Page 3 of Someone to Have (Skylark #3)

TAYLOR

“Just wanted to say it was nice to meet you again, Taylor. And to tell you I’m sorry about your mom passing.

She used to send chocolate chip cookies for all of us in her care packages—dozens of them.

And when your parents came down for games, I remember her giving the best hugs. I’m sure losing her wasn’t easy.”

I keep very still because my heart is clenching with a sadness that has softened but not grown smaller in the past four years. “Thank you. For what it’s worth, I’m sure you’re not passing around STDs like candy.”

“High praise,” he mutters, tips his head to acknowledge my two friends, and walks away.

As Avah and Molly giggle, I thump my head on the table. It sticks to the wood. Ugh. “Oh my God, why did I let you two convince me to come out tonight? I could be at home right now and not making a complete ass of myself.”

“That’s what we want to talk to you about,” Avah says.

“Making an ass of myself?”

“Not exactly,” Molly clarifies and elbows Avah. “We want to talk about your bucket list item.”

Oh. Maybe being humiliated in front of my brother’s former teammate is preferable to this. At least I’m never going to see Eric Anderson again.

“I thought we were taking a break on the book club until Sloane is back?”

Our mutual friend, Sloane Winslow—who owns Skylark’s popular bookstore Cover to Cover—is the founding member of the Cool Girls Book Club.

There are six members, each of us handpicked by her.

On the surface, we’re an unlikely mix. But Sloane obviously knows what she’s doing, because the women have become my ride-or-die friends.

Last summer, Sloane was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia. The timing coincided with a book she’d chosen for us to read. Part memoir, part self-development, The Year of Losing It documented the author’s journey to overcome the fear she claimed overshadowed her life.

Sloane wanted each of us to choose an item on our individual bucket lists. Something that would challenge us to go outside our comfort zones. Not something way out there like skydiving or taking up van life, although anything is fair game as long as it can change our lives.

Sadie Hart, who runs a dog training business in town, went first, and she’d had a pretty straightforward bucket list item—losing her virginity.

What she hadn't expected was to fall head over heels for ex-NFL star quarterback Ian Barlowe and his sweet daughter, Riva, turning what was supposed to be a simple conquest into the love of her life. Then there’s Iris, our uptight friend and former mayor of Skylark, whose bucket list item had been to have more fun—something that seemed impossible until she reconnected with Jake Byrne, the boy who'd broken her heart years ago.

Now Iris is living proof that sometimes the best adventures come from facing your past, as she and Jake create their dream life together, finally having all the fun she's been missing.

I’m inspired by Sadie and Iris but also terrified of letting Sloane and the rest of the group down if I can’t get out of my own way to make my bucket list challenge a success. I wish I could say I believed in myself as much as I care about my friends, but that just isn’t the case.

“Is Sloane back? Did they release her early?” My hand starts to shake as I think about our friend, and I place my beer on the table. “Do we have an update?” At the start of Sloane’s cancer journey, she’d been upbeat and optimistic, certain her treatment wouldn’t derail her life for long.

Her brother, Jeremy, is a bazillionaire who founded some wildly successful tech company, so he insisted on flying her to Nashville for treatment.

One of the oncologists at Vanderbilt is a friend from his undergrad days at Stanford.

Now she has a whole team of doctors taking care of her, and since she only had basic health insurance as a small business owner, Jeremy is footing the bill for everything.

At first, she thought he was going overboard with his need for control, but around Thanksgiving, she’d been told she needed a stem cell transplant, which she assured us was routine for ALL patients.

She wanted the procedure done in Colorado so we could visit her.

Jeremy, who seems a bit bossy if you ask me—and I’m familiar with overbearing relatives—insisted she go to Tennessee.

So she did.

The procedure appeared to be successful, but she spent the holiday season in the hospital.

In Tennessee. I wish we could have been there to hold her hand, but she insisted she’d be home soon.

But the day before she was scheduled to be released, she had a reaction to one of the drugs and her body started to shut down.

It sounded absolutely terrifying and we were all worried we might lose her.

It put everything in perspective, in my own stupid fears.

And while Sloane is finally stable, she’s also stuck there for at least another few weeks and unable to have visitors other than immediate family.

