Page 31 of Sweet Trouble
An hour later,Jillian was heading into town for paint samples and trying to steady her thoughts.
Sitting around the table with her grandparents, the girls, and Tripp to talk about their plans for the house had been really nice. They all just got along so easily. The ideas and the conversation flowed easily.
By the end, they decided that Tripp would be coming by Monday to get started, which meant that they would all be spending plenty of time together for heavenknew how long.
And for some reason, the idea of having him around so much made her feel safe in a way she couldn’t really explain. It also made her think of their little moment in the attic.
But she needed to keep her wits about her. That was a dangerous line of thinking.
Her phone rang and she glanced over to see that it was her sister.
She sighed. Amberlee was exactly the person she wanted to talk to, but she wasn’t sure she could do that without confessing her conflicting feelings.
She thought about ignoring the call, but that wouldn’t stop Amberlee from trying again a hundred times. So she tapped the button on her steering wheel to pick up.
“Hi, Amberlee,” she said.
“Jilly-willy-bo-billy,”Amberlee cried. “How are you? How are my favorite nieces?”
Mari and Posey were Amberlee’sonlynieces, but a simple fact like that would never stop her sister’s superlatives. It was the kind of thing that drove Jillian bananas when they were kids, but made her miss her sister powerfully now.
“We’re all just fine,” Jillian told her. “How are you?”
“Just fine?”Amberlee echoed. “Come on. You know I want to hear the details. How are Gram and Grampy? How’s the addition going?”
“There’s not going to be one,” Jillian told her. “The house is in pretty bad shape. We’re going to try and fix it up and then maybe finish the attic instead.”
“No,” Amberlee breathed. “They love that house. They take great care of it. They always have.”
“They’re older now,” Jillian said. “And they had to replace the roof. It seems like maybe that wiped them out and now they’re trying to play catch-up.”
“It’s terrible that no one has been there,” Amberlee said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.
“Well, I’m here now,” Jillian said firmly. “And everything’s going to be just fine.”
“If you spend the money from your place on their place, where areyougoing to live?” Amberlee asked.
“Like I said, we’re going to finish the attic into a space for the girls and me,” Jillian said. “It won’t be too bad. A neighbor is helping out with a lot of the labor.”
“What neighbor?” Amberlee asked, her voice suddenly suspicious.
“One of the Lawrence boys,” Jillian said lightly, hoping Amberlee would ask no follow-up questions.
“WhichLawrence boy?” Amberlee demanded.
“Uh, Tripp,” Jillian admitted.
There was a moment of silence.
“You guys were friends, right?” Amberlee said after a moment. “But something happened?”
“Something like that, yeah,” Jillian said.
“You never really told me the whole story there,” Amberlee pointed out.
“I was embarrassed,” Jillian said. “Anyway, it was a long time ago.”
“This is why you have no friends,” Amberlee said, and Jillian could picture her shaking her head in disapproval. “You shut everyone out.”
