Mending Heart |18+|

Chapter 11

That's What Sisters Are For

"Sisters make the best friends in the world." – Marylin Monroe

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"I am so sorry I'm late!" I let out in one breath, pulling the chair back and sitting down.

Megan and Taylor were both already seated inside the restaurant with a pitcher of Mimosas in front of them, each nursing a glass. When they saw me, they each gave me a confused look.

"I almost thought you weren't going to show up," Taylor smirked. Her curly brown hair was tied in a messy bun, and despite her best efforts to conceal the dark bags under her eyes with make-up, they were still prominent. "Ms. I'm Never Late Anywhere."

Taylor Nelson was my freshman year college roommate. The two of us immediately clicked, and we quickly became best friends. She and I continued to live together even after our freshman year, and we remained friends well into adulthood. Megan and I do coffee or brunch almost every Saturday like clockwork – barring that we're both in town – and Taylor joins whenever she visits her parents. She's a psychology researcher at the University of Michigan at Ann Harbor and only comes to Chicago about once or twice a month to visit her parents.

"Shut up." I felt a blush creep up my neck. "I had a late night at work last night."

Megan nearly choked on her drink while Taylor just shrugged. I had kept Megan in the loop on the whole Ethan situation, and she no doubt knew what late night at work was code for. There had been plenty of other times when I stayed late and still showed up to brunch on time the very next day.

Just then, the waitress came back to our table to take our order.

"Double espresso and the French toast, please." I was the first one to answer, handing the waitress back the menu I had glanced through earlier.

Today I was in the mood for carbs, and carbs I was going to eat.

After everyone else had ordered as well, Megan gave me a puzzled look. "You're not drinking?"

"Maybe later," I replied.  "I need to wake up first."I barely woke up this morning, hitting snooze on my alarm three times. After spending half an hour in the shower trying to wake up fully — I ended up running even later.

By the time I went to bed last night, it was well past one in the morning. When my alarm rang this morning, I may or may not have seriously considered throwing my phone across the room.

I contemplated canceling altogether, but I knew that Taylor was in town this week. That, and our Saturday brunches were sacred — you had to either be in the hospital seriously ill or dead for it to be considered a legitimate excuse to not come.

Hence why I'm here instead of sleeping off my current body ache.

"So, ladies," Taylor said just as our waitress brought out our order. "I've got news."

Both Megan and I perked up. "Do tell."

"I've been offered an associate professor position at U Chicago starting in the fall to teach a few intro psychology courses." She hesitantly replied.

"What? That's amazing!"

"Tay that's freaking awesome!"

Taylor had been offered the research position at the University of Michigan right out of college, and that was a little bit over six years ago. Despite being the queen of her studies, Taylor and I got up to some pretty crazy stuff. Especially during our junior year of college when we spent a semester in London. Every weekend we went to a different city and drank more than our weight in margaritas and wine.