The Summer Deal (Wildstone #5)(17)

“The house is great. It’s right across the street from the beach. He could get another roommate without even trying.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why?”

Kinsey looked away. “It’s . . . complicated.”

“Because . . . ?”

Kinsey didn’t answer.

“Oh my God. Tell me it’s not something kinky, like you and Eli need a third.”

Kinsey blinked and then laughed, and by the rusty sound of it, it wasn’t something she did often. “I told you, it’s not like that between Eli and me, but nice one on making me laugh. Just . . . stay.”

Brynn narrowed her eyes. “I still haven’t heard why it has to be me.”

Kinsey looked down at her very pretty, very expensive sandals, which Brynn recognized as the latest “in” brand, costing over a hundred dollars. She knew this because she’d been coveting a pair and unable to justify the price.

After a deep breath, Kinsey lifted her gaze to Brynn’s. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About a lot of things.”

“Like?”

“Like how I treated you all those years ago at camp. I’m”—she paused as if trying to remember what she’d preplanned to say—“working on myself. I’d like the chance to make it up to you, and to get to know you.”

Well, damn. Those were some good words. And truthfully, Brynn was working on herself too. She’d made plenty of mistakes, not the least of which was that apparently she wasn’t exactly the most forgiving sort. “I’ll think about it.”

“What’s there to think about?”

“Well, I’m not used to this side of you, for one thing,” Brynn said.

“My sweet side, you mean?”

Brynn’s brows went up.

Kinsey nodded. “Yeah, okay. ‘Sweet’ might be a stretch.”

Brynn snorted. “Look, it’s not personal. It’s that I just made a deal with myself—no more decisions until further notice, because I’m bad at them. I really do just want to think it through.”

“I guess I can respect that,” Kinsey said, sounding as though maybe the words were like cut glass on her tongue, which made Brynn snort again.

“Was that painful?” she asked.

Kinsey made a face. “Little bit. Listen . . . Just think about it. Maybe you’ll see that this wouldn’t be a bad decision to add onto a string of other bad decisions.”

Brynn froze. “I didn’t say I’d made a string of bad decisions.”

“You said you’d given up decisions. That was brought on by something, the most obvious choice being a string of bad decisions. Plus, it’s all in your eyes.”

“Our eyes are nearly the exact same color of light brown,” Brynn said.

“Yeah,” Kinsey said, giving her an odd look. “But mine are good at hiding shit. You should work on that instead of the no-decision thing. Think about the room, okay?”

THE NEXT DAY, Brynn stood in her moms’ kitchen at the very end of her proverbial rope. Whoever had said you couldn’t go home again had been right. She was slowly going insane. Raina had tried to take her to a shaman to heal all her “inner wounds.” Olive had signed her up for karate classes, like the ones she’d taken at age ten—before breaking her hand on day one, proving she had zero athletic ability. Raina cooked and cooked, leaving labeled containers in the fridge such as For If Brynn’s Constipated, For Brynn’s Peckish Mood.

They meant well, but she’d gone back to the drawing board, looking for a place to rent. She’d looked at three places. Two were completely out of her budget, and one was an hour drive to work. Now, scarily enough, she was actually reconsidering going back to Eli’s. Neither Eli nor Kinsey had pushed. She’d asked for time, and it was apparently being granted.

She had to admit that was a first, for someone to listen to her, really listen, and give her what she asked for, and how sad was that?

The problem was her own. Her shaky self-esteem. It’d already taken a beating just being back in Wildstone. The last thing she wanted to do was make things harder on herself. She was inhaling some contraband donuts she’d picked up on her way home from filling out all the school district’s paperwork when she heard her moms. She quickly took her half-dozen donuts into her room and shut the door.

And then nearly screamed.

Someone—two certain busybody someones—had taken it upon themselves while she’d been gone to repaint her bedroom. It wasn’t hard to tell who’d done which walls. Olive had done two in a muted, understated cream, and then had put up pictures of the three of them from over the years. Like hundreds of pictures, from when she’d been missing her four front teeth all at the same time, to that time she’d gotten a bad perm and resembled a circus clown.

Raina had done her two walls Raina style. One was a rainbow, the other a corkboard, upon which she’d hung every single one of Brynn’s questionable achievements over the years, including all her “participation” awards for everything she’d ever failed at, and there’d been many, many things.

Brynn did an about-face and headed back out to the living room. Olive was standing on the couch rearranging the pictures above it according to Raina, who stood in the middle of the living room giving instructions.