Southern Hotshot (North Carolina Highlands 2)

I walk into my apartment and immediately stop in my tracks.

Lindsey is spread out on my sofa, an enormous, half-eaten pepperoni pizza in a box on the coffee table in front of her. She’s got a glass of white wine in one hand and the remains of a slice in the other. Her hair is in a messy knot at the top of her head, and she’s wearing leggings with one of my oversized sweatshirts. Mascara is smeared in blue-black halos around her eyes, making them look like two burn holes in a sheet.

Paul Hollywood is eviscerating some poor redhead’s raspberry pavlova on TV. The Great British Bakeoff? Really? Last we talked, Linds and Palmer “don’t have time to watch TV.” Much less something light and fluffy like GBB.

“Lindsey?” I say slowly, my heart beginning to pound. “What’s going on?”

She doesn’t look at me. Just rips off a chunk of pizza and says, “Tried to cook. Couldn’t. Sorry.”

“I mean what’s going on with you?” I gesture at her disheveled person. “I’ve never seen you wear a sweatshirt. I’ve never seen you eat carbs. Did someone die?”

I mean it as a joke, but the hurt I see in Lindsey’s eyes when she finally meets my gaze makes me want to die.

“How’d it go today?” she asks.

“It sucked. Tell me what’s wrong, Lindsey, or I’m going to call Palmer and have him explain why you’re having a mental breakdown on my couch.”

Lindsey’s face crumples. Panic unfurls inside my stomach.

“Palmer is leaving me,” she says. She leans forward and drops what’s left of her slice back into the box. Then she covers her face with her hand and starts to sob, shoulders shaking.

“Linds.” I sink onto the sofa and wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“He”—sob—“fell in love with our CrossFit coach.”

I blink in shock and reach for a napkin on the coffee table, offering it to her. “Fucking CrossFit.”

“I know,” she scoffs, and takes the napkin and wipes her nose with it. “Came out of nowhere. I was totally blindsided.”

“What in the world happened?”

Lindsey folds the napkin in half, then in quarters. Her face crumples again. “Shit, that’s a lie. I’m lying, Em, I don’t know why, I just…I’m sorry. Let me start over.” She takes a deep breath. “Things with Palmer haven’t been great for a while now. If I’m being honest, our marriage was off to a rocky start from the beginning. We were so perfect on paper, but in reality, we didn’t have a lot to connect over, you know?”

I grab a napkin for myself. I’m crying now too. It’s the surprise. The pain of seeing my sister hurt so much.

“I don’t know, actually,” I say, carefully picking my words. “Y’all were a picture of perfection from the second y’all met. You were both successful. Beautiful. You took these incredible trips and had this, like, insane wedding that was the most fun party I’ve ever been to. When I saw the two of you together, you seemed to always be smiling and happy. You were definitely always smiling for the camera, even when you were doing your workout of the day together. Hashtag WOD, hashtag the couple that slays together stays together.”

“Hey. I work hard in the gym. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of that.”

I squeeze her shoulder. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to poke fun. Guess a part of me is jealous you have the time and money to do that stuff.”

“No, you’re right.” She takes another breath. “The hashtags were obnoxious. Hell, my whole feed is obnoxious. But what was I supposed to post? ‘Hey, Palmer and I are at a five-star resort in Vietnam, but we haven’t talked in two days’? Or, ‘hey, Palmer and I just burned eight hundred calories at the gym, but no matter how hard I try, he never looks at me the way he looks at Coach Cindy’?”

“Aw.” I hand Lindsey another napkin. “Aw, Linds, that’s fucking awful.”

She puts her elbows on her knees and leans forward, nodding. “It’s such a cliché, showing the world a highlight reel when the reality is a total dumpster fire. But the pressure to be perfect, and to be happy—it’s real, Emma. I mean, don’t you feel like there’s no space for the messy parts of life? To show them and to actually live them? It’s like, hey, shit’s not great in my life right now, but I’m gonna sweep it under the rug and paste on a smile and snap a picture, and maybe if I keep doing that, the reality will finally start to look like the highlight.”

“But it doesn’t,” I say. “The disconnect only grows.”

Lindsey grabs her wine and gulps it. “Yup. You’re a much smarter cookie than I ever was—”

“Hey, you’re the one with the Ivy League degree.”