Page 3 of The Luck of Finding You
MoReads:Of course. Now. Can we talk about what you’ll do today to make your Monday great? Even if work meetings are the worst?
I relax. “Thank you, Mo,” I whisper to my phone.Thank you for not making me accidentally saying “love” awkward. We really are just friends.
2
NOAH
“What are you grinning about?” my sister, Annie, asks as soon as I get back to our hotel room. My dog, Mo, runs up to greet her. When he sees someone he likes, he wags his whole body, not just his tail. He’s a west highland white terrier, which is the best kind of dog, in my opinion. Plus, he’s adorable.
“Nothing,” I say, but I can’t stop my smile from growing as I think about Nora, my online best friend. I love that I was the one who told her about Simone’s book.
“It’s Nora, right?” Annie rolls her eyes. While she doesn’t think it’s weird that I have an online friend, she thinks that I need to just meet the woman, for how much I mention her and the things she says. But isn’t it normal to talk about your friends?
“Yeah. Simone Sorrows has a new book coming out in a few weeks, and I was the one who told her about it.” Mo jumps up on one of the beds and curls up in a ball, and I go sit by him.
“Okay, that is cool.”
Annie doesn’t read a ton of fantasy. I think most of the time she has her head buried in either a classic or a cookbook, but she appreciates all reading.
“And since I was planning to visit Mom in a couple of weeks, I bought myself a ticket to the event Simone has in St. George.”
Annie crinkles her nose, making her look four instead of twenty-four. “Where’s that?”
“Here in Utah. South of here. It was the closest event to Colorado.” I let out a shaky breath. “I also bought a ticket for Nora; I’m going to ask if she’ll meet me in person there. Since Simone’s books are the ones that brought us together, it feels like a good place to meet.”
“FINALLY!” Annie jumps up and hugs me, a huge grin on her face. “It’s about time you meet your mystery lady friend.”
“That makes it sound so weird when you call her that.” I give her a side hug back, but she’s already bouncing away. That’s the thing about Annie—she’s rarely sitting still, and when she is moving, she seems to be skipping or bouncing through life. A lot of people in my life tell me that I’m one of the most optimistic people they know, but they’ve never met Annie.
“Well, sheisa mysterious lady friend.” Annie sits on her bed, folding her legs under her. “Is she not?”
“I guess so.”
“So, do you think Grandma Marsha left us her bookstore?” Annie changes the subject to the one we’ve been avoiding for the past two days. We didn’t talk about it when we got the call from Grandma Marsha’s lawyer last week. Or on the plane here yesterday. Or last night when we went out to eat.
At the funeral two weeks ago, I did wonder about what would happen to the shop, but then we headed back to New York and that was that. Until Mr. Thorne called us.
“What are we going to do with a bookstore?” I bite the inside of my cheek, and Annie gives me a grin that tells me that I’m not going to like what comes out of her mouth next.
“You could always run it. You’ve been trying to figure out something new to do anyway, and you did say that you were going to start taking more chances after everything happened last summer.”
I glance down.
I did say that. I meant it too. After you almost die, it wakes you up to see the life that you’re living. It makes you want to do more and be more. But it’s been a year, and the feeling has started to fade. I want a change, but moving to Utah to run my grandma’s old bookstore? Not exactly the change I was hoping for. “Right. Or we could sell.”
“We could sell.” Annie humors me. “Or you could work here. You know, the whole ‘I’m going to say yes to everything that comes my way!’ Did you not tell me that like a month ago?”
I squirm. “I did.” I’ve been trying to live the way I did right after the camping incident, when everything changed for me. But it’s one thing to talk about saying yes to everything and another entirely to actually do it.
“Exactly. This can be the first big thing you say yes to.” Annie laughs, even though I don’t think this is very funny. “Plus, you keep taking all those clients you always complain about, even though you don’t actually need to work for them.”
I know she’s right; this could be the next thing for me, and I do hate most of my clients. I don’t technically need to work. Seven years ago, when I was eighteen, I sold a puzzle game app that I’d created from scratch. I could still be living off my earnings—and I still do, but most of it is in savings.
But I like working. For the most part.
“I just need better clients.” This is a lie I’ve been telling myself. The truth is, I’m burned out building websites for hundreds of different clients each year. But I can’t imagine myself sitting in an office at a desk every day, which is why I keep taking new clients.
“You’ve been saying that for years.” Annie lies back on her bed, an arm in the air. She can relax in the strangest positions. “But maybe, because you don’t actually do anything, fate is taking over.”
