Page 123 of Snowed In with Benefits

“For how long? A week? Two?” She shakes her head. “I’m not trying to be mean, but somebody has to say it. You left Preston, you left your job, you’re running around with three men—at some point, the fun part ends and you have to deal with real life.”

There it is. The Courtney I know. The one who sounds exactly like our mother when she’s scared. I take a breath and let it go slowly instead of firing back.

“I hear you,” I tell her. “And I know it looks reckless from the outside. But I’m not running away from real life. I’m running toward it. For the first time.”

She opens her mouth, then closes it. Her fingers tighten around her cup.

“You seem happy,” she says quietly, like she’s admitting something she didn’t want to.

“I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life,” I tell her honestly.

She’s quiet for a long time after that. She looks down at her coffee, then out the window, then back at me. “I was expecting you to tell me that you regretted everything. I was expecting you to ask me for advice on how to get back with Preston.”

I make a face at that, then laugh. “Preston never saw me for who I am. He didn’t want to.”

“And your new friends… they do?”

“They do,” I tell her. “They love me exactly as I am.”

She raises her eyebrows. “They love you?”

I nod, completely unapologetic. “And I love them.”

“Hm,” she says, and sips her coffee. “So, photos.”

“Yeah, photos. Do you want to see?”

She hesitates, then nods. I pull up my best-sellers and hand her my phone. She scrolls through them slowly, and I watch her face change. The skepticism fades. Something else takes its place, something softer and sadder. She lingers on a shot of the mountains at dawn, the one where the light is coming through the trees like it’s being poured.

“These are really good, Josie,” she says, and her voice catches just slightly on my name.

I don’t know what to do with that. Courtney has never told me that anything I’ve done is good. Not once. Not in our entire lives. I want to ask her what’s wrong, but we aren’t there yet. We aren’t the kind of sisters who ask each other what’s wrong. Maybe someday. Not today.

She hands my phone back and looks at her coffee for a while. We talk about Nola, about school, about the fireworks. Safe things. But the sadness stays in her face, sitting just behind her eyes, and I think I’m starting to understand where it’s coming from. She’s not sad for me. She’s sad for herself. She’s looking at her little sister—the mess, the screwup, the one who threw away a perfectly good life—and that sister is happier than she is. And Courtney doesn’t know what to do with that.

I get a text from Hunter telling me that the apartment is completely packed and ready to load.

“I have to go,” I tell her. “I’m moving to the Cascades, and it’s time to go.”

“The Cascades? Really?”

I nod. “I can do my job from anywhere. That’s where I want to do it from.”

“I see,” she says. She pauses for a long moment. “I’m happy for you, Josie.”

“I’m happy for me, too,” I tell her. “It’s a strange feeling, but I’m getting used to it.”

She gives me a sad little smile. “Best of luck to you.”

“Thanks. Keep in touch, okay?”

“I will.”

I leave, feeling like something has shifted between us. Like something has shifted in her. Maybe she’s starting to see that life doesn’t need to be the way that it is for her. Maybe she’s starting to see that there’s more to life than she thought.

Back at the apartment, the guys are starting to load up the truck. I help as much as I can, mostly just going through the apartment to make sure that nothing’s been missed. I don’t find anything, not even my shampoo. That makes me smile. When everything is packed up, I stop by the office just long enough to drop off the key.

“Ready?” Hunter asks.