Our core team is the best core team: Agent Holly Root is the consistent voice of calm, wisdom, and delightfully timed snark. Our editor at Simon & Schuster/Gallery, Kate Dresser, puts up with a lot, and we mean a lot, of U-turns. Thank you, Kate, for being the CLo enthusiast when we start, the sounding board when we’re stuck, the gentle red flag when we’re editing. Kristin Dwyer is our PR rep and Precious, and even when time stopped and we no longer knew what the world looked like past our own window, it was okay. We did it, we got it done: people found our books. You always do so good, girl.
Thank you to the S&S/Gallery team for hustling their hardest, as always: Jen Bergstrom (we truly adore you), Aimée Bell, Jen Long, Rachel Brenner, Molly Gregory, Abby Zidle, Anne Jaconette, Anabel Jimenez, Sally Marvin, Lisa Litwack, John Vairo, and the entire Gallery sales force and subrights groups. In the midst of a pandemic, the loss of Carolyn Reidy hit everyone hard. She will be greatly missed. It makes us doubly grateful to everyone at S&S for always being amazing and forever being on our team.
Thank you to Marion Archer for reading, and rereading, and rereading. Your notes and feedback are always so spot-on and appreciated. Erin Service, making you swoon is our only goal. To the readers in CLo and Friends, thank you for making us laugh and keeping us company (and, of course, for loving our books). We adore each and every one of you.
To every reader out there, we hope this book finds you safe and happy. Thank you for picking it up. It is our greatest wish to the universe that Mae and Andrew’s story gives you an escape that you choose, but (for your sake) one that you don’t need too desperately. It’s been a hard year, and we are here sending love and—we hope—a rollicking dose of magical fun.
With massive affection,
Christina & Lauren
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next ‘delightful’ (People) novel from
New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren.
Coming soon from Piatkus!
CHAPTER ONE
Jessica Davis used to think it was an honest-to-God tragedy that only twenty-six percent of women believed in true love. Of course, that was nearly a decade ago, when she couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be anything but deeply and passionately obsessed with the man who would one day be her ex. Tonight, though, on her third first date in seven years, she was astounded the number was even that high.
“Twenty-six percent,” she mumbled, leaning toward the restroom mirror to apply more lipstick. “Twenty-six women out of one hundred believe true love is real.” Popping the cap back on, Jess laughed, and her exhausted reflection laughed back. Sadly, her night was far from over. She still had to make it through the entrée course; appetizers had lasted four years. Of course, some of that was probably due to Travis’s tendency to talk with his mouth full, oversharing highly specific stories about finding his wife in bed with his business partner and the ensuing messy divorce. But as far as first dates went, Jess reasoned, it could have been worse. This date was better, for sure, than the guy last week, who’d been so drunk when he showed up at the restaurant that he nodded off before they’d even ordered.
“Come on, Jess.” She dropped the tube back into her bag. “You don’t have to make, serve, or clean up after this meal. The dishes alone are worth at least one more bitter story about his ex-wife.”
A stall door clicked open, startling her, and a willowy blonde emerged. She glanced at Jess with bald pity. To this woman, she must look like a wet dog out in the rain.
“God, I know,” Jess agreed with a groan. “I’m talking to myself in a bathroom. Tells you exactly how my night is going.”
Not a laugh. Not even a courtesy smile, let alone camaraderie. Instead she moved as far away as possible to the end of the empty row of sinks and began washing her hands.
Well.
Jess went back to rummaging through her purse but couldn’t help glancing toward the end of the counter. She knew it wasn’t polite to stare, but the other woman’s makeup was flawless, her nails perfectly manicured. How on earth did some women manage it? Jess considered leaving the house with her zipper up a victory. Once, she explained an entire season’s worth of data analysis to a roomful of marketing executives with makeup only on one eye. This gorgeous stranger probably hadn’t been forced to change outfits after cleaning glitter off both a six-month-old cat and a seven-year-old child. She probably never had to apologize for being late. She probably didn’t even have to shave. She was just naturally smooth everywhere.
“Are you okay?”
Jess blinked back to awareness, realizing the woman was speaking to her. There was really no way to pretend she hadn’t been staring directly at this stranger’s cleavage.
Resisting the urge to cover her own less-than-impressive assets, Jess offered a small, embarrassed wave. “Sorry. I was just thinking that your kitten probably isn’t covered in glitter, too.”
“My what?”
She turned back to the mirror. Jessica Marie Davis, get your shit together. Ignoring the fact that she still had an audience, Jess channeled Nana Jo: “You have plenty of time. Go out there, eat some pasta, go home,” she said aloud. “There’s no ticking clock on any of this.”
“I’m just saying, the clock is ticking.” Fizzy waved vaguely toward Jess’s butt. “That booty won’t be high and tight forever, you know.”
“Maybe not,” Jess said, “but Tinder isn’t going to help me find a quality guy to hold it up, either.”
Fizzy lifted her chin defensively. “I’ve had some of the best sex of my life from Tinder. I swear you give up too quickly. We are in the era of women taking pleasure and not apologizing for getting theirs first, second, and one more time for the road. Travis might be ex-wife-obsessed, but I saw his photo and he was fine as hell. Maybe he would have rocked your world for an hour or two after tiramisu, but you’ll never know, because you left before dessert.”
Jess paused. Maybe . . . “Goddammit, Fizzy.”
Her best friend leaned back, smug. If Felicity Chen decided to start selling Amway, Jess would simply hand over her wallet. Fizzy was made of charisma, witchcraft, and bad judgment. Those qualities made her a great writer but were also partly the reason Jess had a misspelled song lyric tattooed on the inside of her right wrist, had disastrous not-even-close-to-Audrey-Hepburn bangs for six depressing months in 2014, and had attended a costume party in LA that turned out to be a BDSM scene in a dungeon basement. Fizzy’s response to Jess’s “You brought me to a sex party in a dungeon?” was “Yeah, everyone in LA has dungeons!”
Fizzy tucked a strand of glossy black hair behind her ear. “Okay, let’s make plans for your next date.”
“No.” Opening her laptop, Jess logged onto her email. But even with her attention fixed elsewhere, it was hard to miss Fizzy’s scowl. “Fizz, it’s hard with a kid.”
“That’s always your excuse.”
“Because I always have a kid.”
“You also have grandparents who live next door and are more than happy to watch her while you’re on a date, and a best friend who thinks your kid is cooler than you are. We all just want you to be happy.”