Page 153 of Prickly Pair
“I’m glad,” I said. My eyes started to water. I watched as Charlotte tripped over a rock and started to get up, but Anna and Sebastian were right there, helping her stand.
“They’ve got her, mama,” June said. “Ugh, look at them. You guys did good.”
I sniffled. “We did.”
“I’m so happy they’re not mine, though,” June said, earning a snort from Avery and I. “What? I relish the cool, tattooed aunt role. Nothing else compares.”
“They think the world of you,” I said.
“They do,” Avery agreed. “And of course they do. You’re our best friend.”
June grinned, and the three of us kept watching. I couldn’t stop smiling, thinking about how far we’d come. How much we’d all gone through together. Our lives were more intertwined now than they’d ever been, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And while there were so many things that were new in our lives, some things were the same. The sun was bright over our little town, we were older, and they were still my best friends. The Breakdown Couch had finally given out, so we’d had to replace that, of course. We’d expanded our house—the same one that Nick bought almost the day after we ran into each other at that little food truck, at the end of the worst date of my life. And I’d finally hired two employees at my bakery. It’d grown so much, it’d been impossible not to.
Whynot had grown a lot. It had continued expanding, and there were parts of it that were nearly unrecognizable. But if I walked down Main Street, a few things remained untouched.
The bakery, the art gallery, the flower shop, the hotel.
All our love for each other.
And if I drove a little bit north, past the new houses that were being built and the school and the community center—there was a little sign that would forever be there in the dirt.
Cacti bloomed around it, the Davis Mountains stretching in the distance, a bright blue Texas sky that went as far as the eye could see—a cute little sign, hand-painted by our favorite local artist, boasting a loud and unforgettable?—
Welcome to Whynot.
