“Do you or do you not want to hear the greatest humiliation of my life?”
I hear her sit up, clear her throat. “Just realizing you’re still married?”
I pause, the weight of that panic settling in a little more each minute. “It’s worse.”
“And you flew to Paris to be this guy’s sex toy all summer?”
I laugh. If only. “Yes, we’ll discuss the insanity of all of this, but first, I need to tell you about the trip here. It’s so bad, I want someone to drug my coffee so I’ll forget.”
“You could just have some gin,” she quips, and I laugh before my stomach turns with nausea.
“I got my period on the plane,” I whisper.
“Oh no!” she says, sarcastically. “Not that.”
“But I had nothing with me, Harlow. And I was wearing white jeans. Any other time I’d be like, ‘Yep, I menstruate.’ But this? We just met and I can think of about fifteen hundred conversations I’d rather have with a hot semi-stranger other than ‘I just started my period and I’m an idiot so let me just tie my sweatshirt around my waist to be really obvious about what’s going on. Also, you being a dude, I realize it’s unlikely but do you happen to have a spare tampon?’”
This seems to sink in because she falls quiet for a beat before saying a quiet, “Oh.”
I nod, my stomach twisting as I reel through the remaining memories. “And layered all throughout that, I was barfing on just about everything thanks to the stomach flu.”
“Lola has it, too,” she says through a yawn.
“That explains a few things,” I say. “I threw up on the plane. Getting off the plane. In the terminal . . .”
“Are you okay?” The concern rises in her voice, and I can tell she’s about five minutes from booking a flight and coming to me.
“I’m fine now,” I reassure her. “But we got back to his apartment after this cab ride that was . . .” I close my eyes when the floor weaves in front of me at the memory. “I swear crazy Broc as a toddler would be a better driver. And as soon as we got here I threw up in Ansel’s umbrella bucket.”
She seems to miss the most important piece of information here when she asks, “He keeps a bucket for his umbrella? Men do that?”
“Maybe he put it there for guests to puke in,” I suggest. “And I’ve been sick since Tuesday night and I’m pretty sure he’s seen me throw up about seven hundred times. He had to help me shower. Twice. And not the sexy kind, either.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah.”
“By the way, you can thank me for covering for you with your dad,” she says, and I can practically hear the venom in her voice. “He called, and I confirmed everything from your little story while I plucked each and every hair from my Dave Holland voodoo doll. You’re in Paris working as an intern for one of my dad’s movie-finance colleagues. But play dumb when you come home to your father’s sudden male pattern baldness.”
“Ugh, sorry about that.” The idea of talking to my father right now makes me feel sick all over again. “He talked to Ansel, too. Actually, ‘screamed’ would be a more accurate description. It didn’t even seem to faze Ansel, though.”
She laughs, and at the familiar sound I miss her so it squeezes my ribs together painfully. “Mia, you’re going to need to really up your game in order to bring sexy back.”
“I know. I can’t imagine he’ll ever want to touch me again. I don’t want to touch me again. Even that enormous battery-powered rabbit sex toy you got me for my twenty-first birthday probably won’t ever want to touch me again.”
But the humor evaporates and my fear returns, roaring through my veins, heart pounding and limbs shaking. I haven’t just tipped my world. I’ve propelled myself into a completely new orbit. “Harlow? What am I doing here? Was this a horrible mistake?”
It’s a long time before she answers, and I pray she hasn’t fallen asleep on the other end of the line. When she does speak, though, her voice is more awake, stronger and thoughtful . . . just the way I need her. “It’s funny you’re asking me this now, Mia. And what’s even funnier, is you’re wondering if it’s a mistake, and I’m over here mentally high-fiving you all over the place.”
“What?” I ask, sliding down onto the couch.
“When you didn’t want to annul the stupid fucking marriage, I was pissed. When you got all schmoopy over Ansel, I thought you’d lost your mind and would be better off just banging the dimples off him for a couple of nights. But then you took off to Paris for the summer. You don’t do crazy things, Mia, so I just have to assume you found some wild oats, and you’re sowing them.” She pauses, adding, “I assume you have fun with him.”