Page 90

Shrugging, Kamryn started to rip the label off the bottle, trying to get it off in one piece. “Elia.”

“What about Elia caused the change?” Greer was fishing again, but Kamryn didn’t mind it.

Kamryn wasn’t ready to answer that question.

“Kam…” Greer pointed at her. “Quit avoiding.”

“Elia is…someone special.”

“Obviously.”

Kamryn smiled at that. Her cheeks rushed with heat, and she shook her head. “Like I told you before, it wasn’t all fake.”

“But how much of it was real?”

“All of it,” Kamryn whispered. “All of it and more.”

Kamryn wanted another drink. But she stayed where she was, trying to make sure that she did exactly what Greer had asked her to—stop avoiding. Greer wasn’t wrong. She really needed to figure this out.

“If the circumstances were different? Hell yes, I think we’d be in a relationship together.” Kamryn circled her finger around the rim of the beer bottle. “But with everything else going on right now? I don’t think it’s possible.”

“Love is the easy part, right?”

Kamryn snorted at that and then rolled her eyes. “Sure it is. If that’s what this is.”

“Are you going to argue with your best friend?” Greer put her hand over her heart and feigned hurt. “How dare you?”

“You’re a jerk sometimes, but no, I’m not arguing with you.”

Greer stilled. “Are you serious? You’rein lovewith her?”

“I don’t know.” Kamryn wrung her hands together before straightening up. “And even if I am, I’m not sure it matters in thelong run. She’s not here, is she? I needed her tonight, I asked her to be here, she agreed, and then she left.”

“Yeah, but it sounds like she didn’t leave without good reason. Shewashere. She did show up.” Greer looked stern. “Don’t get angry over something that isn’t worth it.”

“But isn’t it? I’m not going to be in a relationship with someone who runs out on me. Not again.”

“Ah, so that’s where this is coming from.” Greer sighed. “Elia definitely isn’t Lauren. You honestly couldn’t have chosen someone more opposite of Lauren.”

“I’m not sure they are all that different.” Kamryn had been pondering that one for a while now. She was cleaning up both their messes. Lauren’s she’d cleaned up for decades, and now she was cleaning up Elia’s. They were both people who were followed everywhere by an inordinate amount of chaos. “I think I just need to focus on work right now. I need to figure out who’s been messing with the records, and I need to get everything in order for when I leave.”

“That’s it?” Greer asked.

“That’s it.”

thirty-two

“I promised I’d call her.” Elia handed Abagail a glass of wine as she slid down onto her couch.

“And have you?”

Elia frowned. She hadn’t. She hadn’t been sure what to say, and she figured that if Kamryn really wanted to know that she would have called her already. “No.”

“Why not?” Abagail sipped her wine and crossed her legs. She was still in her outfit from work, the heels showing that she hadn’t even taken the time to head back to her condo before driving all the way out here. She’d been so worried since Elia’s last call with her, but Elia had needed time, and she couldn’t fathom doing that with a sounding board. Not yet anyway.

And it wasn’t actions that she had to figure out.

She needed to know what she was feeling.