tiny tinsel-strewn tree behind her friend. “Nikki signed it for me after I did her hair. She said no one has been able to style it as well as I did, and she’s requesting that I do her hair on the set of her next major motion picture!”
“That’s amazing,” Lila said, delighted for her friend. “You deserve it. You’re so talented. I’m thrilled that people are noticing.”
Charlotte gave her a giddy little wiggle on her screen.
Lila turned her attention to Edie. “How’s the PR business going?”
Edie was in her apartment. She had her hair pulled back, and she was wearing the reading glasses she always used when she was working. “I’ve been up to my eyeballs in press release verbiage. Don’t ask,” she told Lila.
“We all felt terrible leaving you,” Charlotte said. “And we wanted to call to tell you that we miss you.”
“I miss you all too,” Lila told them. “I’ve been deprived, not having our morning coffee. How have I survived without your latest gossip?”
“Speaking of gossip…” Piper chimed in. “You need to dish, right now. We’re all dying to hear what’s going on with Theo.”
Lila set about telling them everything, from the very beginning until her final text. “I think I’m going to go into the coffee shop to run it again tomorrow,” she told them.
Piper gave her an empathetic smile. “Lila,” she said softly. “Running the shop won’t bring him back. It’s for sale. He’s gone.”
Her tender tone cut Lila like a knife because she knew why Piper was approaching the subject so gently. Since her father’s death, Lila had struggled with loss. Piper knew firsthand how it had torn Lila’s heart out. When she and Razz hadn’t worked out, Lila had crumpled into a heap of tears on Piper’s bed in her apartment, the ache so strong that she could hardly breathe. All Lila wanted in life was connection and, for whatever reason, it was elusive. And now, when she felt like she’d found someone she was beginning to really see—even with his walls up, someone who, in such a short time, had made her feel alive—he was gone.
Much of her adult life she’d been alone, and not of her choosing. Razz had ruined their relationship, her parents had left her, and her friends were moving on. But the coffee shop was a place that made her feel like she wasn’t alone. If she kept it open, even just for a few days, it would stop the loneliness and solitude from crushing her.
“I know I can’t run the shop with him gone… But I wish I could fix it somehow,” she said.
“You’re trying to save the world,” Edie said, clearly shocked by her statement. “It’s too much for one person, Lila. You need to focus on your life and what you want. And Theo Perry’s not worth a minute of your time,” she added. “He’s clearly not the kind of person you deserve. Do you really want to get wrapped up in all his baggage when he could be involved in illegal things?”
Lila sat, silent, digesting Edie’s comments, when everything in her gut told her that Theo wasn’t who they thought he was.
Edie did have a point, but what if there was some other reason for Theo’s behavior that they just hadn’t thought of? What if they didn’t have the whole story?
“Can I ask you something?” Edie cut through her thoughts. “Are you investing in the cabins because you’re thinking of staying in Pinewood Hills?”
“I’ve considered it,” she said, honestly.
“And are you staying in the hopes that Theo might return? Because if that’s your reason, I have to beg you to listen to me when I say there’s more out there for you than that, Lila. You stayed in Nashville for Razz and look at where it got you.”
“I’ve considered staying because I like here,” she said, but Edie’s parallel had shaken her. Was she making the same mistake twice without even knowing it? “And Theo probably isn’t coming back anyway,” she added, trying to convince herself now. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that staying in Pinewood Hills had nothing to do with Theo. “Being here makes me feel whole. Eleanor feels like family. I love waking up in the mornings, knowing that Eleanor’s just across the yard, and I haven’t been able to have family close to me in a very long time,” she explained. “I fit in here.”
Just then her iPad screen lit up with a text