easy. There was nothing strained between them.
 
 It was nice, being able to sit in Quinn’s place and do it
 
 again. The banter. Like they used to. Without strain. Dallas
 
 knew that she had to talk to Quinn about what happened the
 
 night before and that did feel strained, but she couldn’t just sit
 
 there and put it off. She didn’t have time not to talk about the
 
 hard stuff.
 
 “Quinn…”
 
 “Dallas…”
 
 Dallas laughed. “I guess we’re both thinking the same
 
 thing.”
 
 “Probably. You go first. I’ll listen. To the end this time. I
 
 promise.”
 
 “Okay.” Dallas shifted on the stool so she could clench her
 
 hands between her bare knees. It reminded her that she was
 
 wearing a dress and that she was slightly uncomfortable in it.
 
 “I- when I got the call from the lawyer, I was literally walking
 
 down the street and had to duck into an alley. Apparently it
 
 might be my destination of choice when it comes to hard
 
 conversations.”
 
 “Did that one smell like ancient, deep fried socks.”
 
 “No. No, it smelled fine. Um- I was really shocked when I
 
 got the call. I know you think that I moved and I put
 
 everything behind me and just forgot about my life here, but I
 
 didn’t. I thought about you all the time. I thought about your
 
 family. It made me really sad to hear about your grandpa,
 
 especially because I never got to say goodbye and then he was
 
 gone. I know I could have. I should have done a lot of things
 
 differently, and that hit me hard. And then when the lawyer
 
 was saying I’d have to come back to Topeka to get money that