Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
I’ve barely had time to sit and relax lately, but just like always, that’s for the best. The more I sit still, the more I think, and I’d rather be busying my hands than trapped in the messy web of thoughts in my mind. I closed CAFFEINE down for the day about an hour ago, and now it’s time to get moving on other things.
I rinse out my mug and set it in the sink and then head down the hallway to my bedroom to put on a pair of cutoff shorts and a tank top so I can do a little work in the garden beds outside. It’s ungodly hot out, but Grandma Rose would chew me a new one if she saw the slightly unkempt state I’ve let them get to. She called her flower beds the windows to another universe and bordered them with fairy statues and gnomes and frogs to drive the point home.
I tie up my curls in a loose and messy bun and grab my gardening gloves from the top of my stonewashed oak dresser before heading back down the hall toward the front of the house. I snag a bottle of water from the fridge, my AirPods from the counter, and am just about to force myself to get to work when three harsh knocks sound off through the pink front door.
I roll my eyes to myself as I think of just about the only possibility of who it could be. Randy Hanson, no doubt, trying to get me to sell Grandma Rose’s house yet again for way too little money.
I swear, I spend half my time off telling him to blow a goat these days.
Setting my water bottle and earbuds back down on the counter, I charge through the living room and yank open the door, ready to rumble with Randy. But the person standing there isn’t Randy at all.
No. It’s my sister.
“Norah?” I ask, my heart in my throat at the sight of her. I haven’t laid eyes on her light brown curls or sweet brown eyes in half a decade. I haven’t laid eyes on her since the day we put Grandma Rose in the ground.
She’s nervous. That much is obvious in the way her voice shakes as she says, “Hi, sis.”
But she’d be stupid not to be after the way we left things five years ago. The way she sided with our mother, even after Eleanor had said downright vile things to me, is hard to get over. It’s not an easy pill to swallow when your own mother wants to think the worst of you. And it’s even harder having your sister stand there and not have your back at all.
I was Norah’s everything when we were kids. We were everything to each other.
“Uh…” She pauses, her eyes flitting from her shoes to my still-shocked gaze several times. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by and see how you’re doing.”
“In the neighborhood?” I scoff, narrowing my eyes. “Red Bridge is nine hours away from New York.”
She’s fancy personified, down to her black boots, designer jeans, swanky shirt, and Louis Vuitton suitcase, though there’s a coating of dust on it all nearly a quarter of an inch thick. She looks like a city princess who took one hell of a wrong turn.
“Okay, so I wasn’t exactly in the neighborhood, but I…wanted to see you.”
“You came all the way to Red Bridge because, suddenly, after five years of no contact, you wanted to see me?” I ask, my skepticism at an all-time high. “You really expect me to believe that?”
“I did. I do want to see you. Five years is too long for anyone, and it’s definitely too long for us,” she says, clearly romanticizing our past for dramatic effect. I appreciate the effort, but the suitcase in her hand and the sweat covering her face tell a completely different story. “And…I kind of…sort of…need a place to stay for a little while.”
Consider me absolutely gobsmacked at the level of her audacity.
“You want to stay here? With me?” I question, and I don’t hide the outright indignation in my voice. A year ago, she probably wouldn’t have likened me to anything better than a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her designer shoe. But now that she needs something, we’re the best of friends? I don’t buy it for a second. “And you didn’t think it was a good idea to give me a heads-up?”
“I tried to call you,” she lies, pissing me off even more. I have no missed calls on my phone, and she doesn’t even have my number. Eleanor made damn sure after I left New York that the two of us never had direct contact without her in the middle.
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, so I didn’t try to call you because I had a feeling you’d strongly discourage my presence.”