When she finally stepped foot into the living room, her face was blank of all emotion.
“Your shit is outside the door. Your Uber ride to the airport is coming now. Be here any minute. You’re leaving. I’ve transferred a million dollars into your account, and I want to see you again… never. You understand me?”
Her face went from blank to a wicked sneer in a blink. “You’re kicking me out? Just like Dad and Mom. Fuck you, Dawson.”
We’d been through this before. Many times. She cried. I caved. Round and round we went.
Not this time.
“I mean it, Crystal. I want nothing to do with you ever again. That shit from last night almost cost me my career today. My dream. You’re not worth it. Thought you were, tried to get you help, but now I know you won’t help yourself and I can’t force you into it.”
“I don’t need help. I need someone to give a shit about me.”
“Then maybe you should start by giving a shit about yourself and being a decent human being.”
Steam poured out of her, so damn angry I could feel it from across the room right before her chin started shaking. “Why does no one love me?”
“Because you don’t love yourself and never bothered trying. Get out, and if you’re not out on the stoop and in your Uber when it pulls up, I won’t be shoving you into it, I’ll be calling the cops and have you arrested for trespassing.”
CHAPTER 2
HAILEY
“No. Absolutely not. No way.”
“Yes.”
I stared down at my best friend, Meredith, who was running a straightener through her red hair and groaned. “I’m not ready.”
She ran the most successful romantic dating match service in the Southeast. I’d been dumped at the altar two months ago. Not even dumped. Darrick didn’t have the courtesy to let me know he wasn’t showing up for our wedding I’d spent a year planning. He ghosted me, didn’t bother showing up at all, unless you count the parking lot of the country club. But that was only because he needed to pick up my bridesmaid who slipped into his car and disappeared right along with him.
Destination? Our honeymoon to Greece and Italy and the rest of the Mediterranean.
Which I knew because they had no problems flaunting their vacation on their Instagram accounts. Overnight, they’d both wiped off any pictures of me on their social media accounts. Not that I was forced to check their profiles daily, sometimes multiple times, but I was an addict.
A heartbroken one.
The man who insisted we wait until we were married to do anything without clothes on had run off with one of my friends. How long had they been having sex?
My stomach still rolled at the thought. Two months later, with zero answers to my unasked questions, and I was still obsessed. Hurting.
Also, pathetic.
“It’s the best way for you to get back out there again, and you know it.” Her sky-blue eyes watched me from her mirror’s reflection where we were currently getting dressed to meet our other two friends out for drinks on a Thursday night.
Something I’d never done while engaged to Darrick.
But screw him and Bianca, my old college roommate, who I knew, always knew, had a crush on Darrick.
Joke was on me. Along with the deposits and fees from the wedding, I was still paying off on payment plans. They were worse than my student loan debt and at this point, my children’s grandchildren would still be paying off my debt.
I collapsed onto her fluffy white comforter. “I don’t think a new long-term relationship is the right thing for me.”
“And a Tinder hook-up is?”
“I hate you,” I grumbled. “Maybe?”
She chuckled. “You haven’t passed third base, Hailey. Tinder guys would eat you alive.”
“Well, maybe I want to be eaten.”
She turned and flung a hair clip at me. I barely dodged the plastic thing from smacking me in the face. “Hey!”
“Get real. Trust me. This is my gift.”
She’d started matchmaking people in college and every single couple, as unlikely or likely as they could be, were still married. Her Instagram feed was picture after picture of all the happy couples she’d successfully brought together. To say she had a gift was downplaying it. I long ago started believing Meredith could sniff out perfectly complementary pheromones on soulmates.
There was no other explanation. That she’d never fully believed Darrick and I were meant to be together should have been my first red flag and the only one I needed.
But I wasn’t ready for her to go sniffing around for a man for me.
I wanted freedom. I’d been with the same man for six years, never been able to explore my sexuality or any experience sex fully outside of Darrick’s fingers.
I wanted to take time to make sure my heart was healed and in the right place before I started another relationship. More so, I needed to make sure I knew what I liked and needed—both in bed and out of it.
“I’ll think about it,” I finally sighed. It was a carrot dangled in front of her, one I figured she’d run with but whatever.
It gave me time and got me out of this conversation.
For now, at least. Pretty sure happy hour was going to be a different story.
“Okay. How about this?” Misty flung back her blonde hair and tipped her wineglass in my direction. “Let Meredith go through the men she has in her files. Maybe she’ll find someone in it who can give you the D.”
“That’s not what I do,” Meredith grumbled.
I slumped down in the booth on the rooftop bar area at Vecchio Mondo Vino and rested my head on Sloane’s shoulder. “Can we please stop talking about this?”
Mission: Get Hailey to have hot sex, commenced as soon as Sloane, the last of our party of four, joined us and poured herself a drink from the bottle of Montalcino we’d started with.
The table was filled with a variety of tapas, including my personal favorite, bruschetta.
Sloane patted the top of my head. “There, there. It’ll be okay.”
I huffed a laugh and sat back up. “Why can’t we focus on Sloane or Misty? They’re single, too.”
“Yeah, but I’m dating,” Misty said. “And I’m perfectly happy with my situationship.”
Situationship. I didn’t even know what that stupid term meant. Friends with benefits? Fuck buddies? Seemed like that’s what it was supposed to be, but Misty’s situationship bought her flowers and had soup delivered to her when she was sick and took her out on real dates. Seemed an awful like dating to me, especially after four months, but both claimed they didn’t want a relationship. Except, wasn’t that exactly what they were doing? Sometimes the dating world made my head spin.
“Sloane isn’t.”
“Don’t bring me into this.” She bumped her shoulder into mine, and I lifted the glass of wine over the table, thankfully not spilling any of it. “I’m in my post-divorce healing era.”
So she had a pass. At least my relationship ended before I’d changed my name, moved in together, built a life and mixed finances, and then had it all blow up.
Small mercies. I grabbed a piece of bruschetta and bit into it, moaning at the flavorful burst of tomato, basil, and fresh mozzarella. Vecchio not only made the cheese on site, but grew the basil and tomatoes on the rooftop gardens on the other side of the deck from us.