“I like you, too.” Her own voice was hoarse. Scratchy.
“But…I can’t.” Adley pushed herself to her feet. “God, why did it have to be you? Thissucks.” Adley was at the front door before Sabrina even realized she was moving. She stopped with it open and looked back, and their gazes held. Seeing Adley about to walk out the door with tears streaming down her face was pretty much the worst sight Sabrina could remember. She pushed to her feet and followed Adley to the door, but she was already through and out. Sabrina stood in the doorway and watched as Adley opened her car door and looked back at her.
The anguish in her eyes was brutal.
A lump formed in Sabrina’s throat as Adley started her car and backed out of the driveway, then drove away. She was pretty sure her heart was in that car, and it left with Adley.
“Fuck,” she whispered as she stood there.
The sky had darkened since the time they’d come home with the puppy, steel-gray clouds moving in, and now, and it began to rain. Big fat drops fell on the small porch, and she looked up into the sky and sighed and shook her head. “Perfect. Just fucking perfect.”
Chapter Eleven
How had this happened?
Adley didn’t understand it.
It was July Fourth weekend, and she’d said good-bye to Sabrina nearly three weeks ago. Not that that had stopped Sabrina from texting, because it hadn’t. True, the texts had become less frequent—a skill Adley had perfected over the years was ignoring somebody who’d hurt her, just ask any of her exes…or Scottie, after that time she’d forgotten to meet Adley for dinner and left her sitting in a restaurant alone for an hour—but they were still coming. Every day, she’d get at least one. At first, they were all apologetic. Sabrina was sorry about not telling Adley the second she realized where she worked, she was sorry for suggesting the no-work-talk rule in the first place, could they please talk, she missed her, etc., etc., etc. After the first week, the texts began to slow. Adley was pretty sure Sabrina wouldn’t be ballsy enough to show up at Get the Scoop, but the texts kept coming, and now, they were mostly photos and updates about the puppy. Sprinkles, she’d named him, which Adley thought was the stupidest name possible…and also the cutest.
Speaking of texts, her phone pinged as she was mixing flavors, and she sighed. Sometimes, she didn’t look for hours, and other times, she glanced right away, just to get it over with. This was one of those moments, so she slid the phone out, but it wasn’t Sabrina. It was Scottie.
Meet you on the hill by 8.
Another sigh. Adley was doing a lot of sighing these days, as everything seemed to take energy out of her. She was meeting Scottie, Marisa, and Jaden tonight for fireworks, and she was not feeling it.At all. Before she had a chance to come up with some kind of excuse, another text came.
Don’t you flake on me either…
Damn it. Why did Scottie have to know her so well? She’d promised, that had been her first mistake. She’d never gone back on a promise. Not to Scottie.
“Fine,” she said out loud to the ice cream and texted back,I’ll be there, then sent it and repocketed her phone. It pinged again, and she sighed again. Probably some cute emoji from Scottie in celebration of having browbeaten her into going to the fireworks. “I’m going for about twenty minutes and that’s it,” she muttered as she opened her screen again.
But this time, it wasn’t Scottie. It was Sabrina.
Literally Sabrina. A photo of her and stupid Sprinkles, quite possibly the cutest puppy there ever was. It was a close-up. Sabrina’s blue eyes aimed right into the camera. Sprinkles snuggled up under her chin, his orange collar the perfect accent to his rusty spots. Adley felt so many different things looking at that photo. Irritation. Longing. Sadness. Happiness. More longing.
The back door opening startled her so that she flinched and dropped the phone to the floor.
“Hey, Smudge,” Brody said as she came in, using the nickname she’d given her sister after seeing her mother’s ultrasound and announcing the baby looked like nothing more than a smudge in the photo. She picked the phone up before Adley could and glanced at it, because of course she did. “She’s still texting, huh?”
Adley nodded and took the phone back.
“You’re still not answering, huh?”
Adley shook her head and returned her focus to the bowl in front of her.
Brody took a seat on a nearby stool. “I don’t have a ton of time, but I wanted to come by and see that you’re living and breathing. Mom and Dad are starting to wonder.”
“I am. Living and breathing. No worries.”
“Why are you working on a holiday?”
Adley lifted one shoulder.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you look like shit.”
Adley met her gaze and wanted to lash out. To be angry. But shealso knew her sister was right. She wasn’t eating much. She was hardly sleeping, which the dark circles under her eyes announced to the world. And she was sad. Sadder than she’d expected to be.
Brody reached a hand out and closed it over Adley’s, stopping her movements. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk to her?”
