Moving on was somewhere well on the other side of a pain she’d done her best to forget.
Part of the process, she thought. Been there, done that. Burned the t-shirt.
Ollie barked, thumping his tail.
“Potty?” she asked.
He barked again.
“At least you’re simple,” said Tyler, rolling off the sofa. “Food. Water. Potty. Cuddles. We’ve got all that covered, buddy boy.” She pulled open the door, scooped Ollie up and headed outside.
“Gotcha.”
Tyler closed her eyes at the triumphant tone in Piper’s voice from where she’d been hiding out of sight on the other side of the grill. I should’ve known that a text announcing I had a highly contagious stomach bug wouldn’t keep her away.
“We’ve been worried about you.” Norah unfolded from the chaise lounge.
Crap.
Ignoring them both, she continued on into the yard, setting Ollie down so he could do his business.
“You know, I was pretty sure you were lying about being sick,” said Piper. “But you look awful.”
“Thanks. You’ve seen for yourself that I’m not well. Now you can go report back to whoever you’re reporting back to and let me go back to bed.” Where she’d been spending all of her time when she wasn’t at the store or at rehearsal, trying to pretend that everything was fine when, in fact, she was exhausted and heartsick.
“Do you know me at all?” asked Piper.
“Unfortunately, yes. Didn’t anybody ever teach you to respect a brood?”
“We brought pizza, Ben and Jerry’s, and chicken noodle soup,” Norah announced before heading in through the back door and making for the kitchen.
That was it then. There’d be no ejecting them now. At least they’d come bearing food. Dinner the last two nights had been a bowl of dry Peanut Butter Crunch cereal, the last shred of Brody in the house.
Piper waited until she got Ollie settled on his living room bed to speak again. “I’m going to use my super duper powers of observation here and hazard a guess that Brody is no longer staying with you.”
Staying, thought Tyler with a pang. Even she knew it was really temporary.
“No.”
Piper crossed to the stereo, turned it on. After two bars of The Cure rolled out of the speakers, she stabbed it off again. “Oh honey, it’s worse than I thought. Lay it out. Tell us what he did in order that we may conceive of the appropriate punishment for him.”
God love Piper for immediately thinking it was all his fault.
“Nothing.”
“You don’t want to punish him? Norah, quick, bring the Ben and Jerry’s. This is serious.”
“He didn’t do anything.” That was the problem. “I asked him to move out.”
“You—” Piper cut herself off. “I think I need the Ben and Jerry’s too.”
Norah came back with the ice cream and three spoons. “Why did you ask him to move out?”
“Because I needed him to go on my terms. I needed to keep something when he walked away, even if it was only my pride.” Not that the shriveled husk of that was much comfort under the circumstances.
Piper immediately sank to the sofa and p
ut an arm around Tyler’s shoulders. “Why now?”