“Salmon?”
“Yes! In lieu of gifts, they’re making donations to Locks of Love. Locks!” She lifted a hank of hair and waved it at him. “Get it? Locks…lox.” She mimed eating. “It’s perfect. And it’s pink!”
“You do realize the guest list is mainly sixteen-year-old girls, right? Smoked fish doesn’t scream teen aesthetic. I don’t care how sophisticated they think they are.”
She dropped into the chair across from his desk. “Really? I was so pumped about that one.”
“It’ll come to us.” He slid a box forward. “Here, have a donut.”
The box was from the little roadside diner on the outskirts of town. Mauricio passed it every morning on his way in.
“I shouldn’t.” But she flipped open the lid anyway and selected a plump, glazed one from the center. She took a big bite and mumbled, “Bathing suit season’s just around the corner and I’m going to need a circus tent to cover my ass this year.”
“Oh, please.” His dark stare traveled over her. “Do you have plans tonight?”
“I have to stop by my brother’s place. My cousin, Braydon, is taking some measurements for Giovanni and his wife while they’re out of town. I have to let him in.”
It didn’t escape Mariella’s notice that Harrison’s sister was now her sister-in-law, but she tried not to think of Erin that way. Erin and her brother were living an exciting life while they toured the country. They were currently in Texas and then off to Seattle. Who knew where Giovanni’s fame would lead them next?
Their marriage had been a bit of a shock to Mariella, mostly because her brother had been away for years and proposed to Erin a split second after he returned home. She supposed some guys just knew when they found the right woman. Maybe that was how it worked. It had for Bran.
Her brother and Erin left Jasper Falls shortly after the funeral for Ward Montgomery. Mariella still regretted not attending the service, but that morning had been the start of what would forever be called the worst day of her life. She’d been so distraught over losing Harrison again, she’d made herself physically sick.
There was no dignity in heartbreak, but forcing herself to walk away from Harrison before he walked away from her at least let her preserve the illusion of composure.
She’d earned the right to fall apart in private. And fall apart she had.
Part of her hoped he’d seek her out for a final goodbye, but in true Harrison fashion, he left without a word.
Giovanni’s relationship with Erin Montgomery was a curveball to the gut. Suddenly their family was having dinner with Harrison’s sister, and then they were hearing wedding bells. They were adorable together, and Mariella was happy for them, but on some selfish level, she couldn’t help but wonder why him and not her.
In light of her brother’s joy, she kept her heartbreak to herself. Work created a great escape from her lonely thoughts, and Mauricio had become an instant friend, which she needed at the moment. She needed as many distractions as possible. And over time, the pain and loneliness would eventually fade to something she hardly noticed at all.
As long as she went through the motions, she was living. And if she was living, she couldn’t possibly be dying on the inside, no matter how sad some days got. Right?
“I can pick you up afterward. You owe me a date,” Mauricio said. “How many measurements does he have to take?”
“I don’t know. They’re remodeling.” The house, Erin and Harrison’s childhood home, had been on the market for a few months, but they unlisted the property when Giovanni’s career took off. Now they were planning on keeping the home so they’d have a place to stay when they weren’t traveling. “Maybe they’re planning to add a nursery.”
Mauricio frowned. “Is she pregnant?”
“Oh, no. I mean, I don’t know. I was just thinking a little niece or nephew might be nice.”
Her period had been late after Harrison went back to New York, and she foolishly found herself hoping he might have left a part of him behind. In the end, her cycle started, probably just late because of new job stress or all the crying she’d done that month.
She wasn’t remotely ready for a baby, anyway. She still had loans to pay off and planned to milk living rent free at her parents as long as possible so she could save some money, whittle away her debt, and one day buy her own place. Not to mention the fact that Harrison had vanished and never called—not the sort of communication you want with a baby daddy.
“I don’t know if a baby would fit into your brother’s schedule right now. He’s always on tour,” Mauricio commented.
“True.”
It was selfish of her to want her brother to rush into fatherhood just so she could have a little one to spoil, which would be an almost certain distraction from her personal loneliness. Giovanni wasn’t ready to be a dad, according to their recent conversations. He and Erin wanted to take things slow, despite their mad dash to the chapel.