Cherry hurled the glass, and it shattered on impact, the sound echoing through the alleyway. “Oh, that felt good.”
“Yeah? Well, there are twenty-three more here if you want to throw them all. Also? I find that yelling when you do it increases the satisfaction.”
Cherry didn’t wait. She took the next glass and roared—literallyroared—as she hurled it.
“There ya go,” Ellis said, finding her own satisfaction in just the watching.
Without taking a break, Cherry threw ten glasses in a row. Slightly out of breath and definitely a little flushed, she smiled at Ellis. “This is amazing.”
“I thought you might like it.”
“You’ve done this?”
A nod, but no words from her.
“One day, I’m gonna ask for details,” Cherry said, pulling the next glass from the rack.
“Fair enough.”
Cherry slowed her pace a bit, likely both from being tired and from realizing her glass supply was dwindling. And possibly emotion. She’d become quiet. Pensive. The corners of her mouth were turned down in a soft frown. When there were only two left, she pulled them both out and handed one to Ellis. “Together on three?”
Ellis positioned herself next to Cherry as she counted.
“One…two…three!”
They threw their glasses together, twin shatterings against the brick wall echoing down the alley as they stood there, shoulder to shoulder, Cherry breathing heavily.
“Ellis.”
She turned and met Cherry’s eyes, the sunglasses now pushed up onto her head, holding her red hair back so her entire face was visible. Sliding her own glasses off, she cocked her head.
“Thank you for this.” Cherry leaned in and kissed her tenderly on the mouth. “It helped. A lot.”
Ellis laid her hand against Cherry’s face. “I’m glad. And you’re very welcome.” Another kiss, warm and comforting. “Want to grab dinner?”
“Yes, please. I’ve worked up an appetite.”
“You have. Good job.” She took the rack back inside while Cherry used the push broom to sweep up all the shards of glass that now littered the pavement. Together, as if they’d worked as a team for years, they picked it all up, put it in the dumpster, and rolled that back to its original position.
As Ellis reset the alarm and locked the diner back up, Cherry rubbed a hand along her back. “This was awesome. I feel better somehow. I mean, my issue hasn’t gone anywhere, but…”
“You got rid of some of the stress.” Ellis smiled and grabbed her hand. As they walked to the car, she said, “I’m glad.”
On their way to the restaurant, Ellis glanced at Cherry a few times as she sat in the passenger seat. Her eyes still held a bit of worry, but there was a small smile on her face, and it occurred to Ellis that Cherry hadn’t picked up her phone once in the entire time they’d been together that day.
What purple-haired chick?
Chapter Eighteen
Cherry wassobehind on posting content.
One of the very first things Andi had taught her was that if she wanted to stay relevant, she needed to post regularly. It didn’t have to be a lot. Didn’t have to be a complicated video that took hours of editing. Didn’t have to be a series of any kind, or anything with tons of explanation. Just a photo would do. And she’d taken zero yesterday. She’d have to delve into her stockpile, the random photos she took all the time and saved to use on a day exactly like this one.
It was just about the beginning of June, and it was unseasonably hot, and Cherry was frustrated. With herself and with her moth—um, Lila. Not because anything had happened. It hadn’t. Lila hadn’t contacted her. She hadn’t contacted Lila. Lila hadn’t shown up at the diner again since that day. Part of Cherry was relieved. The rest of her? Kind of pissed. Because what the fuck? She’d walked in, dropped a bomb likeI’m your mother who abandoned you almost thirty years ago, hi, and then she just sat back and waited?
Which, Cherry had to admit, was the right thing to do, the waiting. Lila couldn’t push. Couldn’t press. Wasn’t in the position to. But man, Cherry hated having the ball in her court. She had no idea what to do with it. Worse, she had no idea what shewantedto do with it. So she stood there.
Ellis had been amazing all week. Supportive but not pushy. Available to talk, but she never pried. Cherry brought the subject up once or twice, but they shut it down again when her brain felt overloaded. “It’s okay to sit with it,” Ellis had said the other night. “For as long as you want to. There’s zero hurry here.”
