Page 7 of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Catching Feelings #1)

CHAPTER FIVE

KAYLA

I check my outfit three times before leaving the house, and I ask Ash, my roommate, so to speak, to give me a once-over.

“Picture perfect,” she says, giving me a high five. “You want Rusty and me to come as reinforcements?”

I’m tempted to say yes, but then I remember Sean saying he’ll see me here today. It’s all the confidence I need.

“I got this.”

“Yeah, you do,” Ash says, flipping her dense cinnamon brown curls. “You’re keeping it right and tight in that cream pantsuit, girl.”

I laugh. What would it have been like growing up with someone like Ash as a friend rather than the ballet girls who were so critical, so competitive, so vicious?—

Stop the spiral, sweetie .

I stop, but not before acid crashes against my stomach like waves on a cliff.

With a smile, I thank Ash, climb into my pearl white hybrid Mercedes Benz, and drive the twelve minutes to the church in Mullet Ridge. The only sound is the whisper of tires and the full-volume pep talk playing on my podcast app.

“Today’s mantra, friends,” the podcast host says, “You don’t have to change yourself to belong.

You can’t belong when you shrink like it will somehow make room for others.

Belonging can only come when you stand tall in your worth.

Now go seize the day like your grandmother built it with her bare hands. ”

“My grandmother did a lot of impressive things in her life,” I mutter, “but building days was a little beyond her skill set.”

But still, I straighten my shoulders when I pull up to the church.

My phone buzzes with a text, and I check it before I step out.

It’s from my best friend.

Well, my ex best friend, whether either of us can accept it or not.

Aldridge’s sister, Meryl.

MERYL

KAYLA. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you for leaving me in Bora Bora alone with these monsters.

We miss you!

The “monsters” are my two favorite kids in the whole world, and they’re making faces at the phone, which tells me they know their mom is texting “Auntie Kay.”

I shouldn’t respond.

I really shouldn’t.

KAYLA

Ha ha! Miss you all, too. Have so much fun! And put on some extra sunscreen for me. I’m getting a burn just looking at you!

MERYL

You *would* get a sunburn looking at a picture. But it won’t be as bad as Ibiza.

KAYLA

YOU SAID YOU’D NEVER TALK ABOUT IBIZA.

MERYL

Well, you said we’d be sisters, so maybe now we’re even.

Sorry, that was a dumb joke. I promised that you breaking up with Aldridge would change nothing, and it hasn’t. I love you and hope you’re happy out there in Mullet World.

KAYLA

Laugh it up, but I’m making it work. Thanks, Meryl. Tell the kids I love them!

When I put down my phone, the acid that was crashing around in my stomach makes an aggressive comeback.

I know I lied, but I can’t admit how hard it’s been. Because if I do, I may not be able to stop myself from giving in when she begs to fly out and bring me back home. And if I go back, I can’t promise not to open the door to a world I fought to be free from.

Because as unhappy as I was, as much as I felt I was playing a part, at least I knew the script. And people genuinely cared about me. People like Meryl.

If I had realized how much it would hurt not to have Meryl in my life?—

I cut the thought short.

And I give myself two minutes to breathe and massage the tension in my forehead.

Two very short minutes.

Then I look in the mirror, wipe away a fleck of mascara, and repeat that silly mantra ten times.

“Seize the day like your grandmother built it with her bare hands.”

I snort.

It’s just ridiculous enough to put a smile on my face as I get out of my car and walk into the Fellowship Hall.

The vinyl-covered folding tables are already sagging under the weight of slow cookers and those glass casserole dishes that come in nesting sets and last for generations.

I’ve plated my homemade deviled eggs using a gorgeous hand-painted ceramic dish from a boutique in SoHo (the London one, not Manhattan).

A Michelin-starred chef friend walked me through the recipe last night, and they’re gorgeous.

Beyond Pinterest-worthy. The yolks are whipped into creamy perfection and piped with star tips, dusted with smoked paprika and truffle salt, and topped with tiny microgreens that I now realize may have been a bit much but that look enough like parsley that I think I’ll get away with it.

And they taste good, too.

Not that I’ll be eating in front of anyone today.

Now, where were the appetizers set last month?

By the upright piano and the dusty bulletin board full of mission trip photos, I think.

I smile as I pass people, including Red and Delia from the bar. Red waves, but Delia’s eyes jump away from mine the second they land on me.

“‘Bout time they enforce that law,” Delia mutters.

I slow my steps, pretending to study a “chicken spaghetti casserole” on one of the tables.

"Oh, come on, Delia," Red says. “She’s harmless."

