Dashing Through the No (Summersweet Island 3)

“Well, for starters, I’m pretty sure I’m dying of a brain tumor, so that’s been fun.” I shrug, wondering why Bodhi hasn’t pushed me out of a window every time I start humming Chopin’s “Death March” whenever his phone rings.

“I thought I had one of those once.” Millie nods, turning to the side on her stool and crossing her legs. “Turns out it was just a really bad three-day acid trip. But it was super scary there for a little while. We’d like two hot teas with honey, please!”

Slowly glancing back over my shoulder where Millie is currently staring off into space after requesting tea and seeing nothing but the sink area behind me, I turn back around and look at Millie with a tilt of my head. Clearly, she snorted more than Adderall, and now she’s seeing people that aren’t there.

“Millie? What are you doing?” I ask gently in case she’s having some sort of breakdown, which now makes my stupid freak-out seem silly.

“I’m ordering our tea.” She rolls her eyes at me. “I don’t know how it works this late at night when everyone is asleep. I always just ask for things, and people bring them to me. Should I ask louder in case whoever makes the tea can’t hear me?”

It takes thirty seconds and Millie opening her mouth to most likely shout her order this time, before my spinning, sleep-deprived head catches up.

“How about I just make us the tea?”

Turning away from her with a sigh, I walk over to the sink and grab two tea bags out of the basket next to it. Not wanting to dig around in all the cabinets looking for a tea pot, I cheat and use the method I do at SIG when someone wants tea. I run the Keurig machine through two cycles without putting in a pod, and in less than a minute, I have two steaming cups of hot water with tea bags steeping in them. Grabbing the bear-shaped bottle of honey from the counter and two spoons sitting in a jar next to it, I turn and set everything down in the middle of the island between me and Millie.

“Do I tip you, or…?”

“Just drink your tea, Millie,” I tell her as I bring my mug up to my mouth and blow on it, glancing around the kitchen while she squirts half of the honey into hers.

I only got a quick peek at the kitchen when Allie walked me through the house before my massage earlier, and I was too busy playing with fire when I walked in here a half hour ago to pay much attention to my surroundings. Just like the rest of the house that looks like Santa and his elves took a shit all over the place, every inch of the kitchen has been decorated in a pastel pink and green, glittery candy theme that would make Shepherd get down on his knees and weep. There’s a large white Christmas tree in the corner of the room by the kitchen table with sparkly pink-and-green candy ornaments all over it, a Christmas candy village lit up along the tops of all the white kitchen cabinets, white pine garland with pink-and-green lights lining all the cabinets, windows, and the doorway, and sparkly pink-and-green candies hanging down from the ceiling with fishing line, just like the snowflakes I torched at SIG.

But for some reason, I’m not in a torching mood right now, and for the first time in my life, playing with fire didn’t take away any of my problems or make me feel better.

“Tess, love of my life, will you marry me?”

“You look like my mom did that time I told my parents I wasn’t finishing high school because I was going on tour with Jared Leto,” Millie speaks, pulling my eyes away from a glittery, striped sucker hanging above my head to watch her stir her tea, the spoon clanking around the mug. “Want to split a Vicodin and tell me all about it? I’ve been told I’m a very good listener.”

“I don’t think—”

“Can you grab me the milk?” Millie cuts me off.

All I can do is laugh and shake my head at her as I walk over to the fridge, grab the carton of milk, and bring it back to her.

As much as I’ve been dying to call Birdie and ask for her advice, I haven’t picked up the phone, because I know exactly what she’ll say. First, she’ll scream at me for a good fifteen minutes because I have failed to tell any of my friends that Bodhi started proposing to me two months ago. Second, she’ll most likely get in a car to drive up here and kick my ass for keeping it from her. And finally, she’ll kick my ass again for not immediately saying yes, even though she knows why I never want to get married.