Ellis grimaced, feeling sheepish as she admitted, “I mean, I was gonna do some cleaning, too.”
“Girl,” Kitty said and somehow managed to make that one word sound both scolding and loving at the same time. “What am I gonna do with you?”
Ellis let go of yet another huge sigh, then whined, “I don’tknow,” dragging out the last word to about five syllables.
“What do you want from this girl?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Kitty gave a snort. “Well, don’t you think you’d better figure that out? And if the answer is nothing, then you leave her the hell alone. But if it’s something…” She tilted her head like Ellis should already know the answer.
And she did.
“I want to be with her. I want us to try. We are so good together, and I want to see where we could go. But”—she swallowed, unsure why it was hard to say this—“I want her to be real. I don’t want the fake, filtered, artificial Cherry on Top. I want therealCherry. If she can’t be real with me—”
“She’s been real with you,” Kitty corrected.
That was true, she was beginning to understand. Both Kendra and Kitty had said the same thing, and Ellis was starting to get that they were right. “Yes, but she kept the rest hidden. Lied about it. Sort of.”
Kitty nodded. “And does she know this is what you want from her?”
Yeah, there was that, wasn’t there? Because they hadn’t talked since she’d been over to see Cherry and watched her reading her mom’s letters. They’d texted a bit, sure, but they hadn’ttalked. Not about them. “I mean, she knows it was a problem for me.”
“But have you told her you’re still interested if she’s willing to do this one thing?”
“I haven’t told her that, no. The whole thing with her mom was a distraction.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I hate when you make that sound.”
Kitty shrugged. “It’s just a sound.”
“It’s a judgy sound.”
“That’s because I’m judging you.”
Ellis dropped her head to her desk and slowly banged her forehead against it while groaning. It made Kitty laugh.
“Honey, you know what you need to do here. Nothing good ever comes from hiding your feelings from your partner.” Kitty waved her hand in front of Ellis. “Case in point.”
A groan. She’d been doing a lot of that lately. “I know. I know. You’re right.”
Kitty sat up and cupped a hand to her ear. “Say that again, would you? I can’t hear it enough.”
“You. Are. Right.” Ellis laughed then. She couldn’t help it.
“You’re damn right, I’m right.” Kitty pushed herself to her feet. “I’d love to stay and solve all the world’s problems, but I have a barbecue to host.” She moved to the large walk-in refrigerator, went inside, and came out with a silver bowl covered in plastic wrap. The biscuit dough, Ellis presumed. “And if you change your mind, come on over to my place, okay? You can bring your redhead.”
“Thanks, Kitty. I owe you.”
“You owe me nothing.” Kitty stopped on her way toward the door and turned to meet Ellis’s gaze. “It’s okay to say what you need. Totally allowed, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And it’s okay to be happy. Youdeserveto be happy. Okay?”
That one was harder for her, but Kitty clearly wasn’t leaving until Ellis smiled softly and said, “Okay.”
