Bree didn’t appreciate Liv’s implied segue between wishing for something and asking her about Jace. In fact, it annoyed her.
“I don’t have any reason to talk to Jace.” Bree stood and slammed the cover closed on her iPad.
Liv rested her hand on Bree’s shoulder. “Yes, you do. If nothing else, the two of you are friends. I know you care about him, and I also know he cares about you. If there are two people who need to talk to one another, it’s you and Jace.”
“There’s something you should know, Liv. I accepted your challenge that night. I walked over to the Villa, to join Jace for dinner. He was otherwise engaged, chatting up a pretty girl at the bar. As for being friends, Jace Rice is my brother-in-law. He’s not my friend.”
“You know it isn’t that simple. As for what you saw that night, there is always the possibility that it wasn’t what it seemed. I stand by what I said a minute ago—you and Jace care about each other, and you do need to talk.”
Liv was grinning. Grinning!
“You’ll see for yourself soon enough. Whatever you’re picturing between Jace and me exists solely in your imagination.”
“I’m not the only one who sees it, Bree.”
“Soon you’ll all realize there isn’t anything to see.” And when they did, maybe they’d stop pestering her about him.
She hoped they weren’t doing the same thing to him.
“I hope you’re hungry. We’re going to a wonderful new place in town, called the Sunflower. It’s a farm-to-table restaurant.”
She wasn’t hungry, and she had no interest in going along. “I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind.” Liv pulled Bree back over to the table. “Sit.”
Bree sat.
“I’m not letting you hide out this weekend.”
“Just because I don’t want to go to dinner doesn’t mean I’m hiding out.”
“Does your mother let you get away with this crap? Because I can tell you, if I was spewing the bullshit you are right now, she’d be all over me about it.”
Bree looked up at Liv, and saw she was smiling again.
“I’m glad you think this is funny—you with your idyllic life, married to a man who thinks you walk on water. And your grown, beautiful, also happily-married daughter,” she waved her hands around. “Not to mention all this. It’s easy to cajole me when you have it all, isn’t it, Liv? How about you leave me alone instead, and while you are, remember what the last couple of years have been like for me.”
Bree’s eyes filled with tears, and she wished she could take back every ridiculous word that had just come out of her mouth, but it was too late.
“I’m sorry, Bree, but the last pers
on who is going to indulge your self-pity is me. I’ve lived the life you’re living now for twenty years. I won’t sit back and watch you live it for half as long.”
“It was different for you.”
Liv raised her eyebrows. “Please, elaborate.”
“You had Renie.”
“Ah, I see. I wasn’t all alone.”
Bree stared out the window.
“It changed for me when Renie went to college. I suppose that was when I really started feeling sorry for myself. I was a forty-year-old woman, with what looked like a very dull life ahead of me. That’s what your mother saw, a woman believing her life was over. Can you imagine the tragedy that would have been?”
Bree nodded her head but still hadn’t turned to look at Liv.
“The only thing worse I can imagine is a twenty-seven-year-old woman believing her life is over, when really, it has barely begun.”