"Spa afternoon?" I suggest. "There's that place near Oakville."
"Yes! I was going to say that." Luna flips to a new page, her pen already moving. "They do group packages. Massages, facials, the whole thing."
"Wine tasting," Maren adds, ticking it off on her fingers.
"Obviously wine tasting."
"And matching pajamas," I say.
Luna's face lights up, her whole posture shifting forward. "Harper wasseriousabout that?"
"She sent me a link to a set with tiny dachshunds on them," I say.
"I'm totally buying three pairs," Luna says.
Then Luna's phone buzzes again. And again.
She picks it up. Her thumbs move fast, then she sets it down with a smile.
"Derek?" Maren asks.
"Yeah, he wants to video call later." Luna tucks her hair behind her ear. "He's been so busy with a community center project, he barely has time, so when hedoeswant to talk, I don't want to—"
"Of course," I say.
"Totally," Maren says.
We spend the next twenty minutes dividing up the rest. Luna fills two pages of the notebook with her neat handwriting and little checkboxes, and Maren screenshots three different cake designs she wants Harper's opinion on, then immediately decides Harper doesn't get an opinion because it's a surprise. The bottle empties somewhere in the middle of a debate about whether lawn games count as board games, and Maren opens a second bottle without discussion.
But as Luna's doodling little flowers in the margin of the notebook and Maren demolishes the rest of the charcuterie board, I realize something: I'm sitting here with a mouthful of things I haven't told my best friends, and the longer I wait, the harder it's going to be to get them out.
"So I have a thing," I say. "Not bachelorette-related."
Luna looks up from her notebook. Maren stops eating.
"What kind of thing?" Luna asks.
I run my thumbnail along the edge of the table. Feel the seam where the laminate meets the wood. "Someone offered to buy Wildflower and Vine."
"What?" Luna and Maren say in unison.
"Right after the raffle at the stag and doe, I almost bumped into some beta in a suit. He handed me an envelope with an offer in it."
"That doesn't make any sense," Luna says.
"I know. I was like, who evenisthis guy?" I pick at the table seam. "Random beta, expensive suit, hands me an envelope like we're in a spy movie. But then I checked the letter again the next day. I reverse-searched the seal on Google, and it turns out he's part of this big investment group. They've been buying up real estate around Lakeview like hotcakes."
"How much?" Maren asks.
"Enough to kill the debt on the shop in one check," I say. "And a little extra, enough to start fresh."
"Enough to completely clear the loan I took for the flower shop," I say. "With enough left over to start fresh."
"Beth." Maren grabs my wrist. "Why didn't youtellus?"
"Because I don't know what to do with it." The words scrape out.
Maren opens a new bottle and refills all three glasses. Executive decision. Nobody argues.
