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My phone rang from the depths of the comforter—also in red, gold, and green, if one were wondering—and I pounced, thinking it might be Justin. I had a thing or two to say to that bastard this morning. But it was Liz.
“Do you have a baseball bat?”
There was silence.
“Well, good morning to you too, Kenna.” Liz didn’t dare laugh at me. She probably knew I was dead serious about the bat situation. “I have a switchblade, but no bat. Whatcha need?”
I sighed, only slightly feeling better that I had a bestie who would hide a body for me if I needed her to. I walked out of the guest room and headed back downstairs. At least the stairs were gorgeous, being a delightful mix of deep walnut stain and oil-rubbed metal balusters. These stairs had been in fashion when installed, then horribly old fashioned, and now had swung back around to a Craftsman-leaning designer’s dream stairs. When I reached the bottom, I took a look at all the plants in their various sizes and colored pots dotting every surface of the downstairs, and promptly had a seat on the last stair.
“I’m living in a real-life Jumanji with an annoyingly hot next-door neighbor, while Justin’s lawyers have frozen all my accounts, my job is on the line, and I have no idea who I am anymore.”
“Hmm, tell me about this neighbor?”
I tilted my head back and gawked at the hanging flamingo light above the stairwell. “Liz! Focus! The neighbor doesn’t matter. Men are dead to me.”
She huffed. “They shouldn’t be. Just Justin. And his jackass lawyers. And maybe Chris. He didn’t exactly support you during your breakdown.”
I groaned, dropping my forehead to my knees. “Please tell me I dreamed that and I didn’t really tell my boss’s boss that I’d genital him? Like, what was that? Genital isn’t even a verb.”
Liz started to wheeze like she always did when she tried to hold in laughter and failed miserably. “Funniest thing I’ve ever witnessed. I mean, the artwork was terrible. Like, lawsuit-worthy bad. But then to see you put that dirty old man in his place? It was, well, it was triumphant, Kenna.”
I groaned. “Tell that to my bank account. Oh, that’s right. I don’t have access to that anymore. Nor do I have a paying job.” My head popped up and I felt dizzy. “What am I going to do, Lizzie?”
Liz was silent for a beat. When she talked, her voice was so low I could barely hear her. “Ashley was officially given the manager position yesterday. That makes her your new boss, Ken. Your new boss is sleeping with your husband. You have to find a different job, sweetie.”
I groaned again. What a cluster. Could my life get any worse? I nearly jumped out of my bra when a cuckoo clock on the far wall tweeted out the nine o’clock hour. I glared at the little black crow that had popped out of the wooden clock. It was making more of a “huh-uh” noise than a tweet. I only vaguely remembered talking on the phone with my aunt Maeve when I was a kid, but she’d gotten weirder over the years, that was for sure. The sporadic phone calls had hidden a lot. Sadly, had they not had a falling out, I was pretty sure she and my mom would have been best friends.
“So that leaves us with the final dilemma on your list.”
I frowned, pulling myself to my feet. “What list?”
“You won’t let me talk about the neighbor, you’re getting a divorce, and you need a new job. That leaves your crisis of identity to discuss.”
I rolled my eyes and picked my way through the living room, careful not to step on any of the plant arms that had grown over the pots and reached across the floor, like they were making a run for the front door to escape. “How did I get here, Liz?”
“Well, you married a jackass, then took a shitty job, and then you got on a flight yesterday to Florida.”
Her deadpan delivery made me chuckle. “Not literally, Davis.”
“Oh, sorry. Well, I think you just need to get back to the girl I met in college.”
I made it to the dining room, sinking down into a chair and looking around the place with new eyes. “I don’t even remember her.”
“I know. That’s the point. The Kenna Ryan I met was vivacious, driven, and confident. When you walked into the room, every person, male or female, turned in your direction. We were all sunflowers and you were the sun. We could tell we were in the presence of someone special.”
That might have been the nicest thing someone had ever said to me. And it made me want to burst into tears because I was so far from that person now I couldn’t even see her in my rearview mirror.
“I think she might be gone, Liz,” I whispered.
“Hell, no, she isn’t gone!” Liz snapped so loudly I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “She’s just covered in a thick layer of corporate bullshit, sleazy husband, and poor life decisions.”
I wiped my nose. “Tell me what you really think.”
“Kenna, listen to me. This trip to Florida might be just the thing you need to turn your life around. A fresh start. Cut ties with Justin. Start freelancing like I’ve been telling you for years. Be the badass Kenna Ryan that I know and love!”
I stood up from my chair and felt a trickle of energy crackling in my veins for the first time in days. My bones still felt brittle, but there was a tiny flame of hope fluttering in my gut. “You know what? You’re right.”
“Say that again.”
