Page 40 of Friends to WHAT?!

“I am hopeful,” I confirm softly. “I want to be a better man than what I’ve been in the past, for myself, sure, but mostly for the people around me. I don’t want to screw up again like I did with you. I want to be better. And she’s helping me see that I can andhowI can.”

I cross the front of the truck, but stop on the opposite side of the hood when Fox calls my name. He stands frowning at me, leaning over the dark metal. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says, not for the first time. “You did what you thought was right, and I wouldn’t have let you do much more anyway. Stop beating yourself up over it.”

I grunt, but there’s not quite as much self-hate in it as there would have been mere weeks ago. “I’m not beating myself up,” I tell him, then continue before he can call me a liar. “I’mnot. Not in the way you think I am. I just… I want to be better, and I’mgettingbetter. You weren’t at that meeting Leora held, so you didn’t get to see all of my cons neatly listed in rows. I’m sure Poem told you about it. I’m sure Almond did, too. But it’s not the same, Fox. Knowing about it and seeing it?” I shake my head. “Very different experiences. Iknewsomething needed to change. Then Isawsomething needed to change. So I’m doing it. I’m changing things. It’s hard, and it sucks, and it’s seriously uncomfortable, but it’s like you said. I see a future that looks light, and it’s just within reach. I’m doing my best to grasp it and hold on tight.”

Fox considers me for long, silent minutes. Finally, he says, “So long as you know that I love you, no matter what version of you that you are.”

I smile softly. “Of course I know that. You’re Fox. My brother, my twin, my womb-hogging other half. You love me even when I’m not here for you like I should be, or taking care of you like I should be, either. You love me to foolishness.”

He scowls. “Youwere the womb hog.”

I laugh, shake my head, and climb into the truck.

He follows, and we spend the ride home comforting and reassuring each other that we’re okay in the best way that twins know how—by arguing over who took the Wolfe’s share ofthe womb… or the Fox’s share, depending on whose story you believe.

Chapter Nineteen

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Welcome back to Rory’s Market!

Leora

Does anyoneactuallyknow how to tell if cantaloupe is ripe or not? Am I supposed to smell it? Knock on it? Offer it up to an ancient tree in the Pacific Northwest and see if it’s accepted as good enough for the forest?

I tilt the melon in my hands, spinning it around to look for anything that could be regarded as suspicious.Whatthat suspicious thing might be, I have no clue, but it could besomething. Right?

Wolfe probably knows how to tell if a melon is good or not. He’s sent me pictures before of the little watermelon and honeydew shapes he cuts for Amia. He wrote me once that he tries to make healthy foods fun, and junky foods boring. He preps adorable fruits and vegetables once a week, doing different themes for the shapes and trying to keep up with her current interests. He does the same with other snacks, too, and I’ve received many pictures of Pinterest-worthy lunches he’s packed her.

I could probably ask him how to tell if a melon is ripe.

I could, actually,definitelyask him how to tell if a melon is ripe. I could do it right now, this very second. Not because I have access to him via Discord, which he only checks a couple times a day, but because I have access to his phone number.

Wolfe Blackwood’s phone number.

It’s scrawled on a pink sheet of stationery paper tucked haphazardly into my purse.

Above the ten–digit number are scrawled more words, explaining things I can’t remember. Namely, how I got home. The last thing I recall from my foray to Blackwood Brew is working hard to pick up ice with makeshift chopsticks. Everything after that, I know from the note.

The note with Wolfe’s phone number at the bottom of it, telling me to call him if I need anything in the night or in the morning.

Apparently, Fox would be more than happy to keep an eye on Amia in the middle of the night so that Wolfe can drive to my home and hold my hair while I vomit.

Apparently, when Wolfe drove me home last night in my car, Fox followed, and the two of them got me safely to bed. Or, if the note is to be believed,Wolfegot me safely to bed while Fox nosed about my living room calling observations about my person down the hall. I don’t know what the observations were, because Wolfe didn’t write them down, but I can surmise that they weren’t terrible by the fact that directly below Wolfe’s number lies Fox’s in a handwriting quite a bit sharper than Wolfe’s.

Wolfe wrote that Fox would drive him home, and that I should drink some of the water he left on my nightstand next to his note, and perhaps, if I want to, just as a suggestion, I could take a couple of the pain pills from the bottle beside the water.

Also, by the way, he had a really good time, and he’s glad that I came to the bar. He hopes we have many nights filled just like that, a lifetime of memories in a place where he already has so many.A second lifetime, with you.

Then, his phone number. And his brother’s, but…hisphone number. Wolfe Blackwood’s phone number. Right there, for me.

Stars, we really aren’t stuck in our mailboxes anymore, are we?

“Miss Leora!” a bright, beautiful voice greets from the other side of my melon.

I blink and lower the fruit.

My eyes widen. “Amia!”