Page 65 of Change My Mind
“What the fuck have you been saying about me?”
Becky laughed sharply. “Nothing bad. You’re one of my sisters. How exactly am I not going to talk about what you’re doing when people ask?”
“And who exactly is Josh? I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned him.”
“He’s one of ours. As in, he’s a history professor.” I knew it. “Although he’s kind of one of yours. He loves the Tudors.”
“What does that…Oh, Shakespeare?”
“Yes, Shakespeare. Isn’t loving him the entire personality of the Henry clan, except for Vivi, who has taste?” she asked teasingly.
I rolled my eyes. “Give me five minutes, and I will give you a cerulean blue-esque speech about how everything you do is influenced by that time period. I’ve just gotta get my thoughts straight on it.”
“Yeah, sure. Can you straighten your thoughts out while we head back to Clo’s? We have a party to get ready for.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Are you supposed to be so bold about admitting there’s a party happening?”
Becky rolled her eyes. “Don’t act like Clo didn’t already warn you about your birthday party weeks ago.”
I half snorted, half laughed as I locked my new office door.
Forty-One
ELI
Ihad quickly come to love working for people who strongly encouraged a work-life balance, but as someone who had experienced the opposite for the past decade, I was still finding it hard to get used to having actual free time.
Today, I sent Addie off with her breakfast, did the big shop, two loads of washing and built another chest of drawers for Addie to replace the space that had been occupied for weeks with an open suitcase overflowing with clothes. I had no idea if she would use it, but at least now there was a chance she wasn’t going to hurt herself climbing over her suitcase every morning to get out of bed.
That had taken up most of my day, and now I was lying on the sofa, questioning whether buying and building a chest of drawers for your flatmate and the woman you have semi-regular sex with was a bit much.
Not that we’d had sex since she had given me one of the best orgasms of my life and kissed me on the forehead goodnight.
Before I could get too deep into my overthinking, there was a knock on the front door. I checked the bowl where we both kept our keys, and Addie’s weren’t in there, so I had no idea who could be knocking on the door in the late afternoon.
I opened it to find Jesse on the other side.
“Hey, Addie isn’t here right now,” I said on autopilot.
He seemed surprised at how I had greeted him, but he shook it off quickly. “I know. I’m not here to see her. I went by the restaurant, and Xander said it was your day off, so I came here. I’m here for you.”
I frowned. Despite what Addie insisted, I still didn’t believe that her friends were going to openly let me enter their ranks. So I had no idea why one of them would specifically want to seeme.“Okay. Why?”
Jesse smiled and rested a hand on my bicep, giving it a gentle squeeze before he headed to the kitchen. “Because I woke up this morning, and realised that there had been a massive oversight and we had failed to extend an invitation to you. And because of the extremely late notice, I figured it was best if we had this conversation in person.”
I closed the door and followed him. “An invitation to what?”
“Addie’s birthday party. Tonight,” he replied sheepishly as he leaned against a counter.
I paused in the doorway of the kitchen. “Herwhat?”
Addie hadn’t mentioned anything about a birthday party. In fact, she hadn’t even mentioned that her birthday was coming up. I knew it was towards the end of August, but I guess I never thought to ask for a specific date, and it had slipped me by that we were basically in September now. Addie rarely gave information about herself freely. You had to ask explicitly if you wanted to know anything. She was raised by a lawyer, after all.
Still, I thought there might be signs that it was imminent. There had been nothing.
“That’s today?”
Jesse, rightfully, looked confused. “Yes. It’s today.”
