I’d rather go back to talking about my brother’s skills with women than discuss my job situation. Not when I didn’t have anything concrete to report. “I’m still working on it.”
“Awfully thoughtless of your friend to cut loose on your plans like that.”
“It was a good opportunity. I can’t really blame her.” It had stung plenty, but I understood her decision. Even if her new plans had devastated mine.
Jed threw a filthy arm across my shoulders. “June, when someone screws you over, it’s okay to blame them for it. Some might call it healthy.”
“She didn’t screw me over; she just got a really great job offer. I would have done the same thing if it had been me.”
He leveled me a hard look. “No, you wouldn’t.”
My stomach twisted in confirmation, and I gave him a thin smile. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Kim and I had been friends since our days in design school. We’d followed similar career paths, moving up from internships to become full-fledged designers at our respective firms. After years of dreaming and months of planning, we’d intended to launch our own design firm.Heartwood Homewould put our personal stamp on Austin interiors and propel our careers to the next level.
Instead, Kim took off with barely a moment’s hesitation, andHeartwood Homedissolved into nothing. Based on our increasingly sporadic conversations, she was happy out in Houston. Meanwhile, I’d been left treading water, unsure which direction to swim. In truth, I wasnotokay with it. I wouldn’t have abandoned our friendship and those big plans for the safer bet of a furniture chain. But blaming Kim didn’t do much to change my situation. I’d spent the last few months trying to figure out what to do next, with no clear answer in front of me.
For now, I would put all that aside and focus on making Eden’s wedding a librarian’s dream day come true. I could sort out all the rest later.
“How are things out in the orchards?” I asked.
“Better than Kandahar.”
“I’m getting a little tired of you saying that,” Pop said.
“Sorry, Pop.” Jed’s face lit with a grin. “Say, since June’s in town for a while, we should have a big family dinner. Have Wade and his crew over. How about tonight, what do you say?”
My oldest brother and his wife had two little boys, with a third baby on the way. Another thing I’d missed in my long stretches without visits home—quality time with those two rambunctious little guys. In all honesty, though, they wore me out even in small doses.
Pop didn’t glance up at Jed as he pulled a jug of milk from the fridge. “We’ll do it another night.”
Jed’s excitement deflated, but he seemed to take it in stride. “Should I order pizza?”
“Sounds good to me. I’m going to go get cleaned up first.” I slipped out from under his arm, even dirtier than I’d been pre-hug.
“And stick me with the bill?” he called after me as I climbed the stairs. “I see how it is.”
I paused on the landing as the old familiar sensation of being home sank through me. The comfortable feeling left an ache behind it, a hollowed-out place where my mother belonged. Being here was like remembering another life, memories I could almost touch but couldn’t hold. As much as I loved the old house, it would never be the same without her in it.
I peeked into my parents’ bedroom. Pop hadn’t changed much in here since Mom’s death, but I still noticed the difference. No stack of books on her nightstand, no basket of knitting by the bed, no fluffy purple bathrobe thinning at the elbows hung over the bathroom door. Even my mother’s scent had faded, the smell of Dove soap and lavender lotion that used to follow her everywhere she went.
That ache inside me grew and swelled until I had to swallow it down, fighting off tears. I missed her something fierce.
Pop’s footsteps on the stairs jolted me back into the present. I hurried into my old bedroom and shut the door, changed out of my filthy top and skirt, not even bothering to dust them off for fear I’d only grind the dirt in deeper. A shower would be in order soon, but I slipped into a tank top and shorts first and sprawled on my bed, feeling very close to and yet nothing like my long-ago teenage self. I’d had a few bumps and bruises in the eleven years since high school graduation, but I’d come through stronger. Some days not much wiser, but still. Stronger.
I pulled my phone from my purse and thumbed in Eden’s number.
“June, are you in town yet?” she said after one ring.
“I am currently in my childhood bedroom, wondering why I’ve never pulled these awful boy band posters down from the walls.”
No less than fifteen heartthrobs stared down at me from their posters, the carefully curated outfits they wore making them ridiculous by today’s standards.
“You love them too much to ever do that.”
I harrumphed, considering them. “Only Justin. He looks way better now than when he had that afro.”
“Yeah, don’t ever mention white guys with afros to Booker, it will start a wholething.”
