Page 289 of Manhattan Bossholes

“It’s not enough.” I was failing Dee. Everything else in my life seemed to be so wonderful. The new line was progressing beautifully. We’d have a couple pieces ready for the trade show at the end of the month. Things with Natasha were more than good. But none of that mattered if I lost Dee.

“Why don’t you go up and sit with her for a while?” Sofia suggested. “It’ll be good for you both. Plus, I need a break from all the princess talk,” she teased.

“Yeah, there was sure a lot of that yesterday,” I muttered. “Dee got very invested in playing with the kids. I think they crowned her queen at one point.”

Sofia chuckled. “I’m glad she had a good time. But she needs to remember not to push herself so hard.”

I should have known better. “Maybe I should have taken her home after an hour.”

Sofia tutted. “I don’t think Dee would have listened to either of us if she was determined to be at that party.”

She was stubborn. I knew that. If not, I’d have already scheduled her for this surgery.

Sofia inclined her head toward the stairs. “Go on. She knows you were on your way. If you don’t get up there soon, she’ll start complaining that we’re gossiping about her.”

That got a bit of a smile out of me. If nothing else, I could always rely on Dee complaining about that. “I’ll talk to you later,” I said as I headed upstairs for Dee’s bedroom.

The long hallway had a plush runner, and the walls were adorned with framed photos. Most of them were of me and Jimmy—baby photos, graduation photos, us at the lake house, me and the Lost Boys, Jimmy and his favorite dog, Spud. This hallway was like a time capsule of our life with Dee, and I wasn’t ready to give that up.

I knocked on the door at the end of the hall, pushing it open when Dee called out. She lay in the middle of her massive four-poster bed, the newspaper unfurled in her lap. She looked incredibly tiny propped up on the plush pillows. The whir of her oxygen tank filled the room. I swallowed the bile that filled my mouth.

“Morning.”

“There you are,” she said. She looked pointedly at the chair next to her bed. “I would have met you at the door, but I’ve been instructed to rest.”

I crossed the room, kissed her on the cheek, then slid into the chair. She passed me a page from the newspaper. I had no interest in reading it as I kept her company, my thoughts too heavy. “How’re you feeling?” I asked.

“Oh, fine,” she said. I knew she was lying. She lifted her phone in my direction. “Look at these.”

It was a group chat between Dee, Piper, Chloe, and Cora. An errant part of me wondered if Natasha would one day be part of the group. Then a horrible thought entered my mind, and I wondered if Dee would even be around long enough to add her.

“The girls have been sending me photos from yesterday,” Dee explained. “Doesn’t Hailey look precious?”

I tried to focus on the pictures, to be present with Dee at this moment and not think about losing her. “We should frame that one of you and Violet.”

“I agree.”

We scrolled through the rest of the photos. Natasha and I featured in a lot of them, too lost in each other to even realize there were cameras pointed our way. I’d clearly spent too much time wrapped up in her and not enough time keeping an eye on Dee. That didn’t seem to matter to Dee though. She simply beamed down at the photos.

“They look happy, don’t they?” Dee said, pointing out Stacy and Dominic in one of the photos. “She’s a nice girl. You know she’s a costume designer?”

I nodded. “You don’t think it’s a little soon for him to be moving on?”

“No,” Dee said simply. “They seem to get on well. She was positively doting on Hailey yesterday. What would be the point in Dominic denying himself that happiness?”

“I obviously want to see him happy. I guess I just got used to seeing him unhappy all the time, thanks to the custody drama. It hasn’t been that long since the divorce finally wrapped up. I figured he’d be happy to fly solo for a while.”

“Life doesn’t just stop moving when we lose something,” Dee said.

I swallowed hard, glaring at the wall across the room. I knew she wasn’t talking about herself, but I couldn’t help thinking that life would stop when Jimmy and I lost her.

“He’s closed the door on Amanda. If Stacy’s here now, why not see where it could go? Love doesn’t operate on any kind of timeline,” Dee said.

No, the only one with a timeline here was her. I gritted my teeth. “I guess.”

She reached out and squeezed my hand. “Soon none of my Lost Boys will be lost anymore. Especially you.” She looked deeply pleased at the thought.

“I wouldn’t say I was lost,” I muttered.