Work Text:
Peppermint Tour
Summary:
It has been eleven years since the Frost Shepard arrived. You could ask Blake Bromley what they’ve been doing… but they’d probably only lie to you, anyway, Adaire. C’mon. You know that.
🍬
Secret Samol 2020 for Purmeka
Crisp weather on a morning like this always made them want to get out and run. Something about cold air made their edges feel solid, and their steps fluid. Blake Bromley is older, now, and the Rhizome doesn’t make them quite so full of ants anymore. They run a hand through their greying hair and look around the farmer’s market- a great twist of lichen-coated roots with stalls and canopies built into them like a quilt run through a kaleidoscope. An interesting enough place for someone with sharp ears and sticky fingers.
And those sharp ears catch it right away, of course.
“I dunno,” her soft voice murmurs under a breath, “It’s too expensive.”
Her cloak is brown, ankle-length with one royal blue stripe across the bottom. Her arms are covered in a soft beige blouse, white gloves with a slightly frilled edge. Dark navy- pants?! Well. Well, that’s certainly new. She’s got a different color palette, but even with that hood covering her face, Blake would always recognize the soft curve from her neck to her chin, the way her fingers trace along the trinket she would adamantly deny admiring. Of course, that mellifluous voice. That, right there, that’s Adaire DuCarte.
A nice day turned interesting, for sure. Blake reaches their hands above their head and pops their shoulders. It’s nice to have a game. Okay. Blake flips their hood up, fluffs their hair out and forward. Does an energetic little two-step. Okay, let’s do it.
Adaire’s hand curls around a jeweled hilt, carefully concealed but not concealed enough to hide from the blue eyes of the burglar. What’s she doing with something like that? Her lips move and Blake catches She and Tomorrow and Home . Then she nods, and this perspective lets them see the little scrunch of Adaire’s face. Who is she even acquiescing to? Blake bites their lip when Adaire forks out some coins for the trinket- wait. Wait, she isn’t buying the trinket?
Adaire haggles with the shopkeep for a moment, pointing at the trinket, and playing the bashful innocent girl. The shopkeep smiles sweetly and ducks under the stall for something. Adaire exchanges her coin for a large branch of fine cherry wood. She tucks the branch under her arm and sets off further into the market. Incredible.
“Hey,” Blake asks the shopkeep, and gestures to the distant figure of Adaire, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The shopkeep shoots them an incredulous look, the incredulity emphasized by the way their eyebrow piercings glint when their eyebrows twine together.
“Ain’t enough coin in the world to supply two wanna-be carvers.”
“Ah, yes yes. But, isn’t ‘wants-to-be’ is the first step to ‘is’? That’s what they say.”
“Depends on who’s ‘they’.”
Blake smirks and cracks their jaw. “Me. I’m they.”
The shopkeep laughs again and points to a large, wooden toad. “Buy that one and whittle away my hard work to nothin’, then. I don’t love tending trees so kindly that I’d care to chop wood every day of m’damn life.” The shopkeep runs a hand over their buzzed head, “Not even for two too-pretty folk.” Winks.
Blake puts a hand on the toad, leaning in a way they know makes people look. “How could I whittle this fine, handsome man away?”
The shopkeep blushes and looks away just long enough. Sucker.
Blake laughs and nods a goodbye. A two-fingered salute and wink, for good measure.
When they’re far enough away to both avoid the gaze of the shopkeep and follow the blue stripe of Adaire’s coat once more, Blake takes out the stolen trinket from their pockets. A finely carved, very small wooden boat. Huh. Does she like boats now? Blake looks up at Adaire, who is fast-talking some soap-seller into a discount.
“She is pretty, though, isn’t she?” Blake asks the boat.
The boat does not answer.
🍬🍬🍬
The room isn’t really a bathroom, and the house isn’t really Blake’s, but it does have a mirror and they are living there. Staying there. Passing through. It’s a terrible old thing, but it’s cool enough to sleep in when the summer’s this hot, at least. That’s going to have to be enough. And- hey!- Adaire’s back in Velas, so that makes it worthwhile to be back in Velas yourself. Not that Blake would ever say that. Not now, anyway, they’re too wrapped up in their new career. Semi-professional cut-purse, soon-to-be professional scoundrel Blake Bromley. A ring they think, in their early twenties, they might never get tired of hearing.
“Are you sure this is really necessary?” Adaire asks, as Blake puts the finishing touches on her hair.
