Count Your Lucky Stars •CHAENNIE•

Chapter 22

Silence greeted Jennie when she stepped inside the apartment. "Rosie?"

She dropped her bag in the entry and briefly poked her head inside the kitchen before limping deeper into the apartment. She frowned. No answer. Except for the gentle hum of the refrigerator, it was quiet.

"Rosie? Are you home?" she called out again, hobbling toward the hall. Her foot didn't throb quite as badly as it had yesterday, and most of the swelling had gone down overnight. Luke's advice about rest, ice, compression, and elevation had been spot-on, and the extra-strength Advil hadn't hurt, either. "Rosie?"

The door to Roseanne's room was left ajar, as always. Jennie pressed her fingers to the door, pushing it open the rest of the way, poking her head inside to-

A shadowy blur shot past, darting down the hall. Jennie gripped her chest, heart clawing its way up into her throat. A high-pitched yowl came from the living room and Jennie sagged against the door frame. Cat. Phew. She chuckled and-

She stopped laughing because she was the only one laughing. Roseanne wasn't here. Jennie reached inside her pocket for her phone. 10:58 a.m. She shot off a quick text.

Jennie (10:58 a.m.): Hey, where are you? I just got back to the apartment and you aren't here.

She tucked her phone into her pocket so she wouldn't be tempted to stare at it, waiting for a response, and ducked into her bedroom to change out of the yoga pants and sweatshirt she'd worn in the car.

The plan for the day was straightforward; the wedding party would meet up at the venue at one o'clock to run through the ceremony proceedings with the officiant to make sure everyone knew where they needed to be and when they needed to be there. From there, Jungkook and Taehyung would head to the airport to pick up her parents. Setup for the pre-rehearsal dinner cocktail hour was scheduled to start at three, the cocktail hour itself was at five, and the dinner was scheduled for six thirty.

Bringing her phone with her, Jennie wandered back out into the living room. Cat was curled up on the couch in a tight little ball that made it difficult to see where she started and ended. Two green eyes peeked out at Jennie when she carefully-cautiously-sat. Her eyes shut, and she started up a low purr that made Jennie smile.

11:12 a.m. She had over an hour to kill before she needed to leave, let alone before the rehearsal started. An hour to kill. That felt like an absurd amount of time to wait around, twiddling her thumbs, and yet . . . Roseanne was cutting it close. Awfully close. Jennie sighed, earning a serious side-eye from Cat. She reached for the remote.

The channel was still set to Turner Classic from the last time she and Roseanne had curled up on the couch. Currently, the hosts of the cocktail hour-style intermission were sipping on flutes of champagne while discussing-Jennie pressed the volume up button-Breakfast at Tiffany's, the film du jour.

Roseanne's favorite.

The intermission ended, the movie picking up at the scene where Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak spend the day together. Jennie glanced at the Kit-Cat Clock hanging on the wall, perpetually crooked no matter how many times she straightened it. 11:20.

Leaving the movie on in the background, Jennie opened up her Chrome browser and selected one of the many open tabs at random. One hundred and thirteen thousand words of angsty fanfic tagged slow burn, hurt/comfort, and hate sex, sure to eat up the hour and twenty minutes before she had to leave.

Except she couldn't get into the story no matter how hard she tried, couldn't lose herself in the distraction the way she needed to. Her eyes kept flitting to the corner of her screen, desperate to see how much time had passed. She navigated over to her texts and reread the last message she'd sent to Roseanne before hitting call.