32
Summer
Summer:Wanna go for brunch?
Willa: It’s Friday morning. Aren’t we both working?
Summer:I got fired.
Willa:That’svery unlike you! When did this happen?
Summer:A week ago.
Willa:Way to keep me in the loop. By the hot cowboy?
Summer: No. By my dad.
Willa:Well, shit. The Lark. 10:30. I’ll get the mimosas started.
* * *
Iwalk into mine and Willa’s favorite brunch location and spot her mane of red hair, poker straight around her shoulders, from the front door. Two mimosas sit in front of her...and two more parked across the table.
I guess it’s going to be one of those mornings. The kind I need after moping around all week.
“Hey! You’re here!” My best friend shoots out of her chair and wraps me in her arms. Willa gives the best hugs. She’s much taller than me, which puts my head at about chest height.
So, I do what I’ve been doing since we were teenagers. It’s a secret handshake at this point. I drop my head and jokingly motorboat her boobs. “I missed you,” I say, mostly to her tits.
We both laugh. “That’s what they all say.” She ruffles my hair, and we step apart, smiling at each other. Sometimes, I’m so focused on feeling like I don’t have any family that I forget about Willa. She might as well be my family.
“I was wondering why you’ve been radio silent,” she tells me as she makes her way back to her seat and spreads a napkin across her lap. “Just figured you were working out the atomic bomb that got dropped at the hospital. Or possibly just saving horses left and right. Too busy riding cowboy pole to talk to me.”
I roll my eyes, doing the same. “No. I’ve been moping.”
“Because Daddy Hamilton fired you?”
“Can we not call him that?” I reach for a mimosa and take a gulp.
Willa waggles her eyebrows at me. She always jokes about liking my dad. I don’t actually know how much she’s joking, though, because she’s constantly checking out older men.
“So, he fired you. Why?”
I drink again. “Because he says I don’t love working there like I should.”
She snorts. “No shit. Glad he slapped some sense into you.”
“Now, I have to figure out what I want to do with my life. Which is a hard question to answer. Basically, I’ve spent the past week in sweatpants mulling over the fact that all I’ve ever done is what I thought other people wanted me to do. I have no idea what I actually want.”
“Well, as the twenty-five-year-old who works at her brother’s bar full time with no other prospects to speak of, I’ll drink to that.”
“Well, you’re a manager, doing office work during the day. It’s not just bartending.”
Her head quirks, green eyes appraising me with a smirk. “Am I? Or am I getting morning drunk with my bestie?”
We clink our glasses and polish off our first mimosa, immediately reaching for the second.
“So, do you have any ideas?” Willa asks.