Chapter 23

 Best Friends 

Three days later, I stared at a picture of cupcakes forming a massive tower in a magazine that Lexie had shoved under my nose. She’d always been so traditional. And yet … so inclined toward cupcakes.

“Lex, are you sure you want cupcakes instead of a wedding cake? Didn’t you always dream of a cake?”

“Positive.” She tossed a kernel of kettle corn into her mouth and caught it. “Wedding cake is overrated. The English language doesn’t offer adequate verbiage for my love of Oreo cupcakes. F’real, Meg.”

A bag of kettle corn sat between us, kernels spilling onto the couch in Lexie’s basement lair. On her computer monitor flickered the main menu of a DVD that we hadn’t started because we’d been too busy laughing over wedding plans. With the help of the Health and Happiness Society, my townhouse lay empty and scrubbed bare, ready for the renters to move in the next day. A moving van took up the sidewalk and part of the street outside Lexie’s house. JJ would fly out in the morning and help me drive to Montrose. In the meantime, Lexie and I ended my final day in the Midwest with one last sleepover.

She lay back on the floor, her hair spilling around her in a halo of golden waves. When I’d apologized after my return, she hadn’t been as angry about me avoiding her as I’d expected. In typical Lexie fashion, she understood.

Still, a sense of hesitation held me back from fully enjoying the night. Would it be our last? Would Lexie forget me as all the others had? Lexie would move on into a new life this fall. I couldn’t stop mourning it in my heart.

She looked at me.

“So,” she drawled. “You ready to start your new job in two days? I can’t believe it’s almost the middle of August. The summer went by so fast and yet … so slow without you to correct my dead-lift form.”

I tossed the magazine aside and leaned back against her footboard. “Yes. I’m excited.”

“What’s going on with the credit cards?”

I cringed. “My first debt collector call came through today. But the sign-on bonus with the travel company should clear my account in a week.”

“Urgh.”

I held up a hand, ticking the numbers off. “Thanks to interest, I owe almost $3,000 to the credit card, $500 to Justin, $8,000 to Mark, and $1,000 to Rachelle’s mom.”

Lexie whistled low. “Geez. $12,500. That’s a crazy amount.”

“Tell me about it. The sign-on bonus will cover the credit card. The money from the rental will pay my mortgage, so I have to pay Rachelle, Mark, and Justin off slowly through the winter.”

“Stupid adulting,” she muttered. Then she sobered. “I’m going to miss you, Meg. I can’t believe you aren’t going to live here. Bitsy is hiding it, but she’s secretly beside herself with anxiety.”

A slow, quiet pang resounded in my heart. “I’m going to miss you too, Lex. You’ll have a wonderful life with Bradley. I just know you’ll be happy and have babies and … you know … move on.”

She lifted one eyebrow. “I’m not dying, Meg. Grief. It’s just marriage. More sex. More Bradley. Less Oreo cupcakes. Sad, I know.”

“Right. But things are different when you’re married.”

“No they aren’t.”

Defensiveness thickened my voice. I straightened. “Yes, they are. I’ve been through this with so many other friends. You’ll marry Bradley and slowly fade away. It’s okay. It’s kind of the circle of life.”

She rolled her eyes. “Meg, don’t be so dramatic. I’m going to marry Bradley, but I’ll probably end up video chatting with you on the honeymoon.”

“Lex, trust me.”

“No, you trust me.” She waved her hand between us. “This? This will never die, all right? You’ll still be part of the Health and Happiness Society. We’ll video chat you into the meetings. You’re still going to correct my dead-lift form, and teach me good recipes that I’ll never fix, and make me laugh over bad date stories.”

I snorted.

“And you’ll be back for the wedding, right?”

“Of course.”

“See? Our friendship doesn’t have to die. In fact, it won’t die. I won’t let you kill it. I’ll keep this sucker alive even if it’s miserable. That’s how good of a friend I am.”

She smirked, her arms folded across her chest.

“But—”

“There is no but. I’m not the others! We’re best friends. We’ll make it through. Don’t put their mistakes on me.”

Hope welled up within me. Could Lexie and I still maintain what we had now? Could it be true? Oh, how I wanted it to be! One glimpse into her wide, determined blue eyes set me at ease. Yes, I thought. We could.

And we absolutely would.

“Okay,” I drawled. “We’ll still be best friends.”

She scoffed. “Uh, yeah. You aren’t getting rid of me that easily, Bailey. I’m like a friggin’ leech. Got it?”

I grinned. “Got it.”

Seeming satisfied, she reached for another kernel of kettle corn. Her eyebrows waggled. “And Justin? What about him? How have we not talked about him yet?”

Feigning nonchalance, I grabbed another handful of popped corn. “What about him?”

She rolled her eyes. “When are you going to date him?”

“Who said I was going to date him?”

“The gods of dating. They talk to me.”

“Tell them they suck.”

She tilted her head back and shook her fists at the sky. “Why are you so stubborn? You know what I mean! I know he’s been in touch with you. I caught you video chatting with him before we finished packing your closet last night. Don’t try to deny it!”

I laughed. “Hiking plans, that’s all. This is critical stuff, Lex. I have to know what kind of hiker he is before I can even think about a date.”

She pointed at me. “You still have to beat him up Custer Mountain, right?”

“Obviously.”

“Fine.” She sighed. “I’ll wait for your love story to come together. But I’ll be very impatient.”

“Yeah, me too.” I leaned back against the headrest. “Start the movie! Only Gerard Butler can croon about the music of the night.”

“My pleasure,” she said, clicking the computer with a wicked grin. “My pleasure, indeed.”