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“Uh oh?” Miranda cocked her head to the side.
“Oh no, she’s right.” Siena turned away from watching Harley and focused on Miranda’s face. “That’s definitely an uh oh. One that means we are about to regret the amount of work we’ll have to do by agreeing to whatever you’re scheming up.”
Miranda flushed, her cheeks heating. When had these two become her friends as well? She wasn’t sure, but having them here was exactly what she wanted. “It’s for Tori. She deserves it.”
“Mom deserves everything,” Harley piped up, and Miranda grinned.
“She does indeed, Harley. But you can’t tell Mom about this. It’s a secret,” Miranda said in a loud whisper.
Harley’s face paled, and her bottom lip trembled. Miranda’s blood ran cold. What the hell had just happened?
“No baby. Miranda didn’t mean a bad secret.” Siena rushed out the words.
“We don’t keep secrets,” Harley said, angry eyebrows angled toward her nose as she glared at Miranda.
Miranda wanted to say something, but her mouth was frozen in a stunned O.
“Miranda didn’t know that, Harley. And she didn’t really mean a secret. She meant to say a surprise for Mom.” Siena leaned forward, locking her gaze on her daughter. Thank God she was there, because Miranda was so lost about what to do next.
“Okay.” Harley wasn’t quite convinced yet.
“I was hoping we could throw Mom a big surprise party.” Miranda crouched down beside Harley as best she could in her pinstriped pencil skirt, her knees together and pushed off to one side. She had to fix this. Whatever she had messed up, there had to be a way out of it. Maybe the hard part wasn’t going to be wrangling the adults but the kid in the room. “What do you think? Would she like that?”
“Oh, she would love it.” Harley warmed up to the idea now. Miranda hoped that meant Harley had already forgiven her the mistake of using the word secret.
“Will you help me?” Miranda asked. “Please?”
“Oh yes. I’m a great helper.”
“Yeah, you are, Harley.” Miranda stood back up and faced Siena and Aili, who looked at her with expressions Miranda didn’t even know how to begin to process. “And what about you two?”
“So you’re throwing her a party?” Siena asked.
“Yes. That’s what I want to do. And I’ll need both of you to help because this isn’t my area of expertise.” Her nerves were already rampaging through her at the thought of the party and all that there was to do for it. But mostly the people, and being surrounded by people she didn’t know.
“Excellent.” Aili nodded and swiveled toward her computer, quickly bringing up a calendar with a few clicks of her mouse. “We have one week until her birthday. When and where were you thinking?”
“There’s really only one day we could do it.” Miranda leaned over Aili’s shoulder and pointed to the weekend which was a day before Tori’s actual birthday.
“That makes it easier then.” Aili typed in big capital letters, Tori’s Surprise Thirtieth. “Though a little more time might have helped.”
Siena cut in before Miranda could start spluttering with apologies or explanations for why she hadn’t come to them sooner. “Where and what exactly are you planning?”
“And what do you need us to do?” Aili took the hint.
Miranda opened her mouth to answer but was cut off by the intrusive ringing of her cell phone. She pulled it out of her pocket and stared at the name across the screen. “Shit.”
“No-no word,” Harley piped up from the corner, and Miranda threw her an apologetic look. Great, two strikes with Harley, and it wasn’t even Tori’s week to have her.
“It’s my mother.” Miranda looked back up at Siena and then Aili. “I’ve got to take this, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Siena smiled. “We’ll catch up and start planning soon.”
“Thanks.” Miranda slipped out of the office and back into the parking lot as she answered. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
Her mother never called. Miranda was always the one who had to reach out first. The only time her mother called was in response to a message Miranda left. Miranda hadn’t left any messages, not for the last two weeks.
“Oh, nothing, I just got a call from Tierney.”
