Laughing, she reached a hand up and swatted his stomach. “For sure. What was I thinking?”
Grinning, he captured her hand with his, pressing a kiss to her knuckles before twining their fingers together. “I want to take you everywhere, Piper. When you’re old enough to get in, you’ll come home from college on break, and I’ll take you there. And once you graduate, we’ll go everywhere, see the world together. I want to experience it all with you.”
The smile faded from Piper’s face and she sat up, scooting close to him. “I don’t want to leave you behind when I go to college next year. I don’t need to go, anyway. I already know I’m going to work in the bakery when I’m older, and take it over one day. I don’t need to go to college for that.”
He reached up and brushed her hair from her face. “You need to go, Pippy. For the experience of it all, if nothing else. I want you to have everything.”
“But I don’t want to leave you for four years, Jax. I want to stay here and work in the bakery. I want you.”
“You have me. Heart and soul. But you need this, you know you do.”
“I don’t know any such thing, Jackson St. James. But I know I love you.”
“And I love you, Piper McCoy. Always.”
“Always.”
Piper pushed open the door to Cocky Pete’s, looking around the crowded bar for Kelly. She was surprised to see so many people here on a Thursday night, but she supposed in a town as small as Eagle Creek, there wasn’t much else to do.
Spotting her friend waving at her, Piper began making her way to the booth Kelly was seated at. “Hey, Kelly,” she said, sliding in the booth.
“Hey! I ordered us a pitcher of margaritas. I hope that’s okay.”
“Sounds good,” Piper replied, looking around the bar before returning her gaze to her friend. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I just can’t get over how different you look now.”
Shrugging, Piper waited until the waitress placed the pitcher and glasses on the table before replying. “I like expressing myself creatively.”
“Still,” Kelly replied as she poured them glasses. “It’s so unlike you. Your divorce must have been very hard to push you into reacting like this.”
Choking on her sip, Piper swallowed and set her glass down. “Kelly, really? This doesn’t have anything to do with my divorce. I talked about doing this kind of thing all the time when we were teenagers.”
“I mean, yeah, but we also talked about running away from home and becoming tour groupies for Snow Patrol too, and you didn’t do that. Was it really hard?”
“Was what hard?” Piper asked with a frown, not following.
“Your divorce, silly,” Kelly replied, avid curiosity in her eyes.
“It wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” she said, resisting the urge to squirm at the question. “But it was what was best for me.”
Kelly reached across the table and patted Piper’s hand. “This is me, Piper. We’ve been best friends since we were six. You don’t have to lie to me. It must have been devastating.”
Humming, Piper shrugged and took a sip of her margarita. The sympathy in her friend’s eyes made her uncomfortable, and judging by the look on her face, she wasn’t going to accept the truth. Which was just what Piper said. Divorcing Scott was the best decision she ever made, and she was so much better for it.
“So what have you been up to since high school, Kel? Besides working at the bakery?” she asked, trying to turn the conversation away from her disastrous marriage and subsequent divorce.
“Oh, not much. I dated Darryl Hanson for a while, remember him? We broke up when he moved away. Such a shame. And I fly to Chicago fairly often to help take care of my mom. Other than that, it’s really a boring life I lead, and so much different than how I envisioned my life would go. Much less exciting, you know,” Kelly replied with a light laugh.
“Sometimes less excitement is better,” Piper replied softly.
“Oh, that’s right. You run a homeless shelter, don’t you? I’m sure those people give you lots of excitement. I bet you have some stories stored up. Spill!”
Frowning over how Kelly called the homeless Piper worked with those people, she reminded herself that Kelly was always a gossip and a drama queen. She didn’t mean any harm, and certainly didn’t mean it like it sounded. Piper hoped, anyway.
“We get some drama from time to time,” she admitted, mostly because she knew Kelly wouldn’t let up until she said something along those lines. “But for the most part, my regulars are amazing people who’ve just had a rough time. They’re sweet and gentle, and I spend a lot of time trying to help them find jobs and low-income housing. Trying to help improve their lives in a small way.”
Kelly looked almost disappointed at the lack of gossip, but she forged on. “And what about you? Do you live in low-income housing, as well? Working at a homeless shelter, even running one as you do, can’t bring in much money, I’m sure. However do you get by?”