Sasha refused to divulge the surprise as she drove, though she seemed increasingly entertained by Kinsey’s wild attempts to guess. Kinsey was prepared for the worst—some loud, athletic activity that Sasha would love and Kinsey would be terrible at—when Sasha turned into a mall.
This didn’t ease Kinsey’s nerves. “Have I told you I hate ice skating?” she asked, staring at the building while Sasha circled the outer parking lot. “Also rollerblading. Also anything that requires you to strap wheels or blades or boards of any variety to your feet and has a high probability of ending with broken bones.”
“What?” Sasha gasped, pressing a hand to her heart with mock outrage. “Kinsey Han, not particularly interested in an athletic activity? Has our entire friendship been a lie?”
“Shut up,” Kinsey said, swatting Sasha’s shoulder lightly with the back of her hand. “Your version of fun is romping around in the mud after a ball. You can’t blame me for thinking your idea of a nice surprise is doing something that’s likely to kill me. Oh god,” she added, with dawning horror, “is there a paintball place in there?”
Sasha chuckled and turned into one of the long rows of parking spaces. “Could be.”
“Sasha. I’m wearing a dress. You could at least take me back to the hotel and let me change into something more appropriate before you subject me to an hour of paintball humiliation.”
“Be still, my child,” Sasha said, putting her palm on top of Kinsey’s head without taking her eyes off the road. “Upon my honor, no harm will come to you. Or your outfit.”
Kinsey glared as Sasha pulled into a spot. “If it’s paintball,” she warned, “I’m going to kill you.”
“That’s kind of the point of paintball anyway,” Sasha said, shutting off the engine. “You’d probably be great at it, actually. But that’s not the surprise. Come on. It’s not far.”
Kinsey sighed and climbed out of the van. Sun dappled the parking lot through gaps in the light gray clouds overhead. Charlotte was still chilly enough to need a jacket, but the trees were greener than they’d been in New York, early spring already well underway here. The breeze ruffling Kinsey’s hair carried the faint scent of new blooms and budding leaves under the more prominent scents of sun-warmed asphalt and the woodsmoke from a nearby restaurant.
Sasha had shoved her hands in the pockets of her bomber jacket as she walked ahead. Kinsey was glad to see she’d regained her usual open, self-assured posture which she’d lost back at the hospital; shoulders back, face angled toward the sky, a smile playing around her mouth. Sunlight touched her hair and shoulders like an old friend, warm and gentle . . .
Hoo boy. Kinsey couldn’t have been this sappy when she and Evie were together, could she? She hurried to catch up, careful to keep at least an arm’s length of space between them as they fell into step.
The surprise probably wasn’t a really nice cup of hot tea, Kinsey mused, trying to steer her thoughts in a safer direction. Or even a pretzel and strawberry lemonade. If it wasn’t paintball . . . A vision came to her of people on roller skates with paintball guns and she shuddered. Sasha would probably love that. Or—oh god, it had better not be paintball on ice. She’d die. If the ice didn’t get her, the embarrassment would.
“Did you find an arcade?” she asked hopefully. “An arcade wouldn’t be the worst. Or bowling. I think I could survive bowling.”
Sasha snorted. “Good to know.”
Kinsey made a face. “You’re just enjoying watching me squirm, aren’t you.”
“Maybe,” Sasha said, turning a bright smile on Kinsey. “You’re cute when you hate everything.”
“I always hate everything.”
“I guess that explains why you’re just so dang adorable.”
“Oh my god, Sasha,” Kinsey said, her face warming. “I can’t even talk to you right now.”
“Sorry. Force of habit,” Sasha said, walking backwards through a swinging glass door. She was still grinning, though. Completely unapologetic. She held the door open and gestured inside. “Welcome to the arena, darling.”
Oh. Kinsey stopped dead in her tracks. It wasn’t paintball or ice skating or anything like it. It was just a bookstore. A nice, quiet, peaceful bookstore.
Kinsey let out a breath, dazed. Why had she been convinced Sasha would drag her to something awful? Sasha wasn’t like that. She didn’t even ask Kinsey to come to her soccer games. Half the time Kinsey had to look up the schedule on the school website to make sure she didn’t miss one. Sasha never tried to make Kinsey into someone more like her. She let her be exactly who she was and—for some reason—liked her anyway.
“We don’t have to stay,” Sasha said, looking worried that Kinsey hadn’t spoken. “There’s a movie theater across the street. Or—I saw a cupcake place a few blocks back. We could—”
Kinsey cut her off with a fierce hug, which Sasha seemed too surprised to return. “It’s perfect.”
