Page 11 of Chasing the Sun

I held her at arm’s length and narrowed my eyes to slits. “I knew it. Youarean old lady.”

“I think I’m the only old lady around here.” Selenesighed, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her hazel eyes looked tired, but I guessed that was what happened when you were a single mom with a shithead ex-husband and a daughter with buckets of energy.

“Thirty-six isn’t that old, Mama!” Winnie squinted against the sunshine and called up to her mother.

Selene’s soft smile was always stunning. “Well, that’s a relief,” she joked.

I grabbed my rolling suitcase and hauled it up the shared porch steps. Under the covered porch, my head dipped toward the adjacent home. “Got a new neighbor yet?”

“The Jeffersons moved out a few weeks ago, but no one new yet.” Selene wrapped me in a side hug. “But thank goodness, because I was getting tired of hearing them have wild sex every night,” she whispered.

“Tired or jealous?” I teased, which earned me a hip bump from my sister.

Heads together, we laughed, and a warmth spread under my ribs. Maybe being back at home for a while wasn’t so bad after all.

Inside, Winnie’s party was just getting started. I stashed my suitcase in the entryway closet and walked toward the voices in the back of the duplex.

Selene had decorated the entire lower level in hot pink, black, and gold. There was a glittery balloon arch, and a huge banner strung across the entryway to the kitchen read,Vegas, Baby!

I paused, my brows pinched down.

“Don’t ask.” My sister shook her head and laughed. “She could not be dissuaded.”

Selene unhooked the velvet rope that led to the kitchen,and I slipped through. “You’re not going to even card me?” I teased.

Selene scoffed. “You’re thirty-three, and I can see you’re not using retinol.”

I snarled at her before sticking out my tongue.

A few of the people were milling about in the kitchen, but the majority of the guests were hanging outside on the back deck.

“Bottle service is there.” Selene pointed to the giant ice-filled tub of juice boxes and soft drinks. “All-you-can-eat buffet in the dining room and casino games on the back lawn. But I’ll warn you, they’re all rigged.”

A shotgun burst of laughter erupted from my chest.

“Winnie said, and I quote, ‘The house always wins.’” Selene’s love and affection for her daughter was unparalleled.

I looked out the back windows to see my niece giggling and running around with her friends. “I seriously love that kid.”

“That’s because she’s you in a different font,” she said.

I blinked innocently, pressing my hands to my chest. “Completely lovable in every single way?”

She pinned me with a flat look. “Wildly optimistic and slightly unhinged.”

I shrugged, selecting a juice box from the tub. “Same thing.”

Together we walked out onto the back deck. I smiled and hugged old acquaintances. Selene left to wrangle the kids just as my little sister Kit walked up.

I wrapped her in a hug. “Skittle.” I squeezed, using her childhood nickname. She was shorter than me by more than a few inches, but her personality was larger than life. Thesunlight caught the fiery red strands in her chestnut hair, matching my little sister’s firecracker personality perfectly.

“Surprised you decided to grace us with your presence,” she teased with a hip bump.

Guilt for not taking the time to visit more often flickered over me, but I swept it away. “Hey, at least I’m better than Clara.”

A short, disgusted noise rattled in the back of Kit’s throat. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Our sister Clara had gone to college but if you asked me what she studied, I couldn’t tell you. While I was designing andrunningevents, she found her happiness attending them. Her fiancé’s thriving tech company did more than enough to keep her social calendar completely booked. On social media she seemed more than thrilled with the direction her life had taken her.