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“What? I’m hot!”
“And entirely too aware of it,” Abby scoffs.
“Dee.” Jack pouts. “Abby is hurting my feelings.”
Lila rolls her eyes. “It’s about time someone took you down a peg.”
“I’m not really into pegging,” Jack deadpans. “But never say never.”
“Wow,” I comment dryly as Abby and Lila make an ack sound in tandem. “I’m really going to miss interactions like this.”
“Oh, shut up,” Jack huffs. “You’ve spent more nights at Lila’s than this place in the last few months. You might as well have already been living there. I don’t even know why it took you this long to make it official.”
“I didn’t want you to miss me too bad,” I answer, stepping closer to pinch his cheek.
Jack punches me in the shoulder. “I have both arms now, dick. I’ll kick your ass.”
“Sure you will,” I laugh.
Jack throws up his hands. “You’re all assholes.”
We watch him stomp back toward the living room, Abby shaking her head before she regards us. “Was there any more?”
“Just this last one,” I tell her, pointing to the box on the ground.
“I’ll get it,” she says, bending to scoop it up. “Actually, I’ll make Jack carry it. Give him something to do other than bitching.”
I hear her call his name as she makes her way back down the hall, the sound of them bickering immediately drifting toward my old room. Lila chuckles as she loops an arm through mine, shaking her head.
“Abby has certainly gotten used to Jack.”
I nod thoughtfully. “I sort of love watching her boss him around.”
“It’s definitely new for him,” Lila snickers.
I take another look around the bare room behind me, feeling a little nostalgic. This is where I first touched Lila, after all. The first place I called home after coming back to my old life. I can’t help but think about how different things are now from how they were when I first arrived back in Boston—all changes that have been overwhelmingly good.
My father ended up moving; he moved in with some woman he’s been seeing in California. We haven’t heard a word from him since the day he stomped out of the apartment all those months ago, and honestly, I’m glad for it. I hadn’t expected him to go as quietly as he did, but it seems Bradley Chase is smart enough at least to know when he’s lost. I can tell that it still bothers Abby sometimes, but she’s less than willing to talk about it, so I’ve been content to give her space on the matter while she comes to terms with her new life.
Another surprising thing that happened was how quickly the public did a one-eighty on their opinion of me; suddenly I’m some sort of hero, which is a moniker I don’t really think I deserve. I share too much of the blame in everything that happened, I made too many mistakes. Not that anyone will let me wallow in those facts for too long. It helps that Lila’s show is doing better than ever, one good thing to come out of the media frenzy we went through. With our official couple status and a partnership agreement between her network and the team for the next year, it seems that her numbers are something we won’t have to worry about for a while. Between my mom and Abby and Lila, the women in my life refuse to let me beat myself up too much. I count myself extremely lucky to have them.
“Well, I guess that’s it,” Lila says beside me, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I nod, turning to press a kiss to her hair. “Guess so.”
“We should hit a thrift shop when we’re done here. Find a new member of the Porcelain Pride to commemorate. For you, of course.”
My lips twitch. “Oh, sure, totally for me.”
“You know I’m always thinking about others,” she says sweetly.
“I know,” I answer, meaning it. “We have time before dinner at Mom’s tonight.”
“Abby is coming, yes?”
“Yeah,” I say with a smile. “She is. Mei and Bella too.”
The biggest surprise of all, I think, is how close my mother has gotten to Abby. No one would blame her for taking a different approach to this young woman—who, one could argue, threw a wrench into her life—but my mother has taken to Abby like she was hers, and I can tell how much that means to Abby. How much it’s helped bring her out of her own guilt.
