“Actually,” she said slowly, her eyes flitting between my t-shirt and the coffee, “I think it’s one that only developed when I met you.”
My lips tugged to one side. “Coffee?” I held the cups out to her.
“What’s this? A peace offering?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Do you regularly turn up to women’s houses post-workout with them?”
“I haven’t given a peace offering since I was thirteen and ripped the head off my little sister’s Barbie.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them. I froze for the briefest moment, a nauseating feeling ripping through my stomach, but if she noticed, she didn’t address it.
Instead, she shrugged a shoulder and pointed to the coffee on the left. “Mine?”
“Whichever. They’re the same.”
“I suppose I should let you in.” She stepped back, pushing the door open a little more.
“Is the ice queen thawing this morning?”
“You brought coffee. If I were a tornado, I’d pause my destruction for coffee.” Laughing, she turned, leaving me to close the door.
It clicked shut behind me, and I cast my attention over a surprisingly warm hallway. A curved staircase took up a good portion of the space to my right, and just below it to its left was a deep red chaise accented by a giant bouquet of white roses in a vase fit for a damn castle. Photos covered the walls. Dahlia’s life was chronicled the way most people used photo albums and, these days, social media.
From newborn to kindergarten. There were parties and graduations and smiles and friends. Laughter and love practically fell out of the images. The only thing that said that this was a broken family was the fact that, about a third of the way along the wall, three family members became two.
Her mom disappeared.
Pausing, I stepped up to the last photo of her on the wall. It was of her and Dahlia, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say I was staring at Dahlia as an adult herself. Her mom had the same, soft curves to her face. The same full lips that curved into a similar smile. The same thick, dark hair Dahlia did. The only difference was the eyes—her mom’s were light where hers were indigo.
Dahlia cleared her throat, causing me to look in her direction. “You’d be a riot at a party.”
I half-grinned as she approached me and took the coffees. Hesitating only a moment, I said softly, “You look just like her.”
She took a deep breath and forced a smile.
It didn’t reach her eyes.
Not even close.
She turned and led me into a spacious kitchen. The light-brown cupboards gave the open space a rustic, farmhouse feel, and that was only exaggerated by the vintage-looking table on the other side of the room and the homey decorations that adorned the walls.
She placed the coffees on the long, curved breakfast bar and pulled them both from the holder. I leaned against the countertop as she threw the holder in the trash.
“I’d rather I didn’t,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “Look like my mom. It would easier if I didn’t see her when I looked in the mirror.” Sad eyes glanced at me, but before I could apologize, she chirped up, “Cream and sugar?”
“There’s already cream in them. No sugars, because I didn’t know how you like it.” If she could gloss over my freezing at the mention of my sister, I wouldn’t apologize for her pain.
What would I be apologizing for, anyway? I’d only be saying sorry that she’d been genetically blessed but that life hadn’t blessed her the same way.
She slid a small pot of sugar toward me. “In case you want it. And, for future reference, should you need to make peace with coffee again, I take one sugar in my coffee, but two in my tea.”
“Fancy.” I grinned as I put two sugars in my cup. “But that information is noted. Whether I’ll remember it or not is another matter entirely.”
With a roll of her eyes, she dumped a heaped teaspoon of sugar into her coffee.
“Oh, come on. That was at least two teaspoons!”
A guilty smile crept over her face. “Technically speaking, it’s one. It’s just a big one.”
“Is this like when women in the movies eat salads so their dates don’t think they’re greedy?”
“If it were, you’d be a serial killer in your sweaty, muddy t-shirt.” She pointed her spoon toward a mark at the side of my shirt that I hadn’t even noticed until now. “That, or a porn movie where a runner thinks they’re being followed and knocks on the door of a random house.”
“That would be more effective if our roles were reversed.”
“True.” She gave her coffee one final stir and threw the spoon behind her into the sink. “So. A peace offering, huh?”
I sipped my coffee. “Yep. For being rude on the phone to you yesterday.”