they walked outside. It was chillier than she’d anticipated, but she resisted the urge to wrap her arms tightly around herself. Instead, once Quin took his bags from the back of her car and set them on the driveway, she allowed him to hold her and protect her from the breeze.
He made a frustrated groan. “I just don’t want to end up like Hedda and Irvin. I don’t want to walk away and never see you again.”
“But maybe you’ll meet a modern version of your great-great-grandmother. Have a little Irvin the Sixth.” She felt his laugh roll through her and lifted her head for a kiss.
“First of all, disgusting. Second of all, I don’t want you to be like that girl at that inn and pine away for me until you die.”
“Text me from the airport. And text me when you land. And text me when you’re home. And, if you don’t text me, I’ll send men on horseback to find you.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. I’ll make them drag you back.”
“Why can’t we be like J. Preston and Thalia? Heading out on an adventure together? Loving against the odds.”
“Because they were jewel thieves who ruined a woman’s life before he died making Thalia a washed-up single mother.”
He laughed and tugged her closer. “Isn’t there a single happy ending in that book?”
She thought for a moment and stepped away, cradling his face in her hands. “Yes. Hedda and Bert. They were friends for the rest of each other’s lives.”
She pulled him down for a final kiss, thinking of the one and only shared between the lifelong friends. How it had given her courage to face every fear, how it had been given and received with no hint of expectation and no promise of another to come.
They kissed until the crunch of tires on a silver Toyota Camry brought them apart.
“I think I might be finished with Hedda,” she said.
“Good,” Quin said, reaching for his bag, “because I don’t want to be Bert.”
Chapter 22
Like the other passengers on the crowded flight, Dini turned on her phone the moment the plane’s tires touched solid ground. As they scooched through the landing, Quin’s message tone played over and over.
Q: HAVE A SAFE FLIGHT.
Q: TEXT ME WHEN YOU LAND.
Q: I LOVE YOU.
This last one she had answered with I LOVE YOU TOO. The sentiment came easier with every message and had wormed its way into video chats throughout the spring. She texted her safe landing, with a message that she would call when she got back to the house, wanting to be phone-free at baggage claim. When her Lyft arrived, she climbed in the back seat and immediately put in her earbuds, trading music for conversation on the familiar ride.
She’d been gone for two months, taking a decent-paying job as a crowd-warming act at a regional theme park. “Another set of stories about the summer you spent with the carnies,” Quin had said, thinly masking a disappointment at canceling their plans to spend part of the summer together. Or at least, in the same town. Instead, they’d watched the entire Little Dorrit BBC miniseries one episode at a time—she in a shabby motel room, he in his cozy bachelor apartment—making sweet, snarky comments on FaceTime throughout. But even that level of togetherness disappeared under a punishing show schedule. Now she was touching down, going home, for two blessedly empty weeks before a string of gigs in New Braunfels for Oktoberfest.
Her heart sank a little at the sight of Arya’s Escalade overtaking the small patch of concrete in front of her house. Not that she didn’t love her friend or appreciate all she’d done to keep extra money rolling in, booking the house consistently, but Dini was looking forward to uninterrupted silence and solitude.
She thanked her driver and declined his offer to take her luggage to the door. Arya appeared the minute the trunk slammed shut, ready to help.
“Sweetie,” she said, after a surprisingly restorative hug, “you look terrible.”
“Always good to come home to a friendly face,” Dini said, taking the handle of the largest of the three cases.
“Sorry.” Arya held the door and followed, rolling the two smaller bags. “But I do have a fresh deli pizza and Dr Peppers in the fridge, and there’s some cookies in the Gladware in your breadbox. And”—she held up a bottle—“wine for later. Plus, I had the whole place cleaned top to bottom yesterday. So welcome home.”
Dini immediately regretted her flippant remark. “Thank you for everything, and I’m sorry I was