Stevie groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “I know. It was bad.” She looked up abruptly. “Did Adri notice? Do you think she could tell?”
Ren winced. “I mean . . . I could see her face and she didn’t look like she was ready to nuzzle back, I’ll say that.”
“Shit,” Stevie said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“It’s fine,” Ren said. “She was too distracted by roping you into yet another career-stalling role to be too concerned.”
“That’s not what she’s doing.”
“I know she doesn’t mean to do it, but it’s still what she’s doing.”
Stevie rubbed her forehead. “I’m just a little lonely. Like for physical stuff.”
“You mean horny.”
Stevie blushed. “Call it whatever you want, but that’s all this is. I haven’t been out with anyone since Adri and I—”
“Hold up.” Ren presented a hand. “No one?”
“You know I haven’t, Ren.”
“I mean, yeah, I know you haven’t dated anyone, but I didn’t realize you hadn’t even, like, had a dating app hookup or anything.”
Stevie gave them a look. “Really? You do know who you’re talking to, right?”
Ren grinned. “Okay, by hookup I mean sharing a nice meal and going for a walk through the park, followed by a cuddle on the couch while watching While You Were Sleeping, possibly concluding with a little French kissing. You know, a Stevie-style hookup.”
Stevie plunged her head back into her hands. “God, I’m fucking pathetic.”
Ren laughed, pulled down Stevie’s hands. “You’re not. You’re just terrible at one-night stands. There are worse things to be.”
Stevie nodded. Ren was right. She was awful at one-night stands, but she wanted to be different, even if just once, to prove that she could. That she wasn’t the friend left behind sniffing her ex’s neck at the first sign of physical affection. That she could meet a stranger she liked, talk to them without embarrassing herself, kiss them, fuck them, and say goodbye. She liked sex. A lot. That was never the problem. It was building up to that point with someone she barely knew that she could never handle.
But she wanted to.
“Okay, so help me,” she said.
Ren lifted a perfectly sculpted brow. “Help you do what?”
“Have a one-night stand.”
Ren’s eyes widened. “I’m not exactly an expert.”
This was true. Ren had certainly had their share of hookups, but they preferred an actual dating relationship as opposed to fevered one timers.
“Yeah, but you know how to talk to strangers,” Stevie said. “Charm them. How to act like a person who knows how sex works.”
Ren laughed. “Okay, well, when two people like each other, sometimes, they’ll take off their clothes and—”
Stevie threw an empty straw wrapper at them. “You know what I mean. Come on, even my therapist thinks I need to do this,” she said.
“Keisha told you to go have a random hookup?”
“Not in so many words. She said I should take a friend with me and ask someone out in a bar. To, you know, get more comfortable in that atmosphere.”
Ren’s brows popped at that. “How long ago did she issue that prescription?”
Stevie winced. “Four months?”
“Jesus.” Ren sighed, looking at Stevie through narrowed eyes. “All right. I’ll help you. But let’s do it tonight before you lose your nerve. Knowing you, you’ll get a good night’s sleep and come to your senses.”
Stevie nodded, nerves sparkling through her belly. “Okay. Fine. Tonight.”
Ren lifted their glass to seal the deal. Stevie clinked Adri’s coffee cup against Ren’s but didn’t drink it. No way in hell was she toasting her impending one-night stand with her ex’s cold coffee.
CHAPTER THREE
BY THE TIME Iris escaped the birthday dinner from hell, it was nearly ten o’clock. The meal had dragged on and on, and her mother insisted that everyone play at least one round of Scrabble before leaving, which turned into three, because Aiden couldn’t handle the fact that Emma was incapable of losing a word game and kept calling for rematches.
Iris endured it all, particularly after her theatrics, as Emma called them, had caused her mother to drink not one, but two glasses of Pinot Noir at dinner. Iris had never known her mother to consume more than a sip or two of alcohol in a single sitting, and the resulting hiccups were both comic and worrying.
Still, when Maeve brought up Grant’s impending wedding as soon as Emma’s final letter tile hit the triple word score, bringing game three to a merciful end, Iris had had just about enough.
“Yes, Mother, I got the invitation,” she said, scooping tiny wooden letters off the dining room table and into the velvet bag while her siblings gathered their sleeping children from the living room. She’d always known her ex, Grant, would get married eventually. He’d dreamed of a big family, wanted to grow old on a front porch, snapping peas at twilight surrounded by grandchildren, so it wasn’t like Iris was all that surprised to receive the thick ivory invitation in the mail a few weeks ago.
“Her name is Elora,” Maeve said, taking a sleeping Christopher in her arms so Emma and Charlie could collect the amalgam of shit needed to keep a baby alive for an evening. “What kind of name is that?”
“A nice one,” Iris said brusquely, packing everything away in the Scrabble box and jamming on the lid.
“Odd, if you ask me,” Maeve said. “Not as nice as Iris.”
“Mom,” Iris said, pushing her fingers into her temples. “Please don’t.”
“I’m just saying, you two were great together,” Maeve said.
Iris pressed her mouth flat. More and more lately, coming over to her parents’ house felt like undergoing a root canal—she felt exposed, judged for her choices, and left with a fierce need for some self-medication.
“You talking about Grant?” Aiden said, a passed-out Ava propped on his hip and probably drooling on his shoulder. “God, I miss him.”
“We all do,” Maeve said. “I felt like I lost a son when he and Iris broke up.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Aiden said, rolling his eyes.
She swatted at his arm. “Oh, you know what I mean. He was a keeper, that one.”
Iris slipped the game into the sideboard, alongside several other board games, and tried not to scream.
“I wonder what his fiancée is like,” Aiden said. “Bet she’s hot.”
“Who’s hot?” Addison said, appearing in the doorway, holding Ainsley’s hand. The little girl was nearly asleep on her feet.
“Um,” Aiden said, and their mother grinned.
“Grant’s fiancée,” Iris said, smirking at Aiden’s betrayed look.
Addison barely batted an eye though. “Oh, she is. I Instagram-stalked her when we got their wedding invitation.”
“You did?” Maeve said. “What’s she like?”
“Here, I’ll show you,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pink cashmere coat. “She’s gorgeous. And Grant looks so happy.”
The family huddled around Addison, quickly joined by Emma and Charlie, all of them oohing and aahing over Grant’s perfect new life in Portland with his perfect new dream woman.
Iris stood alone and wished for an asteroid to collide with earth.
“My god, these two will have such beautiful babies,” her mother cooed, clasping her hands to her chest as she ogled the screen.
And that was the last goddamn straw.
Without a word to anyone—her father had long disappeared into his study for some peace and quiet and, honestly, fuck the rest of them—Iris grabbed her coat and bag from the rack in the foyer and slipped out the front door. She didn’t dare slow down but headed straight for her Subaru parked on the curb, started the engine, and peeled down the street so fast, she was positive she left tire marks on the asphalt.