“Yes. Of course?” Blake laughs, “They won’t believe we’re engaged if you don’t look like a blushing bride. Besides, this was your bright idea. I say, ‘Just steal the recipe!’ and you say, ‘No, no. Some valuables are worth paying for.’ Yeah, sure. You’re lucky I’m bored.”
Adaire frowns, her blush emphasized by the rouge Blake had given her. “Brides never put their hair in braids?”
“Of course they do, of course they do. Just not fake ones, Ms. DuCarte.”
Adaire puffs out a laugh. “I would think the frivolity of marriage would be conducive to a fake braid or two.”
“There,” Blake says, stepping away, “All done.” They beam.
Her hair- her real hair- a dusty brown and a little grown out of its short-crop has been coaxed out of featheriness and into a tidy flat swoop. Her bangs are twisted with beeswax into neat, little curls that frame her high forehead. She looks… well. She does look. She keeps looking at it. Blake fiddles with their hands.
“D’ya like it?”
Adaire pokes a finger on a curl, pushing it up and letting it spring back down. “I look like my-”
“You look good!” Blake interrupts, “You look good. I thought, you know. I thought you’d look old and stuffy, but you look good. A proper lady.”
Adaire blinks away from her reflection, stubborn.
Blake runs a hand through their red hair, scratching at the shaved sides. “Ms. DuCarte, ma’am, this is when you tell your lovely spouse how handsome they are.”
“You’re full of it.” Adaire rolls her eyes.
Blake clasps their hands on Adaire’s shoulders, “Full of love for my beautiful fiancee!”
“Shut UP!” Adaire laughs.
“So full of love-” Blake does a little dance around to the front of the chair, between Adaire and her reflection, “That I simply must take my darling dear to the couples-only apple cake baking class at Household Discoveries, Antiques, & Mrs. Curtis’s Bakery. Since I love her so much. Because we are very engaged.”
Adaire coughs into her glove. “We should go.”
Blake laughs and offers their hand. Adaire stands up herself, and starts out the door. Blake blinks once, smiles, and bounds after her.
Household Discoveries, Antiques, & Mrs. Curtis’s Bakery was, obviously, a bakery before it was also a trinket shop. This is evidenced by the sign that swings above the double-doors: the stout and simple “Household Discoveries, Antiques” attached above the proud, ornate display for “Mrs. Curtis’s Bakery”- the “r” in “Mrs.” both mismatched from the rest of the sign… and a story in itself.
Mrs. Curtis started the bakery during her engagement but before her proper marriage- the unmentionable Mr. Curtis taking his wife’s name, of course. A proud woman like Mrs. Curtis would expect no less. Not a chance she would name her business after anyone but her own hardworking self. It had gone bad between them- some say it was a recipe and some say it was a love language the man couldn’t speak. Real romantics in Velas will say it was both- that changing the type of flour or adding a little more vanilla was a love language of itself and, of course, this is where it had gone wrong.
When Mrs. Curtis had removed Mr. Curtis from her life and her career, her neighbor, Oakley, had leaned a ladder against her shop and pried off the “r” in her “Mrs.” that very same day.
Little did she know, the woman Oakley would soon become a Mrs. Curtis as well. Some say it was the look on her face when Oakley threw the “r” to the wind, not caring where it would land. Some say it was the sweat on Mrs. Curtis’s brow when she baked a honey-apple cake the next day, as thanks. Most say it was the cake itself. Regardless of gossip, the women fell in love and were married before the year ended. That, of course, was more than 30 years ago now.
The “r” in “Mrs.” has been replaced, this new one a different shade and type of wood. Even a different font. And above it, applied equally with love and hap-hazards, are the names for the life Mrs. Oakley Curtis brought with her- “Household Discoveries” and “Antiques.”
So, naturally, the businesswomen had to take financial advantage of their local legend fame. Every year on their anniversary, the couple holds a baking class. They will teach you the recipe to the honey-apple cake that the Mmes. Curtis found love over so long ago, open to any couples curious about it.
Only couples.
Adaire is very curious. She is also very single.
It’s a good thing she has a mischievous friend like Blake Bromley to help her sneak into things like this. Or, at least, Blake Bromley hopes Adaire knows how lucky she is that Blake will put up with this stunt. A fake engagement in front of the two most in-love people in Velas? Madsdamme known for their ability to sniff out ripe fruit and frauds? What a day this was going to be.