"Harmless?" Delia's voice sharpens. “My grandparents ranthe hardware store for sixty years until that investment group bought them out along with Serena’s family’s auto repair shop. And then what happened two years later? Profits weren’t high enough, so they closed everything and abandoned main street. "

"That was a different time?—"

“Easy for you to say. You’ve been here for four years.

But this always happens in Mullet Ridge.

Outside money comes in, promises to make things better, then leaves us with empty storefronts and folks out of work.

" I can hear the bitterness in her voice.

"People here don't just work these businesses—they ARE these businesses. Been in families for generations."

“You really think that’ll happen here?”

"Maybe, maybe not. Point is, that law exists for a reason, and it's about time someone remembered why."

I have no idea what law they're talking about, but the way Delia said it—like she was looking forward to something—sends an uncomfortable chill down my spine.

Note to self: have Scottie look into whatever this is .

I walk to the end of the line of tables to find a space between a seven-layer salad and a jello mold shaped like a fish, complete with shredded carrots suspended inside. Across the table, I spot baked mac and cheese and something labeled “Ambrosia Salad.”

I find space next to the mac and cheese and grab one of the pens and folded index cards.

I write, “Smoked Paprika-Truffle Deviled Eggs.” I consider adding “hand-piped,” but something tells me that fits better on the menu at Le Rivage.

As I’m placing the card, someone at my shoulder tuts.

I flinch. Eunice stands beside me in a bright coral twin set with pearl buttons, sensible pumps, and a matching handbag the size of a lunchbox.

“Oh, Eunice, I didn’t see you there,” I say. She’s probably five-one, so it’s understandable.

“We can’t all be Amazons,” she drawls.

Right.

Because I’m never what people expect. What they want. I’m too tall to be a lady, too bony to be athletic, too big-boned to be a model, too opinionated, too jokey, too hot, too cold.

One day, I hope to find my Goldilocks moment. Or size. Or story.

But today is not that day.

Eunice tuts, but she’s staring at the ambrosia salad, not my eggs. “That ambrosia doesn’t look good. Poor Bessy’s been under so much stress with the—” she leans in—“divorce.”

“Oh no,” I say, hand to chest. “That must be awful.”

“It is. Bless her heart.”

Loretta joins us in a turquoise linen dress with a beaded belt and a perfectly tilted hat, radiating judgment wrapped in floral-scented diplomacy.

“So you brought the deviled eggs,” she says. “Doesn’t look like it was made with Duke’s, does it?”

“Sorry—what’s Duke’s?”

She gives me a flat look. “The mayonnaise, honey.” She pauses. “Have you even tasted mayonnaise before?”

I smile. “That’s the white stuff, right?” Then I laugh lightly. “I’m teasing. Yes, I know mayonnaise. But you’re right—this was made with homemade aioli. My chef friend swears by cold-pressed olive oil and Meyer lemon. Try one!”

Loretta picks one up and sniffs it like she’s a drug-sniffing dog on assignment. No matter how easy I pretend to smile, my stomach is in knots.

Eunice smacks her shoulder. “We haven’t said grace yet!”

“It’s a bite of egg, Eunice. The Good Lord will understand.”

“You don’t speak for Him,” Eunice says.

“And you do?”

Just then, the pastor claps his hands. “Y’all, let’s bow our heads.”

Everyone goes quiet. I clasp my hands and bow my head, but my brain is sprinting laps. Did she even taste my egg?

“—and bless the hands that prepared it,” the pastor finishes.

“Amen,” everyone murmurs.

“Now,” Loretta says as if no time has passed at all, “speaking of deviled eggs, did you see that Serena brought the ones with the red pepper hearts?”

“Oh yes,” Eunice says. “And the little bacon roses? Precious.”

“Who’s Serena?” I ask.

They both look at me. Then at each other.

“I thought you and Sean were old friends,” Loretta says, putting my egg down on her plate—uneaten—and turning to lift a spoonful of salad. I follow her in line.

“We are,” I say, faking confidence. “But I … don’t know all of his friends.”

We walk by the pastor, who smiles at us, but even he looks at me like I’m a math problem he needs to solve. Is it because I lied that Sean and I are old friends?

Can he sense it?

My throat tightens.

Eunice leans in, doling out gossip like Werther’s. “Serena’s not just a friend. She was the woman Sean was going to marry.” She gives a small pause. Then she whispers, “But she left him at the altar.”

Loretta nods solemnly. “And all the while, she’d been runnin’ around with her ex while Sean was helping raise their daughter.”

My mouth falls open, and I snap it back up.

My brain scrambles to find logic in the story, but it’s impossible. All I find is warm pressure behind my eyes and a pang in my heart. No wonder Sean was so worried that he broke up Aldridge and me. The idea that he may have been a home-wrecker must have made him sick.