33. Angie

Chapter 33

Angie

B lue balloons bounced on their tethers, and the last of the binky-topped cupcakes disappeared from the tower. I sat in one of the extra chairs we’d put up in Renee’s living room. Lili smiled and waved at each of her departing guests. The dandelion crown I’d made her now sagged to the side of her head.

Tucking my feet under my seat, I studied the wood grain in Renee’s floors. I might as well be a wax statue for how much I contributed to the conversation.

Angie … I love you.

Those four words in Remi’s deep, sexy, and frustrating voice kept puncturing my focus. Sadly, I couldn’t just forget he’d said it. Nope. Something like this embedded itself into my short and long-memory stores.

Ugh! How could I let myself become wound up in Remi? How many girls had he dropped the big L-word on? He’d probably told that poor girl on his porch he loved her, then he wrung her dry, sucked everything he wanted from her, and abandoned her.

No wonder she’d shown up on his doorstep on the Fourth of July and begged him to give her another chance. I could see myself doing the same thing if I had the willpower the size of an ant.

The closing door snapped me from my thoughts. Renee, Lili, and Gabby all stared at me.

“All right.” Lili placed her hands on her hips, her large belly protruding over her shoes. She pulled the wilted dandelions from her head and swung them in front of my face. “Out with it.”

“You’ve been off in La-La Land this whole shower.” Gabby collected the torn wrapping paper and shoved it into a leftover box. She set the box filled with paper down and sat next to Renee. “Is it your dad?”

Papa. He only moved from his TV chair to his bed. Since the rafting trip, he’d taken a turn for the worse. How he struggled. Papa never spent much time indoors even in the winter. He was built to roam his land.

Keeping my gaze locked on the floor, I rubbed at my nose and the sudden pressure behind my eyes. I’d spent so much time running the farm, working, infatuated with Remi, obsessed with Dan, I hadn’t capitalized on my time with Papa.

Papa understood. Yet, as time with him became a measurable thing, I couldn’t help regretting every minute I didn’t spend by his side.

If I ever let myself stop and think about Papa and the evidence of his time running short, I would cease to function. I’d turn into a useless heap, a ball of paralyzing emotions in a puddle on the ground.

There had to be a miracle. Something to fix the brokenness in my life.

“No, Papa isn’t doing the best, but he’s had bouts like this, and he’s bounced back,” I finally answered Gabby and looked at her. Deep inside, I knew this was a lie. He would never bounce back from this, and soon I’d say goodbye to him.

Renee stopped stacking the disposable dishes on her coffee table. She leaned over the arm of the couch, placed a hand on my shoulder, and squeezed. She’d been through this before. Both she and Lili had parted with way too many loved ones. I admired Lili for having the courage to love Blake and Maddie and pop out more babies after losing her first family.

If I’d been placed in an identical situation, I wasn’t sure I’d come out of it similarly.

See the pile of emotional goop … oh yeah, that once was Angie.

“I call bullshit.” Renee dropped her hand to her side.

So much for Renee being sympathetic.

Lili set her crown on the table, stood before me, and spread her legs as if to balance the extra weight of the twins. “You can’t be hunky dory with everything going on.”

“I think there’s something more.” Gabby leaned onto her knees, focusing all her friend’s psychic abilities on me. “Spill it.”

I could count on Gabby being all practical, almost callus, with emotion. It was something as a nurse you had to do to survive … turn off emotion, or you’d drown.

“We’re in the circle of trust.” Lili sat in between Gabby and Renee.

All three of them stared at me, their eyes burning holes in my resistance. Sweat beaded on the back of my neck. I folded my lips together, doing my best to keep this nuke to myself.

“Remi told me he loves me,” I blurted, then buried my face in my hands. I’d never been good at keeping secrets anyway. The words spilled out of me like water from a broken pitcher.

I peeked through my fingers. As if on a puppet string, all three leaned away from me, like I’d dropped a stink bomb in the middle of the room.

“What—” Lili’s eyes were as wide as her mouth.

“Who’s Remi again?” Renee asked.

“The hot farmhand who’s been working for her,” Gabby filled in.

“Oh him. He’s been hanging out a bit with Blake. If Remi’s got Blake’s approval, he’s got my approval.”

“What did you do?” Gabby asked.

At the same time, Lili said, “I thought you hated him.” Her half smile told me she knew I’d kissed him and liked it.

What I didn’t say I gave away. Mama always told me I was an open book, my pages legible on my expressive face. Right now, I’d love to have an ounce of Remi’s deceptive capabilities.

“Remi isn’t an option. A poor girl, one of his women, showed up on his porch last night. Only she looked normal, like we’d be friends, and she’d let herself get taken in by his lies. She was broken. I can’t let that be me.”

“But did Remi tell her he loved her?” Renee posed the question that haunted me for three days.

“I bet he did.” I couldn’t shake the broken look on the woman’s face when she’d seen me with Remi. I couldn’t turn into her and be the next shattered woman on his porch asking for a speck of affection.

Gabby and Lili both spoke.

“He brought you dinner.”

“Maddie likes him.”

How could they choose to defend him? “Doesn’t matter.” I slapped my hands on my thighs. “I’m dating Dan and not Remi. In fact, I’m meeting Dan at City of the Rocks this evening. He’s planned something special.”

“Is Remi going to be there just in case?” Lili tucked her hair behind her ear.

“I don’t need Remi to babysit me.”

“What’re you going to be doing?” Gabby shifted toward Lili.

“Wait a minute. Who’s Dan? Why have I been kept out of the loop?” Renee whined. “You promised to keep me in the loop with your dating life.” She wiggled her finger at me.

She’d forced a promise out of me after my breakup with Troy. Thankfully, an ocean separated me from him. The problem with telling Renee everything was she tended to want to fix things. And I couldn’t be fixed.

“I met Dan on a dating app,” I told Renee. Without giving her a chance to formulate the ‘he-could-be-a-killer’ response, I continued, “We’re going rappelling. It’s going to be epic.”

“Your fear of heights is magically gone?” Lili arched her back. She constantly shifted in her struggle to get comfortable.

“Exposure therapy. Remi has been helping me with it.”

Angie … I love you. Instantly, I regretted mentioning him. But how could I not? He’d been involved in my day-to-day life since April.

“I’ll be fine.” I clamped down the urge to bounce my feet or tap my fingers. “Trust me.”

I hated how much I sounded like Remi.