Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
I hear Colin’s bedroom door click closed, the angry murmur of voices telling me they’re still having it out and that the kitchen is finally fair game.
Coffee. Maybe some coffee will help rid me of the weird feeling in my stomach.
I open the door softly and creep down the hallway. I look around the kitchen for my mug then realize that I left it on Colin’s nightstand following our strange hug. I wince, realizing what that will look like to Rebecca.
I feel sorry for him. Almost.
I get a fresh mug, and half a cup later, I’m starting to feel mostly normal.
I hear Colin’s bedroom door open and freeze, debating for a crazy instant to dive under the table and make myself scarce, until I remember that I live here too, and that I’m just as much a victim in this whole mess as they are.
Rebecca doesn’t glance my way as she strides into the room and toward the front door, every rigid line of her body and pinched mouth indicating that their fight is far from over. Colin follows, dressed now in sweats and a white T-shirt, his posture just as tense as Rebecca’s.
Only after she jerks open the front door does she glare at me over his shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, but the expression conveys plenty: die.
“It was nice meeting you,” I call. “We should grab coffee sometime. Compare notes.”
Her eyes narrow, and Colin gives me an I’m going to kill you look over his shoulder.
I give him a wide smile.
He murmurs something that sounds like a promise to call her later and steps forward to kiss Rebecca’s cheek. She doesn’t say a word to him or to me before she disappears.
Colin slowly closes the front door, his shoulders sagging forward slightly. Prior to Rebecca knocking on our front door this morning, I’d have acted on instinct and gone to him. Touched a hand to his back to comfort, even a hug.
Now, I don’t move. He is not mine to hug. Or touch. Not that he ever was, but everything is entirely different now. Without a word, he goes to his bedroom, and I frown in confusion. What? Oh, hell no. There is no way we aren’t going to talk about this. I let him off the hook so he could talk to Rebecca first, not so he could avoid me completely.
But before I can charge after him and demand answers, he reappears, coffee mug in one hand and his blue bathrobe in the other.
Colin sets his coffee mug on the counter and comes toward me, robe in hand, and drops the heavy fabric onto my shoulders, shoving my hands through the armholes as though I’m a child. He knots it at my waist with impatient efficiency and then steps back. “From now on, wear that damn robe around the apartment.”
Oh. Right. Because that’ll fix everything.
But when he retreats to his room and closes the door, I don’t go after him after all. A big part of me still wants answers, obviously.
But a smaller, less logical part of me isn’t ready to hear them.
Chapter 19
Sunday, September 6
At ten o’clock the following morning, I do the unthinkable.
“Charlotte?” My mother’s surprise is palpable as she opens the front door and sees me standing on her front porch. “Dinner’s not until five … p.m.,” she adds, as though thinking I got confused and am in fact five hours late for a really early breakfast meeting. Though, if I had shown up at five a.m., I wouldn’t be surprised if my mom had opened the door looking exactly as she does now, dressed in a summery yellow blouse, navy skirt, and navy pumps, armed and ready to face the day.
“I know,” I say, adjusting my purse strap on my shoulder and trying not to feel self-conscious for standing on the front porch of my own home. Well, former home. “Can I come in?”
“I—” She looks nonplussed. “I was just about to go to church.”
Right. I’d forgotten that it’s Sunday. One of the side effects of working remotely and setting my own hours without a physical office or in-person meetings to attend is that I’ve tended to lose track of which day is which since moving to New York. The fact that my personal life is, shall we say, complicated, hasn’t helped matters.
To my knowledge, my mother hasn’t missed Sunday service aside from one nasty bout of stomach flu when I was eleven, and I don’t expect her to miss it now.
“Sorry,” I say automatically. “I’d forgotten. I can just come back for dinner, and—”
“Would you like to come with me?”
The question catches me off guard, and I think, based on her slightly stunned expression, it catches her off guard as well. But there’s something else beneath her surprise. A little flicker of hope mingled with steel, as though she’s fully braced for me to reject her.