“You know I got an email from Jocelyn the other day?”
I was shocked, I thought we left all that behind last year when Brooke was a sophomore. “No. What did she say?”
“That she was sorry. She’s in rehab, ya know. Some nice facility near her family.”
“It still doesn’t excuse what she did. Or what her friends did.”
“No, but that guy is still in jail. I’m not worried about him. But I did care about Jocelyn, we were friends at one point.”
“Yeah I know. Hopefully one day she can r
eally get her life back on track.”
“Yeah, maybe she’ll find someone decent. Be like us.”
I laughed. “There’s no one like us.”
THIRTY-NINE
Austin
Three Years Later
I pulled up to the two-story Colonial and parked on the street.
“It’s a nice one,” Brooke said. “They’ve sold it already, though.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, look at the sign.”
She turned to me. I grinned, unable to keep the secret any longer.
“What?” she asked suspiciously.
I opened the center console and took out two keychains with two keys each.
“You know who bought it?”
“Yes. We did.”
Her eyes widened as she squealed in delight, just the reaction I’d been after.
“Let’s go inside and check it out.”
“When did you do this?” she asked, opening the passenger door of my Camaro.
“I started the process a month ago. After I knew what you wanted in a house, all I had to do was find one that matched. With all the studying you’re doing for grad-school, I figured I would take care of it for us.”
I stopped beside her on the sidewalk in front of our new home.
“When did you find the time?”
“Between practice and when you got home every night. Took me a couple months to find the perfect place.”
“It is perfect!”
“I have another surprise for you…”