In a Rush (Friendship, Rhode Island #2)

by Kate Canterbary

After the pilot announced we’d be landing in twenty minutes, Ryan slid off his seat to kneel in front of me. I started to join him because what the hell did I know? Maybe this was what you did on private planes.

😂😂😂

“What matters to me is that you like it,” he said. “I chose this. For you. I saw this one, kind of round but also square, and it made me think of you.” “Because I am both round and square?” I teased as I motioned between my hips and breasts. “Because you’re many things at once,” he said with a laugh.

As it turned out, his father had been dying. Slowly but also quickly, in sudden, devastating bursts that upended his family.

💔

We’ll find something to watch, eat fries and chocolate-covered fruit, and build a great wall of pillows down the middle of the bed to protect your virtue.”

😂

Those were my favorite moments with Emme. I’d faked so many hand cramps the last year of high school that she looked up wrist exercises.

“Why soccer?” she asked. “Did someone say fútbol so you went along with it and you didn’t realize the mistake until it was too late?”

She pushed her fingers through my hair. I wanted to pry my ribs open and show her my heart because I’d swear to god it only beat like this for her.

😭😭😭

“We are a good team,” I said, watching as her tongue peeked out to catch a drop of wine. “I always knew we would be.”

“Is that Ines?” “What? No. Where? I mean—what? I don’t think—where? No. Probably not.” I stopped flailing for a second and realized he was right. And she was wearing my yellow satin cape.

The cape omg 😂

“Ines, my sunshine,” I whispered, pressing fingertips to my eyelids. “It’s a good question, one I’ve asked several times myself, but can we put a pin in this chat until after I have a cute little panic attack because I have no computer, no underwear, and no idea how I’m supposed to function tomorrow?”

“When you do get married,” Ines started, “can I play the harp at the ceremony?” We shared a glance before turning to her. Ryan asked, “You play the harp?” “No, but it’s not realistic to assume you’ll be able to coordinate a large wedding with less than twelve months of lead time and I’ve always wanted to take lessons.”

I love Ines 😂😍

Maybe this wasn’t weird or awkward or a reason to become a well-water goblin. Maybe this—and by this, I did mean dry humping my oldest friend on a private jet—was the next logical step.

💀

“Who would yell at me about jam farming if you left?”

No fewer than six hundred times did I stop myself from asking Can we do this forever? Goddamn, that was all I wanted. Just like this and for as long as possible.

But I knew there was something undeniably right, something specific about her that fit me like a key in a rusty old lock

She’d dropped her hand to my arm like we’d known each other forever and I remembered walking around all day with the heat of her touch burning me like a brand. I remembered looking at my skin and expecting to see a mark there.

nodded along like yes, I understand this but I was busy snapping off the early buds of hope that’d sprouted at the arrival of this unbelievable girl who knew football and smelled like oranges and laughed at people who tried to give her shit. I foreclosed every possibility that’d surged to the surface when she smiled at me, leaned close to me, touched me. I could still feel that key breaking in my lock.

The thing about that key was that when it broke, it stayed inside me. Waiting for her to come back, to find the remnants and finally turn it.

“You see what you want and spend fifteen years running down the clock. You wait until the win is in sight.”

“The first time I met Ryan, I found myself getting annoyed at how often he interrupted her but then I realized she was doing it just as much. They constantly jump into each other’s thoughts.”

“I can’t keep my drawers on when there’s tequila involved,” Jamie said. “Honey, you don’t keep your drawers on when there’s water involved,” Audrey said. “That’s true,” Jamie mused.

💀😂

“Yes, you’ve won. You’re the best. And you might’ve won sex but that boy of yours is realizing he won at life. He gets engaged and comes in his pants all in one weekend? He’s searching up mating bonds and wondering if you have any other hidden powers.”

😂💀😂💀😂💀😂💀😂💀😂

“Before I forget,” she added, “your dad wants you to know he won’t put in a competing offer.”

🤔🤔🤔

But it wasn’t just one phone call. It was my new hair and his visit to my school. It was moving Ines to his condo and my tangerines on the plane. It was being able to take a deep enough breath to hold my head up and feeling like I mattered enough to someone to order a fuck-ton of antibacterial wipes for their classroom.

