“How long have you two...?”
“Nothing’s going on between us.”
“No, I get that, but you’re into her.”
He shrugged. “I just think she’s hot.”
“Right. Well. Hey, whatever. Things are set up for camping tonight?”
“Hell yeah. Epic camping. It’s going to be great.”
“Good. After we play pool.”
“Of course. We gotta make use of the house too. I just figured a little bit of sleeping in the woods was also in order.”
“You thought of everything.”
“I try to.”
And he realized how true that was. He did try to think of everything. To the best of his ability. He tried to take care of everyone. Protect them.
He just knew how desperately short a person could fall with those things. And it haunted him. He had a feeling it always would.
But tonight was about celebrating his brother. Sending him off into a new life.
Kit might never be able to see having a new life of his own, but he could definitely be happy that Chance would have one.
Definitely.
The party in the farmhouse was raucous. Luckily, their mother hadn’t planned on staying in the farmhouse for this part, which was good, because if she had, they all would’ve died of embarrassment.
The alcohol was flowing freely, and Juniper, their friends from school and a couple of the EMTs whom Juniper worked with were all giddy and lessening their inhibitions. Shelby had opted for sobriety since she was running the whole show, and felt like she wouldn’t be a great host if she let herself get too loose.
Are you just afraid of imbibing too much with Kit in the vicinity?
Well. It didn’t matter if Kit was in the vicinity or not. He was out with his brothers, so it didn’t matter. She was safe. They now had a buffer of all these people.
Still. Keeping her wits about her was probably the better part of valor.
But Juniper was living it up. She had her phallic crown placed on her head, and had a bright pink drink with a straw of the same color.
“This is immature,” she said, lifting her glass to Shelby.
“I know,” Shelby said. “That was the idea.”
“Well, excellently done,” Lydia, one of Juniper’s friends, said, reclining back on the couch and laughing.
They had all put on club dresses, as if they were going out for a night on the town, and not just sitting in a farmhouse playing games with a group of women. But it was fun. Shelby hadn’t done anything like this for a long time. It was fun to dress up just for herself. Just for a group of women. She had gone a little bit overboard. She was wearing a short emerald green minidress that had lived in the back of her closet for at least ten years. It did not fit the way that it once had, and her more generous curves made the hemline ride up higher, and it clung to her breasts and her stomach in a way that made her self-conscious now. Except... She looked at herself in the reflection of the window just quickly. If she saw it on another woman, she would think the woman looked great. So why she was being hard on herself she didn’t know. Maybe it was just that harsh reminder of the passage of time. That she wasn’t an effortlessly willowy teenager anymore, and that she didn’t have a husband who just loved her through all the changes.
Love yourself, then.
That was the point of tonight. All the women were dressed up, just dressed up to please themselves in this group.
And yet, Kit was on her mind.
She really needed to get a grip.
This night reminded her a lot of her own bachelorette party, and she felt guilt at the way she seemed unable to separate Juniper’s happiness from her own all those years ago. Maybe it was normal. Maybe it would’ve been like this no matter what. It was just that it should’ve felt happy, and not ominous.