She’s even been friendlier with the Bubbles team and had nearly broken my heart last week when she’d shyly confessed that she’d never been good at making friends and had asked for tips. Remembering the look of pleased shock on her face when I’d invited her to tonight’s get-together is making it a little easier to tolerate the fact that she’s currently in my living room rattling on about the flavor profile of vodka.
Lily catches my eye from the kitchen, where she’s adding baby carrots and ranch dip to her plate, and makes a face as Robyn utters the word grain alcohol for the tenth time, but she’s smiling.
“Oh gawd,” Keva interrupts Robyn, reaching out and emptying the remains of the cocktail shaker into Robyn’s glass. “Woman, I love talking about my craft too, but at some point, food is just food, and a drink is just a drink.” She points. “So drink it and shut up.”
Robyn, cross-legged on my living room floor, blinks. Then she shrugs and sips her cocktail. “Okay.”
“I’m so glad I pumped my afternoon away so I could drink,” Rachel says, pulling her curly hair into a messy knot atop her head. “I had no idea how great cosmos were. I thought they were just a Sex and the City set piece.”
“Take it from someone who came of age during their heyday, there’s such a thing as too many,” Lily says, returning to the living room with a glass of white wine.
The other women all happily sip the cosmopolitans I suggested. Paintings with pink cocktails are continually my best sellers, and every now and then I get a craving.
Lily dunks a potato chip in the ranch meant for her untouched carrots, and after popping it into her mouth, wipes the salt off her fingers and makes grabby hands in Rachel’s direction. “Okay. Show me all the baby pictures.”
“Oh gosh,” Rachel says, picking up the phone sitting near her hip on the couch. “I don’t know if I have… less than five million.”
I’m on Rachel’s family album, so I’ve seen all the highlights already, but Robyn and Keva crowd around Lily as she flips through the photos, the three of them gushing about dimples and chunky baby thighs. Rachel looks over at me and rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.
Lily’s smile is bright and genuine, but there’s a wistfulness in her eyes. It must be bittersweet—Rachel has three, Lily doesn’t even have one.
Robyn heaves out a sigh. “Ugh. I want one.”
“Me too,” Keva says. “In, like, thirty years. When either science will have evolved so that old ladies can have them when they’re good and ready, or, ooh, maybe robots can carry our children.”
I wince. Keva doesn’t know about Lily’s fertility struggles, and thus doesn’t mean to be insensitive, but my heart aches for my sister anyway. I reach a foot out under the coffee table and rub my fuzzy sock against Lily’s. My sister smiles at me and wiggles her toes back in reassurance. It’s okay. A leftover gesture from childhood movie nights when one of us sensed the other was sad about Mom.
“Keva, if you find a childbearing robot, hook me up,” Lily says.
Keva salutes in acknowledgment, and Robyn turns toward me.
“What about you, Gracie?” she asks. “Babies in your future?”
“Are you kidding?” Lily interjects. “She’d better. I happen to know for a fact that Gracie’s had her ideal family planned out since before she got boobs.”
I laugh and steal one of my sister’s carrots. “It’s totally true. A boy, Griffin, my mom’s maiden name. And a little girl, Ella.”
“After…”
“Cinderella,” Rachel answers for me. “Be grateful I talked her out of Snow, as in White.”
“Fairy-tale buff?” Robyn asks curiously.
“Just a romantic,” I say, ignoring the twin snorts from Rachel and Lily, who’ve known me long enough to know it’s an understatement.
“So what about Griffin and Ella’s dad?” Robyn asks curiously. “Wait, no, I know this one. Tall, dark, and handsome, may or may not own a white horse? Ooh, or blond, like Thor?”
Keva, Rachel, and Lily answer for me at the same time. “Medium-height musician, long hair, warm brown eyes, crooked smile, and a dad bod.”
I take a sip of my cosmopolitan and play along good-naturedly. “I refuse to be shamed for having specific standards. He’s out there.”
“Wait,” Robyn says. “He doesn’t even exist?”
I think of Sir. “He does.”
I’m pretty sure.
“Hmm” Keva says thoughtfully. “But are you sure about Mr. Right’s eye color?”
I glare at her in warning.
She grins back, unrepentant. “I’m just saying, are you sure they’re brown? Or are they a rather unique shade of Tiffany blue?”
“Oooh what am I missing?” Rachel says, leaning forward eagerly.
Robyn fans herself. “Sebastian Andrews. This hot businessman who’s got a thing for Gracie. He’s shown up to two events, and both times, he couldn’t keep those sexy blue eyes off her.”
Lily and I exchange a look—I haven’t told anyone besides my siblings and May that Sebastian’s primary interest in Bubbles & More is to see it shut down.
As to his secondary interest…
I don’t let my mind go that way. I’ve been trying really hard not to think of the way Sebastian’s coat had felt around my shoulders. The way the warmth and smell had made me feel safe.
Or the fact that he may have broken things off with Genevieve, but there’s still some other mystery woman in the picture.
Whom I hate.
“What about your MysteryMate guy?” Rachel asks.
“Wait, what?” Robyn and my sister say at the same time.
I give Rachel an exasperated look, and she gives me a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Too many cosmos, not enough lunch.”
When my sister kicks my foot under the table, it’s less gentle this time. “What’s she talking about?”
“Just this guy I met on a dating app,” I say as casually as I can.
“Haven’t met,” Keva clarifies. “But that she’s halfway in love with.”
“Wait,” Lily holds up a hand. “Are you telling me that my baby sister’s top romantic prospects are a guy who’s bullying her to close the family business and someone she hasn’t even met?”
I sigh, and giving into the inevitable, bring everybody up to speed on both the Sebastian/Bubbles situation and the Sir situation.
“Good God, Gracie,” Robyn sounds horrified. “First, that Sebastian has been lurking around like some vulture waiting to pounce as soon as you fail. And that you’re being catfished.”
“Seriously,” Lily chimes in. “He could be a nineteen-year-old who lives with his mother. Or a forty-eight-year-old.”
“Or not a him at all,” Rachel says. “What if this is a teenage mean girl messing with you?”
“Is nobody on my side here?” I ask.
“I am,” Keva says immediately. “I’ve never seen you as happy as when you found this pen pal guy.” She pauses. “Though, now that I think about it, you did have a distinct glow at that cooking thing with Sebastian.”