Page 58 of Take Two

“Whatever you figure out, don’t make the decision for him.”

The words land with more weight than I expect. I let them sink in before I answer. “I won’t.”

“Good.” Another brief pause. “I’ll let you get back to your sister. Tell Tazja I said hi, and congratulations on the new place.”

“I will,” I say, ending the call.

I lower my phone and stare at the blank screen for a beat longer than I need to. The street noise fills in around me, the hum of passing cars, a fragment of music from somewhere I can’t identify, the faint rise and fall of someone’s conversation half a block away.

“You okay?”

I look up. Tazja is walking toward me from the door, the estate agent disappearing back inside behind her with her phone already pressed to her ear, heading toward what I have already started thinking of as the reception area.

“It was Marcus,” I say.

Tazja studies my face the way she has always done, like she’s reading something slightly below the surface of whatever expression I’m wearing. “Everything okay?”

I slip my phone back into my pocket and nod. “Yeah. Nothing bad.”

Her expression softens before she hooks her thumb toward the building behind her. “She’s calling the landlord. Apparently we’ve arrived at lease terms.”

I smile. “I figured you’d love this place.”

She laughs, a full genuine laugh, clapping her hands together once and bouncing slightly in the high-heeled boots she wears like she was born in them. “I do. Jamie, I actually think this is happening.”

“I’m happy for you,” I say, giving her a gentle shove.

“I know.” She bumps her shoulder against mine and turns back toward the entrance, already moving. “You coming?”

I fall into step beside her, but my thoughts stay a few paces behind, the conversation I just had with Marcus trailing me like a second shadow. Tomorrow is our family’s Fourth of July barbecue, the entire extended Maxwell household descending on my parents’ backyard with enough food for a small stadium. Everyone will be there, some coming from as far as New York, and for some reason, the only person I can picture standing beside me through all of it is Cyaire.

I stop walking.

“Taz.”

She turns back to look at me, one hand already on the door. “Yeah?”

I hesitate for just a second before asking. “Would it be weird if I invited Cyaire tomorrow?”

A slow smile spreads across her face, the kind she can’t quite help. “To the barbecue?”

I nod.

She lets out a quiet laugh, not unkind, just knowing. “Jamie, we already expect him to be there.”

I blink. “You do?” Apparently, I’m oblivious.

“Of course we do.” She steps away from the door and folds her arms across her chest, tilting her head at me with an expression that is somewhere between fond and completely bewildered. “Why wouldn’t we?”

I shrug, both hands up, the honest answer being that I have apparently been overthinking this so thoroughly that I circled back around to uncertainty.

“I don’t know. Everything just feels different lately.”

“Different how?”

I search for the words and come up empty, which is frustrating because I am usually better at articulating things than this.

“I don’t know how this works yet,” I finally say. “There are so many moving pieces, so many complications. I can’t seem to find a clear line through all of it.”