“Compared to your brother, maybe,” Harlow says. “But that’s like saying Hitler isn’t bad compared to Satan.”
I laugh as we tuck ourselves into an empty corner of the elevator beside a group of chatty tourists wondering if they’ll have time to order dinner before their show starts.
“That’s horrible,” I say, pointing a chastising finger up at her face. Like most people, Harlow has several inches on me, even in flats. “Derrick isn’t Satan. And he’s apologized for that bonfire thing in high school at least twice.”
Harlow sniffs. “I don’t care. I still hate him like wet socks. But I’ll be nice to him if we host Thanksgiving this year because I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I say, tucking my arm through hers and leaning into her shoulder with a sigh. “I’m looking forward to a drink. It’s been a week.”
“I hear you.” She heaves a sigh of her own. “My study group is driving me insane. They keep mansplaining litigation support procedures, which would be irritating enough if they were in possession of correct information about said procedures. But sadly, they are not.”
“Have you talked to your professor?”
“No,” she says, with a weary flap of her arm. “Every time I stop by for office hours, he’s asleep, but he’s like a hundred years old, so I feel bad about waking him.”
“Aw, you…” I nudge her shoulder with mine. “You’re getting soft in your old age.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Or I’m just secretly worried that he’s dead, not sleeping, and I don’t want to be the one to find the body.”
“Always a good goal,” I say as the elevator doors slide open. “To be the one who doesn’t find the body.”
“Amen,” she agrees as we step out into the cooling air.
It’s still unusually warm for early September, but it’s going to be a gorgeous night. The breeze from the river has swept away the exhaust stink from the streets below and the setting sun feels good on my face as we weave our way through the tightly packed tables to the high top in the corner where Cameron and Jess are waving their arms.
I wiggle fingers back at them and hurry around Harlow to hurl myself at a nervous-looking Jess, hoping her first review with her new manager didn’t go too badly. She’s been stressing out about it since she started with the company in July.
“Hey, babes, how did it go?” I ask, hugging her tight.
“So good,” she says, her voice trembling. “I think I got promoted.”
I pull back from our embrace, my eyes going wide. “What? What do you mean you think you got promoted?”
“I don’t know.” She brushes her straight, black bangs from her forehead with a shaking hand. “I was so nervous that I’m not sure I heard Zip clearly. It was like he was underwater or one of the grown-ups from the Charlie Brown cartoons.” She grins, her brown eyes lighting up. “But I did get a key to my very own office, so I think I’m now the head of my very own team.”
“Huzzah!” Cameron cheers, lifting his glass of water into the air. “I’ll drink to that.” He glances over my shoulder across the crowded garden. “Assuming a server ever finds us way over here in the boonies. Want me to go order from the bar?”
“Yes,” Harlow says, settling into one of the tall seats and draping her purse over the back. “And be sure to flirt with the cute bartender while you’re over there. She totally has the hots for you, and you should ask her out.”
Cameron sticks his tongue out good-naturedly. He and his girlfriend just broke up recently, too. He’s been too down in the dumps to date but that doesn’t stop Harlow from trying to find him a rebound girl. “Yes, Mom,” he says. “Pale ale all around?”
“Old-fashioned for me,” Harlow says as I slide into the chair facing her and Jess, with a view of the skyline behind them. “I need something serious to dampen my seething rage.”
Jess pushes her glasses up her nose. “Oh no, more mansplaining?”
“So much mansplaining,” Harlow says. “And Chas suggested I might want to switch to decaf if caffeine makes me twitchy. But it was Chas making me twitchy because he wouldn’t stop drumming on his textbook with his pencil.”
“Monster,” I say in mock horror. “How dare he make unnecessary noise?”
Harlow has a thing about “unnecessary noise.”
“Seriously,” she says, her lips pushing into a pout. “It’s awful, Evie. You don’t understand. It’s like tiny, rabid zombie squirrels are being unleashed inside my skull. I need you to empathize with my psychic pain.”
“Uh-oh,” Jess says, sinking lower in her chair. “Speaking of pain, I think we might want to find another table.” She leans in, adding in a whisper, “Don’t look now but I’m pretty sure that’s Vince behind us.”
My shoulders instantly tighten, but I force a smile. “Oh, well…that’s okay. I’ll just pop over, say hi, and wish him a great night. It won’t be weird.”
“Except that he’s not alone,” Jess says, her forehead furrowing with empathy.
Harlow’s eyes widen. “Oh, yeah. He’s really not alone.”
“Intensely not alone,” Jess agrees.
Harlow’s lip curls. “Grossly not alone, as well.”
“What are you…” My words trail off as I peek over my shoulder to see Vince sitting at a table for two with a blonde in a clingy black dress welded to his face.
They’re making out like they’re drowning, and the only source of oxygen is located deep inside each other’s throats. Vince is making little moaning sounds I can hear over the music and the dull roar of laughter and after-work conversation filling the air. Meanwhile, the blonde is petting his neatly trimmed beard—the beard I once thought was so cute I drew a cartoon series called “Adventures of the Beard” that I gave to him for our three-month anniversary—like a beloved pet.
And that isn’t even the worst part.
Seeing him all over someone just three weeks after he told me I had no sex vibe would be bad enough, but then I see it…
On her left ring finger.
A rock the size of a jumbo crayon tip.
It’s an engagement ring. Vince is engaged.
And my next diary entry just got a hell of a lot more depressing.
Chapter 3
Ian Fox
* * *
A man who’s confused about his wonderful life,
and why it isn’t making him feel so wonderful anymore…
* * *
She’s a grown woman.
Like she said, she’s almost twenty-four and absolutely old enough to make her own choices and deal with the consequences.
I know this. But it still takes every ounce of my willpower to keep from crossing the garden and encouraging Evie to slow her roll. She’s had at least three old-fashioneds in the past hour and shows no signs of stopping.
“Don’t you think, babe?” Whitney asks, squeezing my thigh under the table.