Page 26 of Gin and Bear It

“Yeah, Monday.”

“On Monday?” Mom literally clutches her pearl necklace. “Ashley, it is Friday morning. How am I supposed to plan a wedding over a weekend?”

I slump against my car. “We’re just going to the courthouse. It’s not a real wedding.”

“Oh, but it is.” Mom pulls her phone from the pocket of her pants. “Oh my goodness. I’ve got to mobilize. We need florals and food… I wonder if Sarah Jane would be able to even make a cake… Ashley, you’re making my hairdresser very wealthy with all these grays she’ll have to cover up.”

I hold in a laugh—she’s been saying that since I was a child. Her hair is entirely salt and pepper now as far as I can tell. But she hardly lets her roots show before getting them touched up.

“I’ve gotta run,” I say, leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Mmkay,” she says, her fingers flying over her phone screen. The font is enormous because she refuses to wear her reading glasses, so I can see where she’s typed URGENT: PARTY EMERGENCY!!!!! in the subject line of an email with five different recipients.

I give Lady a few more pets before getting in my car and driving to Jada’s. The guilt is eating at me more than I thought it would. To be honest, I didn’t think Mom would care as much about my wedding as she would about Waylon’s or Wes’s or JD’s.

Not that Mom doesn’t love me—she does—but I’ve always kept her on the edge of my orbit. Most of the time it’s so I don’t worry her, but now I’m seeing how little she knows me. She seemed more confused as to why Jada didn’t tell her about us rather than me.

I shove that thought into the back of my head by the time I pull up to Jada’s. My stomach flip-flops into my chest, then down again. I’ve lived in a lot of places, mostly crammed into places with roommates or my bandmates.

But living with Jada feels different. It’s her permanent home, and based on my little perusal of the space, it’s highly personal. Every inch of the walls and the furniture were bursting with Jada—colors and knickknacks and even her surprisingly sweet cat felt like reflections of her.

I really liked it, too.

Even though I’ve never settled down in a place long enough to make it my own, I’ve always had specific ideas about how I’d want my space to be. And a lot of what Jada already has fits what I’d want, too.

Maybe it’s a good omen. A small one, but I’ll take anything at this point.

I text Jada and she appears moments later in one of those little rompers she wore the other day. It looks soft and comfortable, but clings to her curvy body like lingerie.

“Need help?” she asks as I get out of the car.

“Maybe carry this?” I pick up a small box of vinyl.

She stares down at it, then at the heavier stuff still in my trunk. For a moment I think she’s going to try to pick up something heavier, but she takes the box and goes upstairs. We bring everything in, with her putting all of my stuff in the living room next to the couch.

“So, this is your space.” She gestures vaguely to the couch. The cat, who I remember is named Pipsqueak, leaps onto it, purring. “And my bedroom is my space. The kitchen and bathroom are obviously shared spaces.”

I nod. Pipsqueak—or Pip, as Jada has called him—prowls toward me, tail up, and reaches out with a paw. I pet him and he purrs even louder, like he’s known me for more than three hours in his whole cat life.

“Let me give you a tour, actually,” she murmurs, waving me toward her. “Not that it’s huge, but…yeah…”

She bites her lip, glancing at me over her shoulder like she’s nervous. Pip follows us, weaving between her ankles and looking back at me, too.

“My bedroom. Please don’t go in here,” she says, pushing open a door at the end of the hall.

It looks so cozy that I almost want to walk right in, regardless of what she just said. A huge king-sized bed takes up one wall and is piled high with an explosion of brightly colored pillows and stuffed animals. The lighting is low, with a few lamps placed strategically to bathe the room in a warm glow. A TV is mounted on the wall opposite the bed, with built-in bookcases surrounding it.

She clears her throat—she’s down the hall already, so I follow and nearly trip over Pip.

“The bathroom. For the love of god, flush the toilet and don’t pee all over the place. No beard hairs anywhere. Don’t use my shampoo or conditioner, not that it would do much for your hair.” She looks me up and down. “What’s your schedule like, anyway?”

“Uh…” I run my hand through my hair. I’ve drafted a text to JD but haven’t had the balls to hit send. I need to. “To be determined. I need to talk to JD.”

“Fine. I usually have my work schedule in here.” She gestures toward the kitchen. “My work schedule and everything else.”

I was in her kitchen when we first talked, but I didn’t get the chance to take everything in. Everything is stuffed to the brim, but clearly very intentional. Bins. There are so many clear bins on the open shelving and on top of the fridge, all of them labeled in big, broad categories like “meds” or “soup stuff.”

Her fridge is a mess of magnets on one side, and a big whiteboard on the other. On the third side she has papers and what look like schedules and info lining the side at her eye level.