Page 117 of Divorced from Number Thirty-Eight
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
She leans her head against my arm, smiles up at me. “And I’ll still be there anyway.”
Fuck, I feel that deep in my heart.
But instead of taking her back to my house and showing her exactly how much that means to me, I lace my fingers through hers and start walking again. She falls quiet as we round the corner and at first I think it’s because she’s processing—and likely going to be doing it for a good long while—all she’s lost. But when I glance down at her, she doesn’t seem to be in pain.
Instead, she seems a hundred miles away.
“What is it?” I ask.
She misses a step, then shakes her head, as though shaking off all those miles. “It’s nothing, really,” she says, but goes on before I can push her for a real answer, “I just…between the insurance stuff and Courtney, the stories in the press and my publicist…” A sigh. “It’s been a lot.”
“I know it has, Red.”
I want to hold her close again, to find a way to make it all go away.
But we’ve had enough heavy over the last couple of days.
“You’ve had all of that plus having to bunk with a big, annoying hockey player who burns things on the regular.” I tug at the end of her ponytail. “You’ve really been through it.” A beat. “And I’m not just talking about the fire.” Another pause. “Or the weird pregame meals.”
She giggles. “You’re incorrigible.”
Not normally.
But it’s easy with Faye.
Easy to laugh and joke and be myself.
“You like it,” I counter.
“I do.” Her lips twitch as she lightly touches my jaw. “In fact, I love it.” A beat. “So much I forgive you for burning my banana bread.”
Another thread wrapping tightly around my heart. Another piece I hold close.
But…keeping it light.
I tug at her ponytail again, laugh when she swats me away. “So, since banana bread is off the table, what are we going to burn next?”
“There’s no we when it comes to burning.” She lifts her chin. “And anyway, we didn’t burn the sugar cookies we made last night.”
Yup.
More baking commenced last night.
And we faired—well, I faired—much better at cookies than banana bread.
“Or the lemon tart,” I point out.
“That’s because we didn’t actually have to bake that one,” she says on a giggle that has my heart expanding.
True enough. It only required store-bought ingredients and time in the fridge.
I’m still counting it as a win.
We keep walking, picking our way to the spot where her kitchen window used to be and she exhales, laughter gone, the pain drifting back through her, hunching her shoulders, shrouding her eyes. “Nana used to love being in the kitchen,” she whispers. “Said it was the heart of the house.”
“I agree.”
