Page 123 of Just One More Thing

“That’s cosmic permission. The universe literally lit up the sky for you two. It threw fireworks.”

“Lainey, honey,” Ainsley says gently, “I love you, but you need to step away from the romance section for a while.”

Lainey sticks her tongue out at her. “Okay. New scale. Hand holding to five chili peppers. Where are we currently operating?”

“I don’t even understand what that means.”

“You’ve kissed. What else?”

I take another sip of wine.

Then another.

“We’re at very good kissing that occasionally makes me forget my own name.”

Lainey’s eyes go almost as wide as her smile. “Awww. Have you kissed in the rain yet?”

“No, but there was a foot pop,” I admit before I can stop myself.

Lainey shrieks so loudly, I jump. “That is the universal sign of?—“

“Lainey,” Bethany warns.

Lainey bounces harder in the beanbag chair anyway. “This is huge.”

“It’s a huge problem,” I say quietly. “Remember I leave in a few weeks. Well about ten days.”

Lainey stops bouncing. Ainsley stops chewing. Bethany goes still.

“When you said weeks, I was thinking weeks. You’re in days now,” Bethany says.

“Does he know?” Ainsley asks.

“He knows I’m only here temporarily.”

Bethany clears her throat. “Is this an I’m leaving in ten days goodbye forever situation?”

“No. Absolutely not. I’m not done.” I take a breath. “With him. With this. With any of it. I just don’t know what that looks like when I leave.”

Lainey’s eyes suddenly fill with tears.

I point at her. “Don’t.”

She fans her face. “I’m not doing anything.”

“She cried at a car commercial last week,” Bethany says.

“It was emotional,” Lainey argues. “The car detected a mommy duck and her little ducklings crossing the road and stopped automatically to avoid tragedy.”

Ainsley nods. “That would get me too.”

“Thank you.”

By ten we’ve moved outside to the back porch with refilled wine glasses and the remains of the cheese board.

The night is warm and damp in that end-of-summer way that makes the air feel heavy against your skin. Late night salt air that somehow smells different from any other time of the day and blooming jasmine drift through the screen porch while out on the water somebody’s radio plays something that isn’t quite country and isn’t quite not.

Ainsley folds herself into one of the porch chairs and turns toward Bethany. “Are we going to talk about Wayne?”