Page 14 of Butterfly Sisters
Leigh definitely didn’t want to tell Meredith this. Meredith would probably laugh in her face. Her temples began to throb again, despite the ibuprofen. She took a drink of her water. Then, with a deep breath of smoky, earthy air, Leigh spit it out: “I lost my job.”
The fire popped and a dog barked in the distance, the crickets beginning their nightly song, as Mama’s eyes grew round. “Really? When?”
“Yesterday. They’re going ‘in a different direction,’” she said with air quotes, the entire ordeal still beyond her comprehension.
The dog barked again, echoing in her aching brain.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing they could’ve done,” Mama said with complete bewilderment. “You’re a brilliantly smart woman.”
Leigh smiled.Protective mother.
The bark came once more, this time coming up beside her. In the light of the fire, it looked like… “Elvis?” The hound walked over and sniffed her hand, his long ears lifting in interest as he moved around her legs.
“Hey,” Colton said, striding across the grass and setting the six-pack of beer he’d gotten at Leon’s on the ground beside him.
“Oh my goodness,” Mama said, her face splitting into an enormous smile, the atmosphere immediately lifting with his presence. “Colton, how have you been?”
“Good,” he replied. His gaze fluttered over to Leigh, as he dropped down into the seat next to her and picked up a bottle. He popped the top off on the edge of the chair, offering it to her.
“No, thank you,” she said, her stomach turning with the admission of losing her job, waving it off politely. Had he overheard? The idea of it made her feel nauseous.
He offered the open bottle to Katherine. Her mother reached across the space between their chairs and took it. His gaze landed back on Leigh as if he were assessing her, making her jittery, her head feeling like she’d been submerged in the lake.
“It’s not you. I just have a headache,” Leigh attempted to explain to him.
“I can grab you some medicine,” Mama said, getting up right away. “We’ve got some inside…”
“Mama,” she said, stopping her mother before she ran back into the house. “I took something before I came out. I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”
This was twice now that she hadn’t been ready to see Colton. His irritation was clear in his inhalations as he sat by the fire. She wanted to put her arms around him, carefree like they had been when they were young, and look into those dark-brown eyes. She wanted to see him smile at her with that look that was uniquely his. He was the physical representation of the best parts of her childhood. If only she’d been able to tell him that, when she’d seen him for the first time. Not looking at his face, she focused on the muscles in his arms—so different from the lanky limbs that had wrapped around her all those years ago.
Elvis went over near the lake, sniffing around.
Colton reached down and retrieved a beer for himself, popping the top and tipping it up against his lips, swallowing long, deep swigs of it as the crickets got louder. Mama was about to offer him a marshmallow when a light up at the house cut through the darkness.
“Let’s get this party started!” Meredith’s voice came from the porch. She burst through the screen door, making a beeline straight for Colton, wrapping her thin limbs around him with an excited shriek. Her hair was long, almost to the middle of her back, wild tendrils with bottle-blonde highlights. When she pulled back, her skin was milky and vibrant, as if a day hadn’t gone by since they were kids.
“Beer?” he asked, grinning at her.
Meredith got the first real grin.Leigh couldn’t even do reunions right.
“Hell yeah,” she said, walking over to his six-pack and helping herself. She sat down in the empty chair, her frock dress fanning out over her legs. “Hey,” she said to her mother and Leigh, as if she hadn’t been gone for two years. “What’s up?” Her long fingers enveloped her bottle of beer, three of them wrapped in thin gold rings with different colored stones.
Leigh wanted to get up and run into her bedroom, drop down onto the bed and drift off to anywhere other than the chair where she sat right now. She wasn’t ready to deal with all of this just yet. She needed time to process everything before she could be a good hostess to Colton, wait for her mother’s news, and handle her sister.
“What?” Meredith asked, dropping the word between them with a heavy clunk, tearing Leigh from her moment of self-pity.
Only then did Leigh realize her eyes had remained on Meredith.
“I came early,” Meredith snapped. “You said next week, but I came whenyoudid and Istillget a look.” She let out an annoyed laugh.
“Meredith,” their mother said calmly, in a clear attempt to defuse the situation.
“Colton doesn’t need us to sugarcoat it for him. He knows us all too well.” Meredith tipped her beer over to his, toasting the necks of their bottles. “So thankful you’re here.”
He smiled again. That was two.
“I’m glad you came,” Leigh said to Meredith, her words weaker than she’d wanted them to sound. If she let herself, she’d probably fall into tears right then and there, the utter fatigue of the day settling upon her.