Mrs. Oakley Curtis- middle-aged, tall, wirey, black, with grey hair curled close to her scalp- stands at the door. She would be an imposing figure if not for the flour fingerprints across her cheek and the bright smile she flashes at Blake and Adaire when they approach her.
“Hey, kids! Here for the class?” She leans down to speak to them, mindful of Blake’s height.
Blake stretches and tries to earn the “one” in “four-foot-one.” They grin back, “Sure thing.”
“Hah! Alright.” Mrs. Oakley Curtis leans back against the post and shoots a comical eye to Adaire, who has been avoiding eye contact, “How’d’ja meet, then?”
“We-” Blake starts.
“No, sweetie. The quiet one.” She points to Adaire.
Adaire looks up, and Blake thinks she looks beautiful like this: stubborn, annoyed.
“We reached for the same pastry at the market.”
Blake laughs. Well, that isn't exactly a lie.
“What’s funny?” Blake is asked, this time.
“I just remembered her face, then. She was so surprised.” Blake gives Adaire a teasing look, and Adaire pouts and looks away. Blake takes her hand and she gasps and glances back over her shoulder, eyes wide.
“Alright, alright!” Mrs. Oakley Curtis slaps her knee, “You two lovebirds can go in. Enjoy the class.”
Blake slides close to Adaire, reaching an arm around her and whispering into her ear, “Told ya it would work.”
Adaire glares back. Blake squeezes her shoulder before letting go.
“Honey, I know you.”
“If you’re honey,” Adaire asks as they take their seats in the back of the class, “Does that make me apple?”
Blake snorts and looks up to the woman before the class. Mrs. Curtis- the original deal- is also very, very tall. Taller than her wife, even, and the soft sort of strong. Big, soft, very strong. She has big red hair like Blake, and her blush is so dark it might be a sunburn. More than anything, she looks calculating. She would be an imposing figure if not for the flour fingerprints across her cheek.
Adaire leans to Blake and whispers, “They must be sensitive.”
Blake looks at her with big eyes and blinks twice.
Adaire keeps her face blank and says without humor, “You know,” but her composure breaks when she delivers her punchline, “Touchy.”
“Adaire, jesus.” Blake laughs.
It goes like this:
Honey-Apple Cake
1 cupful milk
1/3 cupful sugar
1/3 cupful butter
1/2 teaspoonful salt
1 yeast cake [or one packet active dry yeast]
2 eggs
2.5 cups Flour
5 apples
4 tablespoonfuls sugar
1/2 teaspoonful
cinnamon
- Scald the milk, pour it over the butter, sugar, and salt; when lukewarm, add the eggs, dissolved yeast cake, and enough flour to make a soft dough.
- Beat it thoroughly and set in a warm place to raise.
- Beat again and let it rise a second time.
- Pour into a shallow greased pan, spread the dough out thin with a palette knife, and brush over the top with melted butter.
- Pare the apples, core, and cut into eighths. Lay them thickly on top of the dough in straight rows.
- Dust sugar and cinnamon over them, cover with a towel, set in a warm place, and let the dough rise again.
- Bake in a moderate oven half an hour, cut into squares, and serve hot, with whipped, sweetened cream.
“So,” Blake asks, after the class. The sun has set, the heat and humidity of the Velas summer persisting despite the dark. “What’re you going to do with your new skills?”
“None of your business.”
“You’re gonna open your own store? Give up the good stuff, get on the real straight-narrow. Mrs. DuCarte’s Bakery ?”
Adaire punches Blake in the shoulder and stalks off a bit. “Yes. No.” Adaire turns around and looks very mean when she says, “Maybe.”
Blake smirks. “Maybe?”
“It wouldn’t be called that.”
“Oh, you’re breaking up with me? Ms. DuCarte’s Bakery , then?”
Adaire stops and waits for Blake to catch up. She smooths out the frills of her skirt, free of any baking mess. Blake’s trousers can’t say as much.
“It would cost an awful lot to change a sign just because of my marital status. Or to tie it to any one business.”
“Right, right. You’re a connoisseur of every type of fine good. To limit yourself to simply those which are baked would be a disservice.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
They walk another few paces into the night before Adaire says,
“Just DuCarte’s .”
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The sun sets as evening turns to night, another, smaller sun rising and casting the market in lazy shades of orange. Blake regards Adaire from afar and decides saying nothing might be better than butting in again, after their last conversation about Moonlighters and what children should or should not do all those years ago. They’ll just look at this one last candy stall and hope for peppermint, and try very hard not to hope for more.