“The world is a riotous, melting disaster and I’m truly concerned about handing over that shit show to anyone,” I said.

In my mind, I was still a kid myself. It didn’t matter that thirty was coming up. This was a problem I’d solve another day. When I grew up.

loved it when he called me that. I’d never tell him as much because pushing his very large and easy to locate buttons was my absolute favorite thing in the world and I only heard my proper name when he was fully exasperated with me.

He wore a dark blue suit and an immaculately tailored white shirt with a faint pattern I couldn’t make out.

Please be tangerines 😭

As far as I knew, Ines was interested only in Bruce Lee, and she split that interest evenly between the kung fu and the frequency with which he was shirtless in his films.

“Oh my god. You put an artichoke in a bouquet.”

😭😭😭💜💜💜😍😍😍

A grin started at the corner of his mouth and it unfurled into a wide smile that had my heart pounding in my chest and a few overwhelmed tears fogging my eyes. After all these years, I was marrying this sweet, broody boy.

Ryan led me to the other end of the deck and I gasped when I saw the small cake, sculpted and decorated to look like a tower of tangerines.

😍😍😭😭💜💜

She pointed to the velociraptor dress. “Do I have to change or can I wear this?” “Don’t you change a damn thing, beautiful,” he crooned.

Oooh I love them 😍_

It didn’t really matter what I had inked on my skin. Not when I could hear those words on repeat in my head for the rest of my life.

Because I had to keep her. It was the only option. Not ending our marriage, not picking up where we’d left off as friends. I’d go on existing if I lost her but I’d never feel this way—I’d never be right—again.

I really needed to get up and turn into the kind of gangly, embarrassing creature who overthought so hard she set her own hair on fire.

“If anyone’s dark here, it’s you,” he muttered. “I am a ball of goddamn sunshine and don’t you forget it,” I yelled. Then I followed it up with an ugly sniffle.

But I knew I looked good and I felt good. And it didn’t matter what Teddy thought about any of it because he was the human equivalent of a sinkhole and I had a four-carat diamond on my hand from my Super Bowl MVP husband. I was doing just fine.

“Now, about the charcuterie. It didn’t come out exactly as I’d planned because someone kept sneaking up and eating my salami roses.” “Mmm. I love having my salami rose eaten,” Jamie called.

Though I didn’t mind the attention just as I didn’t mind the strong, sudden reaction to that kiss. Not when it made me feel like I’d been plugged in and turned back on after months—years?—of waiting for someone to finally see me. To want me, exactly as I was.

Jamie pushed to her feet and craned her neck to survey the group outside. “Where is she? Never mind, I’ll know. But don’t forget y’all have to bail me out if this goes bad. I don’t like spending the night in jail.”

“We’re going to last, Em.” I laced my fingers with hers, held them to my chest. “I’m not going anywhere. There’s no world where I exist without you and I don’t want there to be one.”

I know the lesson plans don’t matter as much because it’s the end of the year and that’s a shit show anyway but I need to make it look like I’m trying to be good at my job. Especially if my principal finds out I was involved in a sex toy bomb scare.”

“You’d throw me a birthday party with a sex toy bomb scare theme. The invitation would be a fake mug shot and you’d hand out Fleshlights as favors.”

“It’s just that I don’t want us to get hurt. Later on.” He glanced away and I knew those words had hit the intended target. He didn’t want a messy ending any more than I did.

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

“My artist is really talented and comes up with a lot of great ideas to extend the existing pieces. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Liar...

Claudia: did it leave a scar, Ruth? Ruth: what? Claudia: when corporate law surgically removed the humor and joy from your body?

“I love you,” I said, the cracking out of me like an accusation. “I’ve always loved you but I love you and I had to-to⁠—” “I know, Emme. I love you too.” “Like I’m your wife?” I asked. “Is that how you love me?” “You are my wife,” he said, his voice like sandpaper. “And that’s the only way I ever want to love you.”

😭😭😭

Like magic I’d conjured just for him. For my husband. The one I loved. The one I wanted to keep for—for always.

It wasn’t about the fake marriage. Or keeping it going until we forgot about the fake part and it turned into a regular old marriage. Was that what he’d meant by no deadlines? Probably not.

Do not piss me off...