Page 228 of Ex Somnis

“Okay. Who’s frying butter at this hour, and why am I the last to know?”

Tessa.

She breezes in how she breezes into everything, like the room ought to be grateful, hair twisted up, apron strings double-looped around a waist that finally has weight on it again, with ballet-pink nails because she will not let me paint anything else on her, not since she woke up.

She heads directly for the pan.

“That’s for the guests,” I say.

“I’m a guest.” She plucks a slice straight out of the butter with her bare fingers, hisses, juggles it hand to hand, but eats it anyway.

Exactly how my mother would have.

The echo goes through me, warm and aching at the same time, and I don’t say a word, because that one is mine to keep now. All of it. The kitchen, the morning, the woman stealing food out of my pan like she’s got every right to.

She chews, then her chewing slows when she looks at the custard dish, then the bread, then me, and her face falls because Tessa knows me. She knows the very short list of things I don’t make.

“French toast,” she says quietly.

“Dad got loud this morning.” I flip a slice. “Figured I’d let him boss me around one more time.”

Tessa doesn’t do soft. She never has. She bumps her shoulder into mine, hard enough to rock me, steals a second piece, and says, “He had great taste, recipes, and daughters.”

That’s the whole eulogy, and it’s perfect.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” I tell her. “Derek’s going to have a stroke.”

“Derek thinks I’m overseeing the table arrangements.” She does air quotes with a greasy hand. “I delegated. Mom has the baby, Derek has Melanie, and I have…” she gestures at the pan, “… quality control. Can’t have Ridge’s adoring public dropping dead in our restaurant.”

Our restaurant.

It still does something to me, every single time. The notebook we filled, stupid with hope, the little place with both our names on it, and now it’s real. The sign down the hall says Maes & Vaughn’s.

I catch her hand before it can reach slice number three and turn it over. The polish is flawless. “I keep meaning to change these to French tips.”

“Don’t you dare.” She snatches her hand back, curls it to her chest. “I’m keeping the pink. It’s sentimental. Drop it.”

My throat does something stupid.

I have my best friend back.

She’s standing in my kitchen at nine in the morning, getting butter on the counter, bullying me about nail polish, and there’s no beach, no doors, no mask. No dimension between us. No reason to check if she’s real.

My hand twitches anyway. Old habit. I almost check my fingers.

I don’t have to.

She catches me looking. “What?”

“Nothing.” I clear my throat. “You’ve got powdered sugar on your face.”

“I do not.” She swipes and misses. “Do I?”

“Other side.”

She gets it, then looks at me again. For one second, the breeze drops clean off her, and it’s us, the way it’s been since a too-small dorm and a two-in-the-morning tray of cookie dough, and she says, “I love you.”

“I love you more.”