Sasha’s ears were pink when Kinsey withdrew, but she looked pleased. “Well . . . cool,” she said, lightly punching Kinsey’s shoulder. She cleared her throat, pulling on the end of her ponytail. “It, uh—It looks like they’ve got a café. You want a tea or something?”
“Yessss,” Kinsey said, letting Sasha lead the way. “I haven’t had a decent tea in days.”
Sasha insisted on buying Kinsey the biggest tea they had and got a smoothie for herself. They wandered the shelves with their drinks, chatting like they used to. Before Beatrice started talking about transferring. Before Kinsey worried so much about whether the next thing she said was going to drive Sasha away too. It was comforting, having Sasha nearby, laughing at Kinsey’s dry remarks, free from some of the tension she’d been holding in her shoulders since they left New York.
“We should bring your mom back a book or two,” Sasha said, plucking a fresh novel off the shelf she was sitting against. They’d been reading the back covers to each other for the last ten minutes or so. Sasha manned the cozy mysteries, and Kinsey the romances across the aisle. “Some of these sound awesome.”
“She’d like that,” Kinsey said, watching Sasha’s free hand absently roll her nearly empty cup on its edge. She had this way of moving that was so . . . deliberate. Lithe. Even when she wasn’t thinking about what she was doing. She just had this subtle grace about her. It was something about the confidence of her posture, the ease of her smile. It was the shape of her hand when she tucked her hair behind her ear . . .
Kinsey bit her lip as an image came to her, unbidden, of Sasha’s fingers in her own hair, drawing her in for a long, sweet kiss—
“You okay?” Sasha asked, going still.
Kinsey gave herself a firm mental shake, retreating behind a frown. “What?”
“You were looking at me funny.”
Fantastic. Kinsey sipped the remnants of her tea, repressing a wince when cold, gritty dregs hit her tongue. “Sorry.”
“Still worried about your mom?” Sasha guessed.
“Kind of.” It wasn’t why she’d been staring, but it was true. There was no reason to think her mom wasn’t well on her way to recovery, but Kinsey was still shaken by the scare. And it was easier to talk about that than admit the track her imagination had taken a few moments ago.
She sighed, slumping against the hard shelf at her back. “I keep wondering if it was a bad idea to come down,” she confessed.
“Really?” Sasha asked, tilting her head to one side with a little frown. “Why?”
“All I’m doing is stressing them out,” Kinsey said, lifting her shoulders. “You’re being more helpful than I am. I’m just . . . sitting around complaining about the sheets.”
“Well, sure,” Sasha said. “That’s how your family says you care. I’m sure your mom knows that. Your dad does it too.”
“My dad doesn’t sound mean when he does it.”
Sasha still looked confused. “Neither do you.”
“Okay, but you’re . . . immune from taking things personally or something.”
“I don’t know about that,” Sasha said, pulling her knees up and looping her arms around them. “But I really think you’re being too hard on yourself. Why would having you around stress them out?”
Kinsey crossed her arms, fixing her gaze on a book on the lowest shelf across the aisle. She hadn’t really talked about the big Han fallout with anyone but Evie. She’d been too wrapped up in her own self-righteous indignation at first. And too ashamed of how she’d handled it after they broke up. Too scared that confessing to being that much of a proud, stubborn idiot would drive away the two friends she had left.
But for some reason she didn’t feel the same old dread when she thought about telling Sasha now. And after everything Sasha had done for Kinsey in the past few days, she felt she owed her the truth.
“We kind of had a fight last year,” Kinsey said. “About Evie. It wasn’t anything they did,” she added hastily. “They were the best when I came out. The best. No pushback. No grumbling. I think they might have worked it out before I said anything, because they didn’t even need time to process. They were just one hundred percent on board and supportive.
“But then I started dating Evie, and we just . . .” She huffed. “I don’t know if Bee ever told you this, but being with Evie made me a little shit.”
“I don’t believe that,” Sasha said at once.
“You should,” Kinsey said emphatically. “I was terrible. I just—I thought she was so authentic. So real because she didn’t bother being polite or trying to spare people’s feelings.” She clenched her teeth, still mad at herself for thinking that meant she’d been in love. For using Evie as an excuse to push everyone away.
“My parents tried so hard to be okay with her,” she said. “They really did. But they were worried about me. They thought she was controlling, and that I was losing my personality to the relationship. And . . . I mean, they were right, but I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it. So when they—very gently, I might add—tried to point out that maybe Evie had a few flaws . . .”
Sasha winced. “Didn’t go so well?”
Kinsey mimed a bomb going off, complete with sound effects. “I lost it. Any shitty thing I could’ve said, I said it. A couple times over. They’d never really accepted me, they only had a problem with her because she was a girl . . . That sort of thing. I even threatened to elope and never speak to them again if they didn’t back off.”
