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My cell rang and I scrambled around in my purse for it only to discover it was Rhian.
I’d emailed her last night.
“Will you be okay while I take this?” I asked Ha
She waved me off, her nose practically pressed against the bookshelf as she sca
“Hey.”
“Hi,” Rhian replied, almost tentatively.
I braced myself.
Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have shared my news. Was she going to start treating me like a headcase from now on? As in carefully? Because that would be too weird. I’d miss being cursed at for one thing.
“How are you and James?” I asked before she could say anything.
“We’re a lot better. We’re getting there. Actually, he asked me to see someone. A therapist.”
I froze in the sci-fi aisle. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. I didn’t tell him about your email, I swear. He just blurted it out. Some coincidence.” She took a deep breath. “You really went to see one?”
I glanced around to make sure I was alone. “I needed someone to talk to, and a professional with no personal interest in my life is the only person I trust to… well… to talk to about what I need to talk about…” I frowned. Ten points for language skills on that one.
“I see.”
I winced at her tone. There was a definite bite to it. “Rhian, I don’t mean to be hurtful.”
“I’m not hurt. I just think you should talk to someone who actually cares about you. Why do you think I told James all my shit? You know, you were right before. I trusted him. And I’m glad I did.”
“I’m not ready for that. I don’t have a James. I don’t want a James. And anyway, your James still wants you to talk to a therapist.”
She made a grumbling noise. “I think he thinks if I green light the whole therapy thing, then I’m serious about making this work with him.”
I thought about how devastated James had been the night he came to see me. “Then you should do it.”
“How was it? Was it weird?”
It was awful. “It was fine. Strange at first, but I’m going back.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Yeah, that’s why I’m paying one hundred pounds an hour to a professional, so I can talk to you. I held my sarcasm in check. “No, Rhian, I don’t.”
“Fine, you don’t have to snap at me, you grumpy cow.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know I miss your face-to-face insults. It’s just not the same over the phone.”
She snorted. “I miss someone who gets me. I called a woman on my research team a bitch—you know in a friendly way—and she told me to go to hell. And I think she really meant it.”
“Rhian, we’ve talked about this. Normal people don’t like to be called names. For some reason, they tend to take that personally. And you are a tad bitchy, by the way.”
“Normal people are so sensitive.”
“Joss, have you read this one?” Ha
“Who’s that?” Rhian asked. “Where are you?”
I nodded at Ha
Ha
“Joss?”
“That was Ha
“And Ha
“Ellie’s fourteen year old sister.”
“And you’re with a teenager… why?”
What was with the tone? Her question might as well have been, ‘and you’re smoking crack… why?’
“We’re in the bookstore.”
“You’re shopping with a teenager?”
“Why do you keep saying it like that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve moved into an expensive flat, you’re spending money you were always weird about spending, you’re friends with a girl who’s seen The Notebook fifty-five times and, like, smiles a lot; you’re out for drinks with actual people on week nights, you saved my relationship, you’re seeing a therapist, and you’re babysitting teens. I moved to London and you got a fuckin’ lobotomy.”
I exhaled heavily. “You know you could just be grateful for the whole saving your relationship thing.”
“Joss, seriously, what’s going on with you?”
I pulled the Dan Simmons novel off the shelf. “I didn’t do all those things deliberately. Ellie and I get along and for some reason she likes having my broody ass around, and she has a different life than what we had. She actually likes people, and that means I’m around them a lot.”
“Joss?”
I spun around to see Ellie standing before me, a deep frown between her eyes. A rush of concern swam over me and I bobbed my head above the shelves in panic, looking for Ha
“Ha
Without hesitation I pointed at the bodice ripper. “The seduction of what’s her face. The sparks novel would be overkill this week.”
She gestured at me with the bodice ripper book and a militant nod before heading back out of the aisle.
“Seriously,” Rhian muttered down the line. “Where’s Joss, and what have you done with her?”
“Joss is getting off the phone if you’re done psycho-analyzing her.”
“Joss is speaking in third person.”
I laughed. “Rhian, get gone, okay. And tell James I said hi and yeah, he does owe me.”
“Wait, what?”
Still laughing I hung up on her and went to find Ha
They were waiting in line to be served and I slid in beside them, watching as Ellie stood there uncharacteristically silent and Ha
At the checkout, I watched them piling Ha
He shrugged lazily. “They’re fifty pence a bag.”
I made a face. “The kid just bought a hundred pounds worth of books and you can’t give us the bags for free?”
He waved the gift card at me. “No, she didn’t.”
“Yeah. But the person who gave her that gift card did. You’re not seriously asking us to pay for something to carry them in?”
“No.” He drawled the word out like I was stupid. “You can carry them in the free bags.”
Maybe I would have backed off if he wasn’t speaking to me in that condescending ‘I hate my job so fuck customer service’ ma
“Ellie.” I grabbed for her and she held onto me.
“Ellie?” Ha
“I’m okay,” she murmured. “Just dizzy. I have this… headache…”
“Another one?” That was like the third one this week.
Leaving the clerk to wither under my death stare, I pulled Ellie over to the side, sniping at him, “Just pack the books into the normal bags.”
“Give them the good bags,” the girl working next to him sighed.
“But-”
“Just do it.”
I ignored his irritated glare as I turned my concern to Ellie. “How are you feeling?”
Although pale, I noted her trembling had stopped. “Better. I haven’t eaten today. I just felt faint.”
“What about the headaches?”
She smiled reassuringly. “Honestly, I haven’t been eating enough because of my PhD. I’m feeling the pressure and I’m stressing out. I’ll take better care.”