Never Tied Down (The Never Duet #2)(10)

“Sounds fun.”

“Could you take a minute to finalize the schedule so it can be posted by tomorrow?” Megan asked Brittany. “I’ve already looked it over, but if you can do it too, I’ll feel more comfortable.”

“Of course. Want me to post it before I leave?”

“That would be awesome. I probably won’t be back today. After girls’ day, Patrick is taking me out to dinner. It’s our six-month wedding anniversary.”

“Awww…” Brittany sighed.

“You guys are too cute,” Ella said with a little bit of disgust in her voice.

“Oh, my God,” I cried. “You have no room to talk, Ella. You and Porter are, like, sickening to be around. Let your sister celebrate her anniversary.”

All four of us laughed.

“Okay, okay. Let’s go,” Ella said, shaking her head.



We spent the afternoon shopping downtown, taking frequent and needed breaks to tend to Mattie. She was a wonderful shopping partner, being a happy baby, but she needed attention more often than us. We’d found a cute coffee shop to stop at while Ella fed Mattie, and I enjoyed a few minutes of just chatting with my best friends.

“So, what are you working on right now, Kalli?” Megan asked.

“There’s a small theatre company in Portland who lost their costume designer over the summer. She’s on maternity leave. So I’m outfitting their fall production.”

“That sounds fun.”

“It’s so fun,” I said with enthusiasm. “Their budget is pretty good and I’ve been able to hand-make some of the pieces. Makes me feel like I’m back in the lab in college, designing pieces and then making them real. It’s refreshing.”

“Seems almost therapeutic,” Ella added. “Like you could get a lot of thinking done at a sewing machine.”

“Yeah. That’s true,” I said, taking a sip of my cold coffee drink. “My mind’s pretty much running a million miles an hour anyway. But you’re right, having to sit in a quiet room for hours on end does let me get a lot of thinking done.”

“What’s your mind been telling you?” Megan asked.

I sighed. If anyone deserved a glimpse into my mind, it was Ella and Megan. They’d been supporting me emotionally for months, even if that meant stepping away and letting me deal quietly. I knew they wanted in, wanted me to talk to them, and I figured I owed it to them.

“My mind tells me different things every day. One day I feel like I’ve finally gotten over the hardest part of all this, but then the next day I wake up crying and missing Marcus so much, it feels like he just passed yesterday.” I shook my head. Grief was a nasty thing. “But lately, I’ve been feeling pretty solid.”

“She even looked up Riot on the Internet today,” Ella supplied, then looked at me with wide eyes, expecting me to be upset she’d mentioned it. I wasn’t. This was girl talk. I was a little sad my friends thought they had to walk on eggshells around me. I made a mental note to try to be more open with them.

“Images even,” I added, giving Ella a smile.

“Oh, lord,” Megan said.

“She did great,” Ella praised, giving my hand a quick squeeze.

“You know what? I totally did. I looked at those pictures and I responded the way any ex-girlfriend would, all swoony and full of regret, but he’s hot and I couldn’t help it. But you know what the most important part of this story is?” I looked back and forth between Megan and Ella expectantly. “Huh?” I asked again, more insistently.

“What?” Megan asked, giving me what I wanted—audience participation.

“I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry and I didn’t have a woe-is-me pity party.” I said those words with such pride and satisfaction. It was, indeed, a milestone. Any girl would attest to the fact that the day you could look at pictures of your ex-boyfriend without a breakdown was a good day.

“Well, hot damn, chica. If we didn’t have a tiny baby with us, I’d take you to a bar and buy you a shot,” Megan said with a laugh.

A wave of confidence rolled through me; something I hadn’t felt in a while. For whatever reason, in that moment, I felt like I could take on the world. I could move forward with life and still be a productive member of society. I would miss Marcus forever, but being sad all the time would never bring him back. I had two choices: I could be sad forever, or I could try my hardest to be happy. I might not ever be as happy as I’d been in the last few months of his life, I might have hit my peak, but I could still lead a full and happy life. Or I could at least try.



That feeling lasted all of twenty-four hours.





Chapter Four


He’s Looking Down On You

Kalli

The next day, as I was leaving the studio of the theatre company I was working for, I got a call from my agent, Lucy.

“Kalli, I’ve got the best news for you. Are you sitting down? You need to be sitting down for this.”

“Okay, give me two seconds to get into my car,” I said with a slight laugh. Her excitement had my belly flipping over with nerves. I had no idea what she had to say, but it sounded like good news. “All right,” I said, right after closing the door. “I’m in my car. Lay it on me.”