Some Sort of Happy (Skylar and Sebastian): A Happy Crazy Love Novel by Melanie Harlow

being thrown out quite so soon.”
    “Honey, I’m not throwing you out.” Her tone was soothing but firm. “You’re always welcome here.”
    “But?” I shook the can. Violently.
    “Well, don’t you think you should have a plan?”
    “An exit strategy? I’m working on it.” I pulled off the cap, hoping she’d leave me alone to work. When she didn’t, I began spraying.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother cross her arms. She was petite and curvy, like Natalie and me, albeit with a few extra rolls around the middle. Only Jillian got our dad’s long, lanky frame and dark hair.
    “Are you going back to New York?”
    “I don’t know yet, Mom. I just said I don’t have a plan.” I tried not to sound as annoyed as I felt.
    “Well, do you have a deadline in mind? For having a plan, I mean?” she pressed.
    I stopped spraying and faced her. “Do I need one? If I’m not welcome at your house, just say it.”
    “Sky, don’t be silly. I said you’re welcome. My children are always welcome. I’m only trying to help you think ahead. You don’t want to live with your parents forever.”
    I realized that she also meant I don’t want my adult daughter living at home with me forever . She and my dad were probably used to their privacy and routine by now. As if that wasn’t enough, she went on.
    “And what about a job? It’s nice you’re working with your sister, but is that really what you want to do, work at a coffee shop?” She held up her hands. “If it is, that’s fine, but—”
    “I get it, Mom.” I turned back to the bookcase. “I’ll come up with a plan.”
    “OK.” She turned her own dazzling beauty queen smile on me. “Dinner’s at six thirty, don’t forget. I’m making fried chicken,” she said proudly. “Nat, Dan, and Jilly are coming too. Won’t that be nice?” She patted my shoulder and headed back into the house.
    Sure. Another family function where we can all compare the Nixon sisters. Which one of these is not like the others?
    Usually I looked forward to family dinners, but my mother’s words had cut deep. For the past couple weeks, I’d done a pretty good job avoiding the hard questions, but clearly I couldn’t go on like this forever. If only I had some kind of calling, like Jillian’s to be a doctor, or a dream that was achievable with hard work and dedication, like Natalie’s shop.
    As I scraped off the old varnish, I tried to think of jobs I’d enjoy going to every day, something I could get excited about. My mother was right in that coffee shop employee wasn’t really on the list. And as much as I loved the farm, agriculture wasn’t really my thing either. I’d enjoyed the job at Rivard, but there was no way I’d get that position back. I was too ashamed to even ask for it. But maybe something like that…something fun, something that allowed me to work with people, something that allowed for creativity and spontaneity.
    Christ. That is the vaguest fucking job description ever. You suck.
    I did. I did suck.
    By the time I’d taken off the varnish, eaten a quick lunch, and plugged my dad’s sander into the extension cord I’d run from the house, I was convinced I’d never be happy and I should just face the fact that I was a twenty-seven-year-old loser with a pretty face and not much else.
    And even that wasn’t going to last forever. Thirty was around the corner, and then forty, and then fifty, and then sixty…decades of wrinkling skin and cracking bones and sagging flesh. But would there even be anyone who cared? My romantic history was as crappy as my job history—I wasn’t even sure I’d ever been in love.
    I was still brooding about it when Sebastian’s truck pulled into the driveway an hour later. Immediately my mood improved.
    “Hey,” I said, telling myself to walk, not run, toward him as he got out. It’s not like he was offering a life preserver to my drowning ass. “What are you doing here?”
    He shut the truck door and leaned