Page 85 of Let's Call a Truce
His eyes, soft and comforting, shined down at me, and I nodded.
“I’ve missed you,” I said as I slid off his lap and took the other seat in front of his desk. “I miss talking to you.”
“Me, too. I keep thinking about random things and start to text you and then realize I shouldn’t send it. If we both miss each other so much, can’t we try to be friends?”
I sat quietly for a minute, imagining what friendship with Ben might look like. We’d been so many things to each other, butjust friendswas never on the table. He had all the traits I wanted in a friend—kind, supportive, funny. But there was one big trait I couldn’t overlook. I was in love with him, and I wouldn’t be able to move on while talking and laughing with him.
“I’m sorry.” My eyes stayed firmly on my hands. The look on his face as I turned him away would destroy me. “You knowhow I feel about you. I don’t think it would be healthy for either of us to spend more time together than we need to.”
“Okay.”
I still refused to meet his eyes, but the crack in his voice broke my heart.
“I should go.” I pulled my pocket mirror out of my purse to check my makeup, thankful I had gone light on the mascara today, and touched myself up a bit before heading out.
When I was safely by the door, I let myself look at him. He hadn’t moved from his seat, arms braced on his legs like the weight of the world was pushing on his back. I saw him take a deep inhale before turning to look at me, despair swimming in his beautiful eyes.
“Thank you. For your support and your kind words,” I said. “Today wasn’t my best day, and you made it better.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Chapter 26
A blaring noisejolted me out of sleep. At first, the persistent, headache-inducing beeps were just annoying, but then I caught a whiff of smoke that set my heart hammering in my chest.
In my sleep-addled mind, all I could think was I had to get to the girls. I rushed to the door, forgetting all training as I grabbed the handle and threw the door open wide, sprinting down the hall to find their room empty.
I couldn’t breathe, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was my own body’s reaction to the adrenaline and not because I was choking on smoke.
“Girls,” I screamed, forcing my panic back. I needed to find them and get them out safely. Then I could lose it. “Girls, where are you?”
“In here, Mommy,” Sophie yelled from the kitchen, and I turned on my heel, reaching the room in seconds.
There was smoke everywhere, but it quickly became clear that the house wasn’t burning down around us.
Clara stood in front of the stove with the fire extinguisher, her face warped in a grimace as she looked over the white foam that covered most of the counter and half the floor. Sophie was jumping and flinging a hand towel back and forth in a completely ineffective attempt to clear the smoke. I could just make out a carton of eggs peeking out from underneath the foam,like it was hiding from the oncoming screaming but too curious to stay hidden completely.
“What the hell, girls?” I yelled. Both girls flinched. I never cursed in front of them and was regretting it already, but I was too overwhelmed by the intensity of the morning to censor myself. “Who told you it was okay to cook without me? Are you trying to burn down the house?”
Clara’s voice was small as she said, “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Sorry’s not good enough, Clara. You’re lucky I taught you how to work the fire extinguisher, or this whole house could have been destroyed. All of your things. Gone. And what if you and your sister couldn’t have gotten out? I’d expect something like this from Sophie. She’s eight. But not from you.”
Her lip wobbled, and then she burst into tears, taking off in the direction of their room and leaving a trail of fire extinguisher agent in her wake.
Shit.I was too hard on her, but what they’d done was dangerous and she needed to understand how bad that could have been. I rubbed my hand over my brow, trying to figure out which mess to handle first—the physical or emotional one.
When I turned back to Sophie, she had her arms crossed over her chest, her chin held high in a shockingly accurate imitation of me. “You owe Clara an apology.”
God, she had that down pat. I had to fight to keep from laughing, but Sophie found none of this amusing. “Okay, explain.”
“She was trying to help.”
“By burning down the house?” I asked wryly. “Come on, Soph. Even you can’t talk your way out of this. If you were hungry, you could have woken me up.”
“She wanted to make you feel better. We were trying to make you feel-good French toast.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but couldn’t figure out what to say. I blinked quickly as her words settled in my mind. This was our family’s go-to meal when someone was upset. A badday at school or a hard test or a friend who said something mean, it always ended with a plate of perfect French toast complete with powdered sugar. And they were making it for me?
