Page 24 of Feast

“Come to Grand Rapids and move in with me,” Maddie repeated. “The house has three bedrooms, so there’s plenty of room.”

“But…I’d have to find a job,” Halley began.

“You’re going to do that anyway,” Maddie pointed out. “You’ll just be doing it in Grand Rapids instead of Mt. Pleasant.”

Halley bit her lip, her eyes worried. “I don’t have much in savings, Maddie. I couldn’t give you much for rent until I find something.”

“I’ll cover the rent until you do,” Maddie told her.

“Oh, I can’t let you do that.”

“I’m paying it whether you’re there or not,” Maddie pointed out. “You can cover half the utilities if it makes you feel better.”

Halley’s lip quivered. “You really want me to live with you?”

“I want you somewhere that people don’t treat you like shit and you have the time and space to figure out what you want,” Maddie said firmly, then smiled. “Getting to be roomies again is just a bonus.”

“I still don’t know what…it might be me and a baby,” Halley reminded her.

“If it is, you’ll need help, right?”

Halley’s eyes lit with hope. “You’d help me?”

“Of course, I’ll help,” Maddie said, mildly affronted at the question. “I’ll go with you to doctor’s appointments, hold your hand during labor, I’ll change diapers…I have to draw the line at lactating, but anything else you need, I’m there.”

“Oh God, Mads.” Halley’s eyes went bright with unshed tears, and she lurched forward to wrap her arms around Maddie in a fierce hug. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Maddie murmured, holding on tight. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Halley said and pulled back on a watery laugh to wipe at her eyes. “Sorry. Hormones.”

“Well, pull yourself together,” Maddie ordered with deliberate cheer. “We’re late meeting Dad for lunch, and we still have to pick out a present.”

“Right.” Halley knuckled away her tears, then bent over the jewelry case again. “What do you think of this necklace?”

“It’s pretty,” Maddie decided, eyeing the sparkling, teardrop aquamarine in an elegantly simple gold setting. “Not gaudy, but big enough to wow.”

Halley nodded in agreement. “Plus, aquamarine is Dad’s birthstone.”

“I guess that makes it perfect.” Maddie signaled for the clerk. “Let’s pay for it and go eat.”

“I’m starving,” Halley admitted in a low voice as the clerk hustled over, all smiles. “These days I’m either puking my guts out or eating like a horse.”

“Good thing we’re going to a buffet, then,” Maddie observed, and pulled out her credit card. “That one,” she told the clerk. “And we’ll need it gift-wrapped.”

“Spencer, are you listening?”his mother asked, and from her tone it wasn’t the first time.

Spence winced. He’d woken up late, his body clock thrown off by the time change and the late night, and had barely had enough time to shower and change before meeting his mother for lunch.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not firing on all cylinders yet.”

“So I see.” His mother raised one elegantly groomed eyebrow in a mirror of his own habitual expression. “Did you hit the casino last night or something?”

“Or something,” he allowed, thinking of 3A.

“Hmm.” Heather picked up her champagne and sipped, watching him over the rim of the glass with eyes as blue as the summer sky and shrewd as a wolf. “You should get a nap this afternoon.”

“Planning on it.”

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