“That’s a tough call, for sure.” Kendra glanced at her husband. “You ready, baby? I feel like I got run over by a semi, and then it decided it forgot something, shifted into reverse, and ran over me again.”
“That’s a rough day, right there,” Ellis said with a grin.
Evan got to his feet and gave Ellis a hug, then took his wife’s bags off her shoulder.
“Chivalry is not dead,” Ellis said.
“Not in my house,” Kendra agreed. Then she, too, hugged Ellis. “Don’t you stay too late, missy.” She walked around the bed and pressed a kiss to Michaela’s forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she whispered. With a wave to Ellis, the Jacksons headed home, and it was just Ellis and Michaela.
A glance at her phone said it was just after nine. She thought she’d have gotten her next11th Commandmentassignment by now,but sometimes the info didn’t come until after midnight. She needed to head home. Nugget would be hungry for his wet food, but he had plenty of dry, and she wasn’t ready to leave Mikey just yet. That happened sometimes. Every so often, there’d be a day when she was visiting her sister and just felt like she should stay. There was never a particular thing that happened, just a feeling. A tug. A pull on her heart, and more than once, she’d wondered if it was somehow some form of Michaela talking to her. Telepathically or mentally or psychically. There was no real proof, of course. Having a feeling didn’t mean anything concrete. But whenever she felt that tug, she stayed. She didn’t wonder over it, didn’t question it. She just stayed.
She got out her laptop and made herself comfortable in the chair next to Michaela’s bed, stretched out her legs, and used the rolling table as a desk. Her phone pinged and indicated a text from Cherry.
Hi cutie! Doing ok? Met Adam’s guy 2nite. Still here. Nice. Might b kinda drunk.The text was followed by a couple of drink emoji and one with a goofy, overserved-looking expression. She grinned. In the almost two months she’d known Cherry, she’d never seen her intoxicated. And if your long-lost mother showing up out of the blue wasn’t reason enough to get plastered, she didn’t know what was.
As long as ur home, she texted back.All good here.
The dots bounced for a few seconds, then stopped, then bounced some more, then stopped. Cherry was clearly trying to find her words. When they finally arrived, they were simple.
I don’t know what to do.
Ellis didn’t need to ask what she meant or who she was talking about.Then you do nothing. Until you do know.She wished she had an easy answer for her, but it was the best she could do.
Right.
No more dots came, and Ellis assumed she’d gone back to her guest and roommates, which was okay. She was feeling a little in her head, as Michaela used to say when she got all pensive and quiet.
“What would you do, Mikey?” Her voice was soft but still felt a little loud in the silence of the room. She inhaled slowly and let it out bit by bit. “It’s a tough call for us, isn’t it? God knows I’d give anything at all to be able to talk to Mom one more time. Wouldn’t you?” That had been the first thought she’d had when Cherry had told her.You have your mom back! You’re so lucky!But then she remembered thattheir situations were, in fact, not the same. That Ellis’s mom had leftunwillinglyand Cherry’s mom hadchosento leave. Huge difference there.
“What if Mom had left us? Just woke up one day and decided she didn’t want to be our mother anymore? Can you imagine? Can you even begin to imagine? ’Cause I can’t. Not even a little.”
And maybe that was the reason she was having trouble watching Cherry waver. It wouldn’t—for one single second—occur to Ellis not to want to connect with her mother. However, she had zero idea what it was like in Cherry’s shoes. Not just to be abandoned by your mother, but to be left with your father who was, in Cherry’s words, not a nice guy. No, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must feel like. And because of that, she had no right to judge. Or even have an opinion. “Nope. My job is to be supportive of this person I care about.” She turned to look at Michaela, whose blue eyes were watching something unseen on the ceiling. “Right?It’s not my decision to make. I know that.”
And she did. Didn’t make it any easier, but she knew.
Half an hour later, she’d drifted off in the chair and her phone pinging woke her up. A good night text from Cherry.
Sweet dreams. Mtg tomorrow, so no diner. Boo.And a crying emoji.
Sleep well, she texted back, and an emoji blowing a kiss. Then she sat up and stretched her arms above her head. She’d stayed later than she’d intended, and guilt settled on her when she thought about her poor cat.
“Gotta go, Mikey.” She gathered her things together, then gave her sister a kiss. “See you soon.”
Out in her car, she found herself thinking about Cherry again, about how it hadn’t taken long at all for her to become such a huge part of her day. Hell, of her life. She started the engine, then pulled out her phone and texted once more.
I missed you today.
She added a heart emoji, and then headed home, smiling big.
Chapter Nineteen
Tuesday was already a bear, and it was only eleven thirty in the morning. For whatever reason, lots of people had crashed their cars in the days before, and Cherry found herself driving all over town to check claims, examine damage, go over details.
She’d managed to send a text off to Ellis midmorning to see if she could meet for a quick lunch. Because honestly? Seeing her face even for just five minutes would go a long way in helping Cherry get through the rest of her day. Maybe they could do dinner or something.
Driving from client to client was when she did most of her thinking, and luckily, she’d been able to shove Lila to the side for the moment because Ellis had been on her mind a lot lately. She’d used the previous night—meeting Jared and spending time with him, Adam, and Shea—as sort of a test for herself. Not that Ellis spending time with her sister meant Cherry wasn’t allowed to see her. She totally could’ve pushed the issue—she knew that already. Ellis would’ve made time for her, like she had when Cherry had called her back from Cleveland. She’d dropped everything because Cherry had asked her to. That spoke volumes about her reliability and trustworthiness. Not to mention it was a pretty big clue that Ellis was feeling the same way Cherry was about them. No, she had wanted to testherselflast night. Spend the evening away from Ellis, on her own with her friends, and be fine. And she had. She was. But she’d missed Ellis like crazy. More than she’d expected to. And that had been eye-opening. When had she become this person, this girl whose most prominent thoughts revolved around the person she was seeing casually?
That was the important word, right?Casually. They were seeing each othercasually. Okay, Cherry could admit that she was dying to have sex with her again. Because OMG, they were good at it. Playing it cool was much harder than she thought it would be. Part of her just wanted to dive headfirst into Ellis, into a relationship with her, be her girlfriend, spend holidays together, all that stuff couples do, and that was surprising. Given her upbringing, the whole idea of the happy life, white picket fence thing tended to be kind of a joke. But part of her thought about it. Often. The other part? Yeah. The other part knew there was much more they needed to deal with. Talk about. Take apart.
