The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(9)

I hate her on principle, because if I were as jet lagged as she should be—until three days ago, she was somewhere in Europe or Asia—I’d be walking around looking like the love child of Medusa and Frankenstein.

“Ten points to Bridget,” she says. “It was filtered, but the colors make you so happy, don’t they?”

Bridget smiles back.

Anya smiles too.

Tavi keeps smiling.

And all these smiles in hell make my shoulders twitch.

“Coffee?” I prompt Anya.

“Oh, that’s a great idea, Phoebe.” Tavi shifts her Margot Lightly tote slash dog purse to her other shoulder—yes, Mom has her own shoe-and-purse line, and yes, Tavi shills it shamelessly across social media, which is her “day job”—then crosses deeper into the coffee shop and leans in for air-kisses with me. She turns back to Anya, pulling things out of her bag as she does, working around Pebbles, her teacup Yorkie, who’s sniffing the air from her spot inside the purse like she, too, can smell cheese in this shop and wants to know where it’s coming from. “May I please have a large caramel macchiato with these beans, fresh ground, and here’s my favorite vegan, sugar-free caramel sauce (three squirts, please) and also my oat milk—exactly two ounces, please, and I would adore it frothed as close as you can get it to one hundred forty-five degrees. Could you please add a sprinkle of cinnamon on top? Do you have cinnamon? Here. Here are a few organic Saigon cinnamon sticks. They’re heavenly when fresh grated. Do you have a superfine grater, or do you need to borrow mine?”

Anya blinks twice, looks at me, then back at Tavi as my sister hands her everything she needs to make an organic, vegan, fair-trade, kissed-by-angels macchiato. “You bet, sugar. Let me run a quick Google, and I’ll get that out to you in three shakes.”

Bridget snickers while I glare at my little sister.

“What?” Tavi asks me. She whips out a diamond-crusted compact and flips it open while her furry-faced mini dog gazes at her as though she can do no wrong. “Is my lipstick crooked? Did I forget to put mascara on both eyes?”

“You look fabu, Tavi.” Bridget slides out of the booth and hands my sister a piece of paper. “Not that you have far to go or much competition. If you stick around, maybe you can show me how you do that thing with your lipstick? I can’t make it work right.”

“You bet, sweetie. And oh my God, look at your hair. It’s totes gorge.”

The teenager squeals. “Really?”

“I mean, duh. Look at those waves.” Tavi beams, the heavens open up and serenade us with old-school Britney Spears, the oatcakes magically morph into sous vide egg white bites, and I remind myself that I’m too old to pull her hair just because she’s prettier and more of a people person than I am.

I’m a businesswoman with a very important job that I’m currently unable to do because I couldn’t connect to the motel’s Wi-Fi and my phone is still not getting a signal.

I don’t have to pretend to be everyone’s best friend.

Nor do I have the energy for false fronts. Not when there’s so much work to be done if I’m ever going to fulfill my destiny of being the first Lightly to run Remington Lightly since it went public, and the first female CEO to boot.

While Tavi’s entire life is built on looking good on social media so that she can keep getting free stuff to shill and so that Mom can sell a few more Margot Lightly bags and shoes, mine is built on actually putting in the hard work to do the important things, like ruling the whole damn world.

There’s a reason we don’t talk much beyond air-kisses at fundraisers and galas that we both coincidentally end up attending.

“Can we, like, hook up later?” Bridget asks Tavi. “That would be so swag to do each other’s hair. But I have this thing that I have to get to. School. Like, why, you know?”

My sister flashes her influencer smile while the teenager backs to the door. “Of course. We’ll do lunch and hair and pedis. Such a drag to have to learn all the things, right?”

“Have a good day at school, Bridge,” Anya calls.

“That’s impossible, Aunt Anya,” Bridget calls back. “I have a geometry final. On the last day of the year. Ugh.”

The door closes behind the kid, Anya slips back behind those swinging doors to what I’m still hoping is the kitchen, and Tavi’s smile falls away. She grabs my arm and drags me to a booth, which she makes me sit in without wiping it down first. “Oh my God, what are we actually doing here?” she hisses with a covert glance at the doorway behind the bakery case, like she’s making sure Anya isn’t spying on us.

As if she’s not most likely preoccupied with googling how to make a drink for Tavi that she wouldn’t make for me, considering Tavi brought her own beans.

Does that put her ahead or behind on the All the Lightlys Go to Heaven scoreboard?

I don’t know.

“Getting vastly different experiences in getting coffee?” I hiss back dryly.

“I meant in this town.”

Do not twitch, Phoebe. Do not twitch. Do not twitch.

Tavi missed all the family drama with Gigi choking because she was flitting around the world getting pictures of various products for her socials while I was holding Gigi’s hand and watching that infernal movie over and over again this past month.