Sasha let out a low whistle.
“I didn’t mean most of it,” Kinsey said. “Not really. But by the time I got over myself and realized what a mess I’d made . . . I couldn’t figure out how to put us back together. I still haven’t figured it out. And I’m just worried they’re more concerned about not setting me off again than making sure Mom’s getting better.”
Sasha picked up her smoothie and cupped her hands around it, eyes on its bright green straw. “For what it’s worth,” she said slowly, “I haven’t noticed anything that would support that theory. They’re not acting like they think you’ll explode at any second. They seemed really happy to see you, actually. Anyone looking at you can tell you all love each other a lot. More than most families I know about.” The corner of her mouth ticked up. “Even when you’re complaining about sheets.”
Kinsey watched her face, distracted from her family problem by the odd waver in Sasha’s voice. The flicker of a smile hadn’t quite concealed the sadness in her downcast eyes.
She didn’t know what to say. She only knew enough about Sasha’s mom to guess their relationship was strained at best, but she hadn’t thought it was bad enough for Sasha to question whether her mom loved her. Even at the lowest point of her relationship with her own parents, Kinsey had taken their love as a given.
Setting her jaw, Kinsey plucked her tea off the floor and crawled over to Sasha’s side of the aisle. She plopped down next to her so they were shoulder to shoulder, ignoring the way Sasha tensed up.
Sasha laughed nervously. “Hi?”
“There’s a draft over there,” Kinsey lied archly. Sasha might not want to talk about her mom, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need support. All Kinsey knew how to provide was the bossy variety, but that was probably better than nothing.
“Okay . . .”
“Never question a draft, Deforest. It’s not polite.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Sasha didn’t sound any less confused, but Kinsey felt her relax, and when she spoke again it was with a glint in her eye. “Though if this is just a ploy to be near me, darling, all you had to do was ask.”
“Oh my god.” Kinsey rolled her eyes, though she couldn’t summon true irritation. On some level, she understood that pretending this was a joke was what Sasha needed to be okay with accepting the comfort. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Well,” Sasha said, flicking the lid of her drink with her thumb, “I can be a bit of a flirt.”
“You? Never.”
A grin played at the corner of Sasha’s mouth. “I’ve also been known to romp around in the mud after a ball. For fun.”
“Shocking.”
“And . . .” Sasha glanced in both directions before leaning in and speaking in a low voice. “This may come as a shock. Not a lot of people know this.” She took a deep breath. “I sometimes indulge in sarcasm.”
“You are such a nerd,” Kinsey said, giving Sasha a little shove with one finger.
Sasha laughed as she shrugged out of the way. “That, too.”
Kinsey picked up a book from the little pile beside her. She should just let it go. Allow the conversation to move into the slightly ridiculous and enjoy the normal while it lasted. But something about sitting on the floor side by side made her feel reckless. Maybe it was pushing her luck, but . . . “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Why did you decide to be friends with me? I was a mess. You should’ve run for the hills.”
“I thought you were hot,” Sasha said in a dry lilt.
“Sasha,” Kinsey complained. “Come on. Seriously.”
Sasha shrugged, stretching her legs out in front of her. “I don’t know. You always seemed so . . . strong. And you’re smart and funny. Plus you seemed like you needed a knight. I like charging in and saving the day.” She paused, an almost imperceptible hitch, before she went on. “And I liked you. Still do.”
Kinsey tried to catch her gaze, but Sasha was picking at the last of her drink with her straw. Her expression was impossible to read.
Kinsey couldn’t help remembering that conversation in the car about Sasha’s ex. And their talk last night. Too many people had let Sasha down too many times. Kinsey didn’t want to stay within their ranks any longer. Someone ought to let Sasha know she mattered. And she felt just reckless enough to try.
“Do you want to know why I wanted to be friends with you?”
“You thought I was hot?” Sasha asked with a flirty smile, predictably trying to flip the conversation out of the heartfelt and into the sarcastic.
For once Kinsey flipped it back. “Because you sat with me when I couldn’t get off the ground, and you kicked my butt into gear when I could but didn’t want to. Because you gave me space to figure myself out, and you were always there when I needed you. Because when you’re not being sarcastic, you’re one of the kindest people I know.”
Sasha searched her eyes, motionless except for the rise and fall of her chest and the wary flick of her gaze.
“And because I liked you,” Kinsey said softly. She couldn’t tell if she was revealing too much, or not enough. “Still do.”
Sasha let out a short breath, turning to her drink. “Stop saying nice things. It’s weird.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Kinsey sat back, scowling at the book in her hands. “Maybe it shouldn’t be.”