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Aria was comfortably waiting me out. The woman really did know how to negotiate. She wielded silence like a weapon, and I buckled.

“I guess I could see that,” I mumbled finally. “Maybe. But if it’s true, then… what should I do?”

“Well… do you like her, too?”

I swallowed. It felt like nails in my throat. I wondered desperately what it would be like to say yes—to tell Holcomb to pound sand and that I’d stay in Bayview, to tell Paisley how I felt, to try it out, to see what we could be. And we could kiss like we had earlier, anytime we wanted. And it would be Harper and Paisley, and all of our friends would think of us like that,Harper and Paisley,a unit. Together. Emberlynn and Gwen would probably freak. Annabel too. Kay would love it.

But I was Harper. I couldn’t do that. It was just… wrong.

“Not like that,” I said, my mouth feeling like I’d bitten into chalk. “I guess if I’m not being so glib, I admit I like her a lot, and it’s never boring when she’s around, but… not like that.”

Aria gave me the sad smile I needed not to see right now—buying the lie completely, and I had to recognize that I wished she hadn’t. “Then I think it’s worth talking to her outright. Tellher that you like her as a friend, but that that’s all. I think she could use the wakeup call.”

“And I’m the wakeup caller?”

She laughed. “You don’t have to, of course. It’s not your responsibility. But it would probably take a load off her mind, help her work out some things…”

I swallowed. “Well… yeah, maybe.”

She moved to speak, but she glanced down at something vibrating, and she pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. “Oh, god, I’m getting an important call,” she said, standing up. “I’m so sorry—could you tell Jeremy to box my food?”

Poor woman barely got to sit down. “I’m free today. I’ll drop it at your house and everything.”

“You’re amazing,” she said, taking off for the door, answering the phone as she plugged her other ear. I sighed, slumping back in my chair, staring at the empty spot where she’d been.

Chapter 12

Paisley

I think I was stirring the sauce for like twenty hours before Emberlynn jumped out of nowhere into my kitchen, saying something and scaring the life out of me, so it was really only fair that I threw the spoon at her. She dodged, the spoon clattering on the table behind her, and she shot me a wild look.

“Jesus, woman, did you not hear the door—”

I threw a second spoon for good measure. She caught it, the bastard.

“You cannot tell me you threw that one out of surprise.”

I stuck my tongue out. “What are you doing here, you creep?”

“Checking on you. The whole day, you haven’t burst into my house or climbed onto my balcony or thrown a boiled eggplant in through my window.”

“Look, the eggplant thing was one time. And it was hilarious.”

“You wasted a perfectly good eggplant.”

“It made great compost!”

She shook her head, waving me off. “So I guess I’m just making sure you’re not dead. Now that I see you’re not, I guess I’ll leave before you throw another spoon.”

I rolled my eyes dramatically, going back to the sauce. “Jeez, you’re the worst human being alive. Do you want to taste-test this sauce? It’s for pulled pork.”

At least I could count on Emberlynn to cook with me. That had always been one of our love languages, and it was one of the places where we felt the same now as we always had, where this weird unspoken gap between us disappeared. She tasted the sauce, and was immediately giving suggestions for what to add, and I barely got out the cabbage before she was helping me make coleslaw, too.

“If you want,” I said, once the food was just about ready, “you can take some for you and your boring loser girlfriend.”

“You mean your sister.”

“How many girlfriends do you have?”