“No update,” Avah says. “Jeremy sucks as a communicator. I don’t know how that guy founded a mega-successful company when he can’t be bothered to respond to texts.” She’s peeling the label off her beer bottle as she speaks, clearly agitated.

Avah isn’t used to people ignoring her.

“That’s why we want to talk to you about your bucket list item,” Molly says gently.

Avah uses the edge of her hand to sweep the beer label bits into a neat pile. “You need to shoot your shot, Tay.”

My fists clench in my lap as I try not to react to her harsh tone. Yes, I’ve been procrastinating, but I don’t appreciate being called out on it. No one wants to be confronted with their tendency toward inaction, right?

I keep my gaze on Molly and her gentle green eyes, but her gaze holds a trace of disappointment that makes my stomach tighten. “But we’re delaying the next book club meeting until Sloane can attend in person,” I say again. As if this gives me an excuse for not doing what I promised.

“Correct,” Molly agrees, with what I’m sure is meant to be an encouraging smile. “We’re not reading any new books. However, the bucket list challenge means a lot to Sloane, and we need to be able to report progress. To lift her spirits.”

“Has she told someone she wants that?” I hate the thought of letting my friend down. “Has she talked to Iris or Sadie or one of you?”

“No.” Molly shakes her head. “She isn’t responding to texts or messages, which isn’t like Sloane. But we have to believe she reads what we’re sending her. And we want to be able to give her some good news, something that will make her smile.”

I don’t think Molly means to guilt trip me, but the words land like a punch. “Of course I want to make Sloane smile,” I agree quietly.

“You volunteered to do your thing after Iris,” Avah reminds me.

“I was voluntold by you.”

“You didn’t say no. ”

That’s true. Not only am I a pushover, but I also knew from the first mention of the bucket list challenge what mine would be. Sadie and Iris successfully navigated their fears, so I figured I could do the same. I might have figured wrong.

Molly shoos away the waitress who approaches the table. She takes my hand and gently squeezes. “What are you doing to overcome your fear of public speaking, Taylor?”

Okay, now I get why we’re here tonight. This is more than a night out before I return to work at both the high school and town library.

This is an ambush because I’m a big wimp who’s not living up to my promise, and letting down a friend who’s battling cancer in the process. I’m the worst kind of loser friend.

“It’s not that easy.” I swallow around the ball of emotion in my throat. “Not for me, anyway. You know I was supposed to be the emcee at the high school talent show before winter break started.”

“Ah, yes.” Avah raises a brow. “Skylark’s Got Talent. How original.”

I nod. “Bryan came up with that name.”

Her return nod is exaggerated. “I’m being sarcastic.”

Molly clears her throat and levels a shut-your-pie-hole glare at Avah. It’s a familiar routine with the two of them, Molly softening Avah’s sharp edges. “You also wanted to be involved in the talent show for a chance to spend time with him, right?”

My crush on Bryan Connor is well known to my friends, but thankfully not to my family or anyone at the high school. Bryan has no idea. As far as he’s concerned, we’re friendly work colleagues who both have a thing for BBC America. Relationships have started from less, but we need more.

Every time I’m around him, my debilitating shyness—which has plagued me since childhood—takes over, and I can barely speak. Honestly, I don’t know how I moved past it so quickly tonight with Eric Anderson.

Maybe it’s because he’s a friend of my brother’s or so far out of my league, it’s like he’s balancing the Stanley Cup on his broad shoulders while I’m barely able to keep up in the peewee league.

“What happened?” Avah asks. While I wouldn’t call her tone gentle, it doesn’t have its usual bite. It must be bad if she’s going easy on me.

“One of the freshmen was sucking on a peppermint.”

They offer similar looks of confusion, and I let out a sigh. How can I expect them to understand how I let something so insignificant derail me?

“Back in the day, I was assigned two solo lines in the third grade class play. My mom gave me a peppermint on the way to school because I had an upset stomach. It was nerves, and I tried to convince her to let me stay home. She always let Toby miss school if he said he needed to rest before a hockey game.”

“So you had a peppermint in third grade, and a kid had a peppermint at the high school.” Molly makes circles with her thumb and pointer fingers like two invisible mints in the air. “Those relate...how?”