“He’s a contractor too, right? Works in construction?”
“He owns the business actually, and he has an MBA.”
Her eyes widened with glee. She tucked her legs underneath her on the couch, settling in. “Ugh, I love a white collar, blue collar man,” Natalie said. “Mmm,” she hummed like she’d taken her first bite of a delectable dessert.
I laughed at her.
“What? I am so sick of the men in New York. Maybe I’ll move here, too.”
“What does a‘white collar, blue collar man’ even mean?” I asked, smirking. I missed her so much.
“You know exactly what I mean. Right, Mimi?”
“Mmhmm,” Mimi sang, nodding for emphasis, enabling her.
I shook my head.
“He knows his way around a spreadsheetanda toolbox. Like yes, please talk dirty to me about contracts and supply and demand while you fix my shower head.” My smile widened withevery image. This was getting oddly specific, but she was on a roll, so I didn’t dare interrupt. “His muscles come from manual labor and not just the gym, and his hands are always a littlerough.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively as she said ‘rough.’
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” I shook my head again and attempted to tame my smile as I wondered if his hands were, in fact, always a little rough. The time he tentatively rubbed aloe into my shoulders or put his hand on my knee at the beach hadn’t been enough contact to form an opinion on the subject. I needed more data points.
“Oh, give me a break, like you haven’t thought theexactsame thing since you met him.” She waved her hand in my direction dismissively.
I bit my lip but didn’t protest. She could always tell when I was lying, anyway.
Mimi the traitor said, “Val watched him from the window for most of the time.”
“You did, too!” I defended.
Mimi shrugged, completely unashamed.
Natalie erupted into giggles and tipped over on her side on the couch. I laughed too, infected by their energy—these two women I loved so much—not caring one bit that their entertainment was at the expense of my crush.
We all stayed up talking until midnight.
“I need a drink,” Natalie said.
After a day of shopping downtown, we’d come back to Mimi’s and settled in on her back deck. She’d just finished telling me about the hospital merger she closed recently. While she hadn’t had to put in as many hours as her outside counsel, she still needed to be available around the clock to get it done. “I did not miss those types of deals, and I hope I don’t have to work on another one for a long, long time,” she’d said.
Her story brought back dozens of unhappy memories and a surge of relief that I wouldn’t be working on anything like that for the time being.
“Welp, when life gives you lemons…” I held her gaze.
“Make Paper Planes!”
A wave of nostalgia and a deep craving for the boozy cocktail hit me at once. Tyler was always trying to get Natalie and me into whiskey in law school, and we didn’t like it. His solution? Paper Planes. Bourbon mixed with Amaro Nonino, Aperol, and fresh lemon juice. It was slightly sweet and bright and shockingly refreshing.
We raided Mimi’s well-stocked bar cart in the dining room, finding almost everything we needed. “Mimi, do you have Aperol?” Natalie called into the living room.
“Check the hutch,” she answered. An unopened orange bottle greeted us when we opened the wooden door. “I’ll have one too!”
We drank two rounds of cocktails with Mimi before she all but shooed us out the door. “You’re too young to stay in with me all night. Go out. The Wharf will be packed with young people tonight,” she’d said.
Natalie and I split one more Paper Plane to bring upstairs and sip while we got dressed. She helped herself to my closet, tossing each dress she deemed a worthy contender onto the bed.
“Oh, this. This is gorgeous.” She pulled out the green dress I wore on my first date with Max. “And the green with your eyes.” She kissed her fingertips. “But maybe a little too classy for tonight.” It returned to the closet.
I ended up in a dark purple dress with a cowl neck and two slits, one on each side of my legs. Natalie wound up in one of my go-to little black dresses that highlighted her curves perfectly. I should just give it to her.
