I nodded. “I know. I get it. I won’t do that again.”
Chapter Seven
Bree
I WAS NOT IN THE MOOD for company, but Mel was insisting. I tried to remember I had to be a good friend and try to repay the kindness and patience she had shown me. It was hard. Mel wanted to have a girl’s night. We had plenty of them in the past and always loved them. But things were different now. I was different.
I couldn’t go to the club with her. I couldn’t go to a movie with her. We couldn’t sit around the house and watch a movie. I didn’t understand the point of having a girl’s night. There was nothing to do but sit around and talk. Honestly, I was talked out. The conversation would inevitably end up on me and my eyes and the fact they were broken. She would tell me to get the surgery. I would tell her I was considering it. Then she would tell me to quit thinking so hard about all the possible things that could go wrong.
It was the same conversation I had been having with everyone in my life. I was over it. If they would just give me five fucking minutes alone with the matter, I could come up with my own conclusion. It was beating a dead horse. I felt like the dead horse in the equation.
I thought about calling and telling her I just wasn’t feeling up to it, but I knew that wouldn’t stop her. The cold I’d been fighting seemed to be gone, but I still felt icky in general. Luke had hung out with me for a bit and his official medical opinion was that I wasn’t feeling well because I wasn’t getting enough activity. He said that depression was making me feel under the weather. I didn’t see how that was possible, but whatever.
I would do the stupid girl’s night and be a good friend and then go back to feeling like shit. I heard the gate alarm buzz and knowing it was just me in the house with Luke at the cottage and my dad gone, I made my way to the security panel on the wall. “Who is it?”
“You know who it is,” Mel called out. “Buzz me in.”
For one brief moment, I considered not doing it. I felt for the button and pushed it, opening the gate for her. I went to the living room, knowing she would let herself in. It wasn’t long before I heard the clacking of her heels on the hard floor.
“In here,” I called out.
“Ugh, it’s so quiet in here,” she complained. “We need to liven this place up.”
“I’m not sure I’m in the mood for a party.”
“I didn’t say party. I said liven it up. It’s like a tomb in here. I brought wine and a lot of it. Do you want to order Chinese, pizza, junk food?”
I shrugged. “All of it.”
She let out a loud whoop. “That’s my girl.”
She called out to Alexa, demanding that club music be played. Seconds later, the house was filled with the loud beats of a bass drum mixed with lots of techno.
“I’ll get glasses for the wine,” I told her, speaking loud enough to be heard over the music.
“Did Luke and his sister go out?” she asked.
“I have no idea.”
“We should invite her to hang out with us,” she suggested.
I grimaced. “Why?”
“Because you’re dating her brother. It’s a great way to get information about him.”
“I don’t get the feeling she likes me all that much.”
“Then we are definitely inviting her o
ver. I’ll feel her out.”
I groaned. “No.”
“Come on. You look pasty. You need to get out of the house. Luke is failing. You were looking so good and now you look like a member of the Addams family. We’ll pop in at the cottage. It will earn you points with your man if you play nice with the sister.”
At least I now knew I looked as bad as I felt. Luke would never tell me I looked bad. “Fine. But I’m going to need a glass of wine for the road. I told you our first meeting wasn’t exactly great.”
“But now you have me here,” she said. I could hear the wine being poured into the glasses. “I’ll tell you what her face says.”