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Florence had almost forgotten about it. As strange as it seemed, so much else had happened in the intervening hours that she'd nearly forgotten about something that had torn at her heart so badly that it had left her breathless.

“No, no, I get it. It's fine. Actually, it's probably one of those things that we'll look back on and laugh at, right?”

“Mmm,” Eleanor said doubtfully. “So you're sure you're okay then?”

Just for once, Florence wished she could sit down, put her feet up and close her eyes in silence. She wasn't alright, she knew herself well enough for that.

The night spent with Hadley had left her muscles aching in good ways and her mind busy in analytical ways and she didn't quite know what to make of things.

Add in the fact that ARK Financing had finally tracked her down and rung the house phone directly rather than her cell, and she was feeling sharp and jagged and like she could sleep for a month if she could persuade her brain to stop thinking for a moment.

It wasn't so much that she felt bad right now, it was more the anticipation of future badness. Okay, Hadley said she was whole-heartedly interested and Florence wanted to believe her, but could she really? Or was she setting herself up to get hurt?

And would someone eventually show up at the house from the debt collecting agency?

Her stomach turned over at the thought.

“Is this about Hadley?” Eleanor asked.

“What?” Florence was shocked out of her thoughts.

“It's absolutely none of my business,” said Eleanor, turning away.

“No, it's not,” agreed Florence. “But...” Eleanor turned back. “But things there are complicated.”

“You don't need to put a label on them,” Eleanor reminded her.

“I know. That helped a lot, actually, thanks. It's not so much that. It's... it's more that I don't know where things are going. More that I feel like I've jumped into a lake and I don't know when I'm going to hit bottom, if that makes sense?”

Eleanor grinned. “That's supposed to be the fun part.”

“It is?” Florence asked in disbelief.

“Yes, Florence. It is. The discovery part, the new part, that's supposed to be fun. We don't always know where life is heading, so enjoy what you have while you can, that's my advice.”

“I just... I don't know if I can believe all this, if I can believe her.” The words sounded feeble and Florence hated that she sounded immature and child-like.

“For what it's worth,” Eleanor said. “I like Hadley. She seems like she's got a good sense of right and wrong even if she isn't always the most dependable person on the planet. And I think she really likes you. Before you start understanding other people's feelings though, you need to understand your own.”

“Which would be the problem,” Florence said.

Eleanor shrugged. “It's all a discovery process. You have to live through it, think through it. I guess if I had to give some advice it would be not to confuse feelings with emotions.”

Florence frowned, not getting it and Eleanor smiled at her.

“Lust is a feeling, love is an emotion,” she said. “It can be easy to confuse the two, but they're actually very different. Especially at first, especially if you don't have much experience, it can be tough to know that what's actually just a summer fling isn't the true love that you've been waiting for.”

Florence nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I can see that.”

The bell rang and a customer came in, head craning up to look at the menu painted high on the wall.

“You'll figure things out,” Eleanor said. “The rest of us do, and you'll be no different. Now, shall we try actually having a conversation with this customer so that he doesn't think you're mute?”

Florence laughed. “Right, yes, I'm on it.”

SHE COULD TELL as soon as she walked in the door that Hadley was frazzled and overwhelmed.

“Henry?” she said at a guess.