Page 103 of Take Me Home

“Dave’s out picking a kitten for my Christmas gift. He thinks it’s a secret.”

Hazel laughed despite the heavy gloom pressing in on her. “How do you—”

“When is everybody going to realize that I know and see all? You can’t get anything past me. Speaking of which, I’ve been extremely patient with you sending me crumbs of details, but now I have to know what the hell is going on out there.”

“I don’t even know where to start, Syl.”

“I’d get excited about you being in a motel right now if I thought you and some hottie hooked up, but since you’re alone and you’ve been crying, I’m guessing things went a different way.”

“Something like that,” Hazel squawked, her throat tight.

Sylvia let silence pulse between them, her face on the screen somehow both patient and unyielding. Of course Sylvia knew the secret to getting around Hazel’s evasions and deflections—even Hazel couldn’t dodge from nothing.

But that was the point. She didn’t want to dodge anymore.

“I yelled at my dad, flipped a table, snuck out a bathroom window, slept with Ash Campbell, broke up with Ash Campbell, left town, and now I’m here at this Motel 6 in Garrettsville because I can’t bring myself go back, but I can’t go to my place, either. I’ll have to spend Christmas here. And maybe live here forever.”

Sylvia’s eyebrows rose slowly, eyes round. “Wait.” She opened her mouth, struggled to find words. “Wait.”

“I’m waiting. I literally have nowhere else to go.”

Sylvia’s face filled the screen as she scrutinized Hazel. “Asher, the asshole chair thief from the café? I thought we hated him.”

“It’s just Ash, actually.” Hazel smiled sadly. “And he’s not just from the café. We went to high school together. I gave him a ride home. You actually met him once, that first party freshman year.”

“And you slept together? Wait. Oh my God.Hazel.” Sylvia’s screen bounced as she changed positions on her couch. A million late-night conversations rushed back to Hazel. Sylvia, tucking her legs under her, buzzing with whatever juicy gossip she had to share. She would slap the back of the couch or Hazel’s thigh with each new detail.

“Okay,” Sylvia said. “God, I have misseda lot. This is why you have to stop going AWOL.”

Hazel rolled her eyes, but the gesture was half-assed since tears brimmed behind her lower lashes.

“Was the sex good?”

“Does it matter? We broke up.”

Sylvia’s eyebrows shot up.

Hazel backtracked. “If you could even call it a breakup. We were barely…” She swallowed thickly. She didn’t want to downplay this week with Ash any more than she wanted to admit it was already over.

“I’m having to do a lot of guesswork here. You can at least tell me if the sex was good.”

“Even at the expense of my feelings?”

“The fact that youhavefeelings about him is why I need all the details.”

Hazel groaned and tipped her face up to the ceiling, resting her head against the chairback. “The sex was…”

Unbelievable? So good it had maybe broken something in her and put it back together all at once?How is it like this?Ash had asked, the very same sentiment on the tip of her own tongue.

“It was good, Syl. But I think it was a mistake. And even if it wasn’t, I fucked it all up.” She hoped to sound distanced from the pain of this morning, but instead, her voice shook, and her ever-present tears ran from the outer corners of her eyes into her hair.

“Oh, babe.”

Hazel set her phone on the dresser, screen pointing up to the ceiling. Sylvia didn’t demand to be turned back at her while Hazel covered her face and sobbed.

When she calmed down to sniffles and lifted the phone again, Sylvia said, “You’re not spending Christmas at a Motel 6. Youdohave somewhere else to go. Here with me.”

“I can’t crash your first Adult Christmas with Dave.” Instead of staying with her parents, like she and Hazel had always done, Sylvia’s plan was to stay at her apartment with Dave for “sexy time” tomorrow night before they went over to see her family Christmas morning.