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“I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Roxanne sulks as we enter the kitchen.
“I don’t know either.” I sit at the breakfast table and gaze out the window.
“We’re going to have to say something to Dr. Chase at least.” Roxanne leans against the counter.
“I know. I would have spoken to him earlier, but I couldn’t bear him telling Mom. Did you see how happy she was today?”
Roxanne nods. “She was smiling and laughing. She looked like her old self.”
“She did.”
“You know what? I think we should regroup tomorrow. You should get some sleep.” Roxanne looks worried about me.
I never told her where I was last night. She doesn’t know that I sought solace in the arms of my monster. She thinks I was walking the streets of New York crying my eyes out. If Cillian hadn’t saved me I probably would have done that.
“You should get some rest, too.”
“Adrian is going to pick me up. I’m going to stay with him tonight. He’s been so good to me through this whole event.”
“I’m glad you found each other.”
She grins with her usual sass. “He was my favorite accident.”
I smile back at her, taking comfort in the spark that comes into her eyes whenever she talks about Adrian. “From what you told me he sounds like a very good accident.”
“He was the best kind.”
She and Adrian have been dating for six months. He’s ten years older than her and works in real estate, which is a big bonus for Roxanne because she likes ambitious men who are real go-getters. She met him at a coffee shop when she was supposed to be meeting Harlan there to pick up some paperwork for the restaurant. Harlan was late. When she went to look for Harlan, she bumped into Adrian, spilling coffee over him. They got talking and by the end of that exchange, he asked her out. They’ve been dating ever since.
“You haven’t said anything about Cillian. Have you seen him since that night?”
She knows about the night he came to claim his eighteen and a half minutes, but nothing more. I don’t feel like telling her that I complicated things even more between us. “No.”
I hate lying, but I need to right now. I’m not in the mood to talk about the man who makes me happy when I feel guilty for seeking an escape from the situation we’re in. As Cillian feasted on me at the bar and in his gorgeous four-bedroom mansion in the Hamptons, I felt like I wasn’t me, as if I slipped away and became someone else.
I wanted to stay at his house and explore it and explore him too. But I had to come back to Earth.
“I guess we need to keep things simple, so maybe it’s best. I wish we could get another loan from him but I know it would be inappropriate.”
I’m already nodding. “I have to find another way.”
“We,” she corrects me with a little smile. “We have to find another way.”
“I appreciate you.”
“I know. There has to be something we can do. We have this house and we have the restaurant. We could sell something.”
I bite the inside of my lips. “The problem is the length of time. How long will it take to sell a house or restaurant? It could be months.” I’ve known places to be on the market for years. “I keep remembering Mom saying there are only two to three months before we have no hope.”
“She told me that, too. It felt like she was preparing us.”
“Yes. It did feel like that.”
“We’ll put our heads together and come up with something. We have to.”
The kitchen door swings open and Adrian comes through carrying a giant bag of Cheetos.
“Hey, girls.” He smiles at both of us.
