Genuine laughter fluttered through her for the first time in days. “I think his best friend is Ollie. Though Mr. D is making a play for the role, I think.”
“You remember the big wedding party we had at the restaurant last year?”
Presley narrowed her gaze. It seemed like a topic shift, but she knew her friend too well. Somehow, a lesson would be layered into this story. “Sure. Hysterical mother of the groom. Drunk bride, crying groom. Fighting parents on the bride’s side. A reality-show-worthy event.”
Nodding, Rylee scooped up another bite, then put the lid on her ice cream container. She walked to the kitchen, which was through a tiny attached dining room and around the corner of a random wall that worked as a separator for the space, and came back with the pizza and napkins.
“The only thing that went well that night was the meal.”
Presley smiled. She’d heard this story before. The meal had been written up in theMichigan Tribunebecause the bride had invited her uncle who wrote for the newspaper.
“You got your promotion. Head chef. You rock. Things we already knew.”
Rylee pulled a piece of pizza from the box. “I don’t think I ever told you how close I came to losing my job that night.”
Presley stuck with the ice cream. “What do you mean?” She put herfeet up on the coffee table, wondering again why she hadn’t just moved in with Rylee when her lease had been up a year ago.Because you’d hoped to be moving in with someone else.
Rylee finished a bite of pizza, grabbed a napkin. “I was in charge of ordering the meat. I did it. I always do my job. But someone on the other end screwed up the order. The morning of the wedding, the order shows up, but it’s about fifty filets short of feeding the entire party.”
Presley’s eyes widened. “I thought you served salmon.”
Rylee nodded. “We did. But that wasn’t the plan. It was supposed to be three courses, the entrée being filet mignon. My boss wanted to fire me on the spot, she was so mad, but she couldn’t afford to be short-staffed. So I called in a favor, had the salmon delivered, came up with a kick-ass recipe for it that complemented the filet mignon and told the wedding planner about the honest mistake and we did a quick survey of who would prefer salmon. We almost didn’t have enough for those who wanted it. The bride clearly should have had an option on her RSVP card.”
Presley sat with the story for a few minutes, trying to figure out its significance. When she couldn’t, she went to the freezer, put her own ice cream away, and grabbed a couple of cans of pop.
When she sat down next to her best friend, she stared at her for a moment. “I know you’re trying to do some Yoda thing here where I figure out the deep thought myself, but I’m tired.”
Rylee laughed, went for another piece of pizza. “No matter how much you plan, things happen. You roll with it, you adjust, and sometimes the thing that knocked you down is the thing that wakes you up. What you think might be the worst moment in your life can show you exactly what you were missing.”
Picking up a slice, Presley weighed this in her brain. “So, Emmett was the filet mignon and bleep is the fish?”
Rylee rolled her eyes. “Stop bleeping his name.”
“Nope.” Her phone buzzed, but she didn’t check it right away.
“There’s nothing tying you here, Presley.”
“There’s you.”
Rylee smiled. “I work so much you hardly see me. And I’m not a reason to stay.”
Presley chewed her bite, wishing it didn’t taste like paste in her mouth. Her eyes watered. When she swallowed it down, she gave her friend the truth. “I don’t have a reason to go. He said it was probably good we were going back to our own lives because a real relationship would have been harder. He didn’t ask me to stay. He didn’t even stick around to say goodbye.”
“I know. But all that tells me is that he couldn’t. Some people are too hard to say goodbye to.”
Presley’s heart squeezed. She’d been so sure it was just the opposite: that she was too easy to say goodbye to, leave, or get over. Too easy to be without. But what if she was wrong? What if, for Beckett, shewasthe one person he couldn’t say goodbye to? She shook her head, clearing the thought—the hope—from her brain.
“I can’t put myself in that position again. I know it’s stupid and childish, but I need to be the one someone can’t live without.” She’d never had that. Even Rylee, who loved her and who she knew needed her on some level, could live without her. Her parents hadn’t returned the two phone calls she’d made since returning home. “I need someone who asks me not to go. Someone who, at the very least, can say goodbye even if they don’t want to.”
Rylee reached out, squeezed Presley’s hand. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I know.” Because what other choice was there.
When she reached for the remote to turn on the TV, she tapped her phone. Notifications lit up her screen.What the?She picked it up, sliding open her texts first.
Ms. Twain
High profile client coming
