirt and loose, low-slung jeans as she did a moment ago dolled up in couture. “It’s awesome knowing the person you love knows everything about you and still loves you.”

Jules’ words freeze me from the inside out.

“Yes, yes, you’resoloved.” Rose shimmies out of her dress, her large chest requiring a corset underneath. “If I have to hear one more time how loved you are I’m gonna scream.”

Leaning against the wall, arms folded across her chest, Jules smirks at her. “You mean you don’t want to hear how your brother loves me so much that he was willing to defile his precious kitchen with sweaty, kinky sex last night?”

Rose hangs her head. “Jesus. You know that’smykitchen too, right?”

“Oh yeah.” Jules strokes her chin like a villain, evil smile still in place. “Maybe don’t eat at the island anytime soon. Not sure if Holt remembered to give it a good wipe down.”

They continue bickering, which I usually find amusing, but my mind can’t register the insults.

Hearing Rose talk about her past and Jules her relationship, it hits me how selfish I’ve been. Withholding my truth may protect them, but it protects me more. And when I’m gone, will they always wonder why I left? Will they think it’s their fault?

If I couldn’t give them the truth while here, couldn’t I at least give them the truth after I’m gone? So they don’t worry, or question, or somehow think they’re to blame for my leaving.

It isn’t until Jules starts talking in an outside voice about sex with Holt while Rose chants “la, la, la” with her hands over her ears that I break out of my trance.

“Okay, okay, you two, time to go.” I open the dressing room door and push Jules and Rose out, Rose hopping on one foot while trying to jam the other into her boot. “They’re fixin’ to kick us out of here if you two don’t stop with your shenanigans.”

Based on the mother-daughter duos in the store who stare and whisper as we pass by, Jules’ outside voice had definitely carried. The store manager waits by the entrance, one hand poised to yank open the door for us. Despite the amped-up air conditioning, her face is pink and glistening, her smile frozen in place like those of the mannequins.

Once outside, Jules links her arm with mine. “Speaking of kicking out, you do know that I need to revoke Ian’s ban from the ranch for the wedding, right?”

The mention of his name brings me up short. After my emotional support animal session with Cookie, I threw myself into last-minute preparations with Jules and the wedding planner. Rose had called dibs on the bachelorette party tonight.

But it only takes hearing his name to bring it all back. The good, the amazing, and the regrets.

And I realize it isn’t just my girlfriends that I need to come clean to.

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