But, of course, life is about ending up in places we had not expected to end up in.
Not everyone in Hieron had the pleasure of hearing the harsh, attacking sounds of a harpsichord, much less the crystalline counterpoint a master could draw from it. It’s a fickle instrument- difficult to tune, easy to break. The lid elaborately painted, often with real gold. Blake, naturally, was not most people, and had heard the wild plucking of a basso continuo at the West Shore-Upon-Scene. The orchestra audience made for a gaggle of easy targets; many of them too drunk to notice when their wallets became a little lighter, and many more too enraptured by the momentum to care. They had considered trying to chip off some of that gold paint, once, and waited through a whole Concert Champêtre. Full brass, full strings, full winds declaring regality while one tiny, expensive harpsichord sat unpresumptuous before them and made its jaunty way. By the end of it all, they had risen and clapped with the audience, tears in their eyes and heist forgotten. So, yes, Blake has heard a harpsichord. It was alright.
The black and white keys of a clavichord, though, were much more common. The instrument was smaller and less expensive. Blake had stayed a few nights waiting out a storm on Old Hieron in the attic of some unsuspecting family. Their oldest daughter was preparing for some courtship or another and spent all hours of the night attempting to forge herself into a well-tempered clavier. Blake would toss and turn through the etudes, begging the young mistress to learn a more delicate touch. What was the point of the clavichord, if not for the pressure-sensitive dynamics? They eventually grew so frustrated, so wrapped up in the idea that they could do a better job, that they snuck down when the family was out to lunch and banged out a few chords on their own. Blake had no knowledge of theory, but they had two discerning ears- thank you very much- and it was fun to hear something come to life under their touch. So, yes, Blake had heard a clavichord. It was ok.
Then, of course, Blake had heard something new. It was still there, somehow, in the conservatory of the Last University. The conservatory had fallen out of repair long ago, but the instrument was forged longer ago still. The delicate ivory keys, and soft mallets of what Sunder Havelton had told them was a pianoforte. Sunder had gazed upon it with open awe, the kind that could light up a room, while Blake had set off to cut down the curtains that lined the stage. Their people were cold, they needed blankets, and the acoustics of this hall had long since needed dampening.
“I could get a gig doin’ this.” They said.
“Doing what?” Sunder asked, brushing her hand along the piano lid.
“This could be a whole strategy. Put up curtains, close em. It’s darker inside, you can sneak around better. Maybe they’ll be like, ‘Oh, who put up these new curtains?’ and won’t notice the jewelry box is empty.”
Sunder laughed. “You’d bring your own curtains to someone else’s house so you could rob them better?”
Blake ran a hand through their hair, “Sure. Why not?” And got back to work.
Blake heard an odd creak, and the dissonant strum of eighty-eight notes all at once, before they turned around to see Sunder sitting before the keys- despite her torn clothes, but perhaps especially because of her greying hair- looking every bit a virtuoso. Sunder laughed lightly.
“I’m a bit out of practice.” She had said, and played the softest, most intimate two minutes of music Blake had ever heard.
It was so light, so full of questions. Of course words alone could not compose the question asked by a waltz. Of that swung whole-step, whole-step, half-step neighboring tone, minor third fall, whole-step and repetition that seemed to say “I’m confessin’ that I love you” and so much more at once. Sunder paused a minute in, trying out a few chords and biting her lip before finding herself again. She was swept back into the melody with a high treble answer to the call of the bass.
Blake understood, now, why this instrument had dictated the sound of all others. Piano quiet like no other, forte demanding as the heart itself.
So it is that grand piano they are thinking of when it happens. Nothing else could describe how Blake felt, reaching for a package of peppermint gebralters at the last open stall, when their hand brushes over Adaire’s.
“Blake?” Her mouth says, but Blake doesn’t hear anything. All they hear are two grand pianos crashing together into one utter, triumphant, cacophonous mess.
🍬🍬🍬
It was rough the last time they really saw each other.
“I’m just- I’m worried that the shit I’m hearing is...you know you’re- I don’t even know how to phrase it. You know you’re selling your winter coat in summer. You know what I mean? Like-” Adaire had said, tucking a lock of hair back into her bonnet.
“It’s spring, Adaire.” Blake stood up and paced around the store. “And you know what? If it ain’t winter anymore, sometimes you gotta sell your winter coat.”
Adaire reached out a hand, sighed, and pulled it back. “You’re taking it too literally. I mean-”
“No, I mean it in a metaphorical sense. Like, you’re right. There are things that benefitted us before and could benefit us again sometime in the future, but some of us don’t have the choice to hang on to those things just because they might be valuable again someday. Some of us have to make risky-”
“Again, you’re being- you’re being so literal.”
“Adaire!” Blake had run a hand through their hair, split ends catching in their nails. “Some of us- sometimes we have to make risky choices. We have to take the buck today instead of the ten in a month.”
“But what I’m saying is if you take the buck today, there isn’t a month. There isn’t anything in a month.”
“Ok, well that’s not the metaphor. That’s a different-”
Adaire raised her voice, “Cause I’m saying if you sell your winter coat in summer then you freeze to death in the winter.”
“But I’m saying,” Blake took a knee and took her hand, “I’ll get another coat before winter.”
Adaire looked away. “I’m saying there might not be winter.”
Blake drops her hand. “There might not be a fall, for me, if I don’t- if I don’t sell this coat today. I’m not gonna make it to fall if I don’t sell the coat today.”
“Ya might.”
Blake stood and paced around the store again, windows darkened by the curtains they strung up. Blake pockets another necklace. Places a hand on the wall, peeking out the window.
“I know.” They said, “I could sell the coat. And in the fall, I can get a winter coat. It’s like that. I’m sure it’s like that for those kids. I’m glad you’re looking out for them. It sounds good. I’m glad-if- if they’re not caught up in Dark Son shit, then that’s better for them. So-”
Adaire gives Blake a desperate look but does not interrupt. “I’m not- I can’t- ha! We are a guild of independent operators. I can’t go in and say ‘No more workin’ with the Dark Son.’ Most of what they want isn’t even- it’s- it’s guarding shipments. It’s- we’re not assassins. It’s a stealing book here or there. And frankly, better that we steal it than they come in and try to take it by force. Less people get hurt.”
“I just,” Adaire exhales, “I don’t know. It’s-”
“You ok? You doin’ alright? You’re feelin’ ok?”
In a quiet voice, Adaire replied, “I’ve had a bad one.”
“That’s what it sounds like to me. I don’t know the guy, the sword guy but- Well, I’m sorry you- you lost this guy. Uh… I wish I had somethin’ to offer. Um, if you ever need any work, you know, like get your head clear, focus on something, let me know.”
“You know what you can offer me, Blake?”
This was the Adaire that Blake would think about for years after the Spring. Adaire, standing hesitantly, her gloved hands cast a glowing white by a streak of light out the window, the rest of her in shadow.
“I know you can’t do shit about what other people do, but just- I just want to hear you tell me that you’ll try to play it smart. That you’ll try to… you know. If you get into shit and you need help and you like, need to sell that coat, you know what I mean?” She smiled, “I would rather you reached out to me.”
Blake felt themself choking, “Alright. Yeah. I can agree to that.”
“Ok.” Adaire looked at Blake’s hand as if she might take it. Blake wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if she had. “You stole the curtains out of this place, huh?”
Blake laughed at that. “Yeah.”
🍬🍬🍬
When you’re a thief or a burglar or a conspirator, the things you notice are more than a fleeting glance or a high-cheeked flush. You see all the things the great romantics write about, of course. But there’s more to it. There’s the conversation, when it switches, and what it switches to. The pattern there; impersonal, too personal, impersonal. Fleeting flirting flicking from honesty to the invulnerable vulnerability of a laugh and the wave of a hand. The brightly colored thread you chose to mend your sleeve, the plain black thread you use to mend the sleeve of another. The story told from not just the tracks from a shoe, or the mud left on them, but in the choice of the heel and the height of the vamp. A sword she has never carried before, and the way it matches her wedding band.
“Oh,” Blake snatches their hand back from the candy, “Adaire! You look- Uh. Fancy seeing you here.”
“Hm,” Adaire picks up the peppermint gebralters and turns the package over in her hands. “You sayin’ I look fancy? How fancy?”
“What?”
“How fancy is it?” Adaire hands the tradesperson a small coin, and takes two squares of mints.
Blake’s mind stutters for a moment, distracted by the way Adaire’s haughty frown has set itself into her face. “I thought you looked good. I was gonna say, you look good, but I didn’t want to- Anyway. To answer the question, I am certainly fancier now that you’re here, Ms. DuCarte.”
Adaire laughs an old scratching laugh and grips her sword with her left hand. “Mrs.” She corrects.
“Mrs!” Blake breathes out, “So that ring isn’t just finery you swiped from some sorry corpse.”
“No!” Adaire laughs as well, and leaves enough space by her side for Blake to walk along with her. “I got married. Well, I got married twice, actually.”
“Didn’t work out the first time?”
She smirks, “Worked out just fine both times.”
“Wow, Adaire, my god! I never thought you’d be the type, now you’re double the type.”
“I have kids now, too. A dog.”
Blake thinks of a girl who had said she didn’t want payment for saving their life. How they had not believed her.
“A whole fuckin’ family?”
Adaire takes the bar of peppermint to her mouth and crunches it. “Yep. You might. You might remember the kids.”
“Oh. The ones messed up with the cult. Those kids?”
“Yeah.”
“You keep ‘em outta danger and you’re their mom now?”
Adaire gives Blake a look, and takes another bite of the peppermint. She hands the package to Blake, who heartily accepts. The wrapper is decorated with the face of a cartoon woman and a memento mori: “It gazes upon chocolate and sherbet and says, ‘Before you were, I was. After you are, I shall be.’”
Blake squints. “These the same as in Rosemarrow?”
“The artisan is from one of the Rosemarrows that came up with the Spring. The process is a little different, though.” Adaire shifts her satchel up on her shoulder, “We don’t have any vineyards near here, so the cream of tartar has to be substituted with lemon and vinegar. I didn’t like the taste at first, but. Well, you try it.”
Blake does try it. The peppermint flakes when they bite it, the chew soft and giving. The taste is sharper, more acidic than they remember. But it’s good. God, it’s so good even when it’s already cold. They hum a little at the taste.
“I guess your taste hasn’t changed.” Adaire smirks, her face wrinkling adorably with the motion.
“Haven’t sold my coat, neither.” Blake jokes back.
“What? You’re wearing a cloak, not a coat.”
“No, I meant,” Blake laughs, “You told me all those years ago. Don’t sell my winter coat in summer.”
“Oh, I wasn’t being literal.”
“I know.”
They walk together a few more paces, trading bites of the peppermint gibraltar.
“But anyway, Mrs. DuCarte-”
“That isn’t,” Adaire crunches up and swallows a piece of mint, daintily covering her mouth with her hand, “That isn’t my last name anymore.”
“Oh yeah?” Blake’s smile is as sharp as the vinegar in the peppermint, “Was it ever?”
“Hah.” Adaire looks up and away, “Well, I guess not.”
“Yeah, Addie.”
“Shut up.”
They stop at the end of the farmer’s market and laugh together, age and familiarity making the interaction calm and warm where their youthful fires had burned down.
“It’s Varal-Triste.”
“Varal?”
“Yes, Varal-Triste.” Adaire smiles down at her ring, or maybe at her sword.
“Like HELLA Varal?”
“Y-Yes.”
“You got wifed up by the QUEEN KILLER?”
Adaire bursts out in laughter at this, quiets down and seems to burst out laughing anew not a moment after. “N-” She hacks a bit into the laugh, “No, Blake, it’s more. You won’t believe-” She shorts, “The queen killer and the queen she killed.”
“The-”
“Yeah!”
Adaire leans over, her hand across her stomach, and Blake can only stare.
“You married-”
“Yeah!”
Blake huffs out one laugh, mostly breath. “That’s wild, Adaire. I thought I was wild, but that’s. That’s something else, you married the queen killer and the queen she killed. Two wives.”
Adaire rights herself and wipes some laugh-tears from her eyes. “Two wifes.”
“Hm.”
“What?”
Blake smirks and says, “Twives.”
“Shut UP!”
And, for a moment, it’s like they’re young again. Bantering over such things, making long-winded jokes that trail off into nothing or everything. Winter coats in spring, peppermint tours, and such.
Until Blake says, “I think I’ve got time for that drink, now. If you’d want to catch up.”
“Sure, Blake.” Adaire says, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, “How about tomorrow evening? Hella gets back from a trip tonight and I want to greet her when she gets back.”
“Sure. Hell, bring her tomorrow. I’d love to hear the embarrassing stories of boring domestic Mrs. Adaire Varal-Triste.”
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“What have you been doing all this time?”
Blake laughs and thinks of a tomorrow with her old friend.
“Oh, Adaire. Asking me what I’ve been up to? You know I’d only lie, anyway.”