Read Online Snow Jam by Rachel Hanna - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rachel Hanna
Tags: Romance
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why, with all her time at home, Sunny wasn't trying to write a book yet.
That was supposed to be ironic, given the twins were two, and it made her sputter in protest the same as when I'd asked, "What, they're both two? At the same time? That wasn't good planning, Sun." We left the twins with their dad and went hiking and then we left them with their dad and went running and then we tried to leave them with their dad to go shopping but he refused on the grounds that we'd come back from outdoors adventures but we might never return from the mall.
But sitting in Sunny's big, gleamingly clean kitchen while outside the world woke to spring and inside the day broke to chaos fairly often, the thing we most talked about was Rick.
"So," Sunny said after the initial congratulatory jumping up and down and conversations about my moving to Georgia and her mother-in-law leaving it were out of the way. "So you hooked up." Her eyes gleamed avidly. Sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, she propped her chin on one fist. "Do tell."
I faltered. This was Sunny. There was nothing we hadn't been able to tell each other over the years. But the experience with Rick, which should have been a footnote in my personal history, was somehow raw. I danced around it in my own head. It wasn't like I wanted to do otherwise aloud. "I, um, he and I, we, um. We hooked up." There.
Sunny rolled her big brown eyes. "I know that, Powers. So spill. You said the guy looks like a young Robert Redford, which puts him in the category of a god. What else? What happened ? Why are you holding out?"
I cradled my coffee mug in both hands. "I don't know, I mean, it's..." Pause to think, like this was a big word. "Complicated."
I could see the change in Sunny when she switched right then from flat out tease to concerned but still playing at being a tease. "I guess it would be. You're here and he isn't."
"He has a life," I grumbled.
"In Atlanta," she said, and I realized I didn't even know that. We'd only just gotten past my story and into his – unmarried, lived in Atlanta, apparently, worked in advertising – when the snow had taken down the mean neighbor's tree and everything had changed. "If you'd hooked up and things were still good, he'd be here. He'd have driven you here."
"No, he wouldn't," I protested. "I have a rental car. He had his own car. How would he have driven me? And why? I'm still capable of taking care of myself."
Sunny face palmed. "Oh, right, that again. Big, bad Mya can take care of herself. Powers, I know you can. It's just sometimes not having to? It's pretty wonderful."
Which was enough of an invitation, I thought. After all, Sunny's the one I'd wanted to run home to, even if I'd never lived in her city. We're best friends of that sort. "It's not quite that simple," I said hesitantly. The only thing that's ever come between me and Sunny is her marriage. Something about it makes me all the more determined to put up the I can take care of myself walls. Maybe because I don't like Kurt and I don't think he likes me (or anyone, possibly including Sunny). Maybe because she's got the marriage and the kids and the work from home freelance writer career thing all going. It just seems like I shouldn't be running to her with problems that still seem like they're from our college days. The does he love me variety, or the savings took a hit, can't pay the rent, just need to vent variety. Sunny growing up forced me, at least in my own mind, to grow up too. Growing up meant putting up even more walls because seriously, I'm like that old saying about perfect hostesses: serene like a duck on the surface of the water and paddling like hell underneath. That's me. Only given that Sunny stood by me during the worst of it, the Dad the Embezzler part of it, my paddling is especially frantic. I do not want to fail or even flail in plain sight.
Sunny, of course, doesn't know any of this. "Spit it out, Powers," she said, getting up to refill our cups.
"Fine," I
That was supposed to be ironic, given the twins were two, and it made her sputter in protest the same as when I'd asked, "What, they're both two? At the same time? That wasn't good planning, Sun." We left the twins with their dad and went hiking and then we left them with their dad and went running and then we tried to leave them with their dad to go shopping but he refused on the grounds that we'd come back from outdoors adventures but we might never return from the mall.
But sitting in Sunny's big, gleamingly clean kitchen while outside the world woke to spring and inside the day broke to chaos fairly often, the thing we most talked about was Rick.
"So," Sunny said after the initial congratulatory jumping up and down and conversations about my moving to Georgia and her mother-in-law leaving it were out of the way. "So you hooked up." Her eyes gleamed avidly. Sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, she propped her chin on one fist. "Do tell."
I faltered. This was Sunny. There was nothing we hadn't been able to tell each other over the years. But the experience with Rick, which should have been a footnote in my personal history, was somehow raw. I danced around it in my own head. It wasn't like I wanted to do otherwise aloud. "I, um, he and I, we, um. We hooked up." There.
Sunny rolled her big brown eyes. "I know that, Powers. So spill. You said the guy looks like a young Robert Redford, which puts him in the category of a god. What else? What happened ? Why are you holding out?"
I cradled my coffee mug in both hands. "I don't know, I mean, it's..." Pause to think, like this was a big word. "Complicated."
I could see the change in Sunny when she switched right then from flat out tease to concerned but still playing at being a tease. "I guess it would be. You're here and he isn't."
"He has a life," I grumbled.
"In Atlanta," she said, and I realized I didn't even know that. We'd only just gotten past my story and into his – unmarried, lived in Atlanta, apparently, worked in advertising – when the snow had taken down the mean neighbor's tree and everything had changed. "If you'd hooked up and things were still good, he'd be here. He'd have driven you here."
"No, he wouldn't," I protested. "I have a rental car. He had his own car. How would he have driven me? And why? I'm still capable of taking care of myself."
Sunny face palmed. "Oh, right, that again. Big, bad Mya can take care of herself. Powers, I know you can. It's just sometimes not having to? It's pretty wonderful."
Which was enough of an invitation, I thought. After all, Sunny's the one I'd wanted to run home to, even if I'd never lived in her city. We're best friends of that sort. "It's not quite that simple," I said hesitantly. The only thing that's ever come between me and Sunny is her marriage. Something about it makes me all the more determined to put up the I can take care of myself walls. Maybe because I don't like Kurt and I don't think he likes me (or anyone, possibly including Sunny). Maybe because she's got the marriage and the kids and the work from home freelance writer career thing all going. It just seems like I shouldn't be running to her with problems that still seem like they're from our college days. The does he love me variety, or the savings took a hit, can't pay the rent, just need to vent variety. Sunny growing up forced me, at least in my own mind, to grow up too. Growing up meant putting up even more walls because seriously, I'm like that old saying about perfect hostesses: serene like a duck on the surface of the water and paddling like hell underneath. That's me. Only given that Sunny stood by me during the worst of it, the Dad the Embezzler part of it, my paddling is especially frantic. I do not want to fail or even flail in plain sight.
Sunny, of course, doesn't know any of this. "Spit it out, Powers," she said, getting up to refill our cups.
"Fine," I
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