Page 25 of Friends to WHAT?!

“Sorry,” I apologize. “Am I helping at all?” Even a little bit? Even slightly?

She lifts her hand to hold her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “You’ve helped at least this much,” she informs me before flattening her hand and holding it far from her body, doing the same with her other hand until her arms are stretched as wide as they can go. She grins, the drying tear tracks on her face forgotten for now. “Gigi bringing me a cinnamon roll is going to helpthismuch.”

I snort and drag her back in for a big, squishy hug. “We better get you that cinnamon roll quick, then.”

She agrees readily, jumping out of my lap to run for her shoes, hair flying everywhere and probably creating more work for poor Almond, who I will be foisting today’s girlie haircare onto.

Amia is going to be late to school.

Amia is going to be a sugared-up, hyper mess.

Amia is going to be a late-to-school, sugared-up, hyper mess who feels loved and cared for.

Relief that we’ve navigated this minefield overtakes me. I’m sure it will come back up, and when it does, a cinnamon roll and a tardy slip might not do the trick. For now, though, we’re okay. Amia is okay.

Amia isloved.

I betElizabethisn’t showing up to school with professionally done hair and cinnamon sticky fingers.

I text my sister to warn her we’re coming, then I text my mother to meet us at Almond’s.

And I ask her to bring the biggest roll the bakery has.

Chapter Eleven

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Leora is the queen of nonchalant, I assure you.

Leora

On my phone, Amia sits in the styling chair in Almond’s in-home hair studio, smiling huge around a cinnamon roll the size of her head. The photo was sent at 8:37 AM, which I am almost positive is a time of day that children are meant to be at school. I scroll up and confirm that Amia’s other before-school photos have all been sent at least an hour earlier.

My teeth worry my lip, and I shift in the tall wooden stool behind the counter at Hunter’s Moon.

Is she sick? Did she need to miss school, and the breakfast treat was an attempt at getting food in her? When I’m sick, the only thing I want to eat is Little Debbie cosmic brownies. My dad used to give them to me as a kid, claiming the rainbow sprinkles had magical healing properties. As an adult, I know he was full of it. Even still, anytime I get the sniffles, it’s a cosmic diet for me.

My fingers hover over the keyboard. Should I send a message to ask? She doesn’tlooksick, does she?

I squint at the screen, bringing it closer to give me a better view.

My brows furrow.

Are her eyes a little puffy? It’s hard to tell with the pixelation…

I zoom in until there is no more zoom to in, and my answer is no clearer than before. Her eyescouldbe a little puffy, butthey could just as well not be, and if theyare, it could easily be attributed to allergies, which would be nothing to worry about.

I frown.

Wolfe would tell me if she developed allergies, wouldn’t he? And definitely he’d tell me if something were wrong… right?

I hate that I’m not one hundred percent sure of the answer to those questions, and I hate that asking him feels like a minefield. I exit the picture to consider the keyboard once again.

I could just type something out. A simple question. It would besoeasy, andhedid it before, so it’s not like I would be breaking any unspoken rules that he hasn’t already broken.

But it’s been two days since we saw each other, and in those two days, he’s done nothing but send me two photos of Amia, both before school. He hasn’t sent any of his usual middle-of-the-day pictures of whatever random things have reminded him of me. He hasn’t sent another message. He hasn’t done anything more than the bare minimum of contact that we maintain at the worst of times.

I sigh, then